I've posted about these 2 characters once before when I was ready to throw them away. They were supposed to be my outdoor summer grow but there just wasn't enough sunlight in my woodsy yard. Having nothing better to do through the hot, dry summer, I decided to play with them just to see what they would do. If nothing else they show what a little training can do even for misfits like these, so I thought it might be useful info for someone if I write about them here.
These are both Gorilla Glue #4 auto-flowers (at least that's the seeds I paid for, twice), even though they look and act NOTHING alike. I've nicknamed them Ren and Stimpy. Ren, on the left, is the scrawny little scrapper with big ambitions. Stimpy, on the right, is the big galloutte with no goals at all. Stimpy began life over 75 days ago (supposed to be complete in 90 days... HA) and still has only 1 or 2 dozen pistils on it. It has a huge stalk like a tree and leaves fatter than my head after shooting up to 4 feet in the first 40 days. Completely on the other end of the spectrum, Ren started blooming when it was only 20 days old and 10 inches tall! It had 8 little tiny pairs of branches. With flowers. Wow. Believe it or not, they were raised identically, just planted a month apart.
This is what they looked like a few days after I gave in to their pleas for more light and reluctantly brought them into the grow room for some artificial light and training to see what I could salvage. Not much to look at, huh? Yea, I figured this would be a total waste of electricity. Fortunately, it only costs about $20/month to run the 432 watts of T5s here in hydro-electric Oregon.
23 day old Ren on left, 53 day old Stimpy on right (for reference, those are 14 inch pots)
Ren @23 days
Stimpy @53 days
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As a beginner with limited space and light, I'm really into the LST and SCROG approach in my little garage grow room. I especially like that it creates multiple top colas since it allows little side branches the opportunity to get more light, climb to the top of the canopy, and become "the best that they can be". I could tell that Stimpy was going to become a 10 foot monster that wouldn't fit in my tiny "semi greenhouse" outside, so I had to get it under control. And Ren would become nothing but a stick if I didn't get all of its tiny branches/flowers spread out under some bright light. I began tying and tucking daily. For a little while I had strings and wires all over them. Here they are a couple of weeks after putting them into training. Looks like its working. Note that as they grew I pushed the pots outward, keeping the crown of the plants under the center and best light of the T5 fixture.
2 weeks of training
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Now look at them today! Lots of spread and lots of bud sites! I'm very surprised at the difference and will chalk this up as a fun and revealing learning experiment. Ren now has more hair than the average chihuahua, lol. Seriously though, I think Ren is actually kind of pretty with its multitude of tiny fluffy flowers and might be on its way to producing a whopping 1/2 oz of smoke, lol! If so, I will barely break even on the investment. As for Stimpy, well, I don't think Stimpy is ever going to amount to anything in the time it has allotted. I have to start a new crop in mid-Sept and Stimpy will have to go back outside into little sunlight and the wet weather of the Pac NW fall season. I'll care for it until it finishes, gives up, or succumbs to white powdery mildew.
So, for you other beginners out there like me, if you get a misfit like I have, consider thinking outside the box, ignoring what the books say and just have fun with it. With these amazingly resilient plants, you just never know what might happen. And if you're afraid to try LST (low stress training), think of these two and BELIEVE that it really IS hard to hinder a determined pot plant!
After 3 weeks of training
Ren @43 days of age, 23 days of flower
Stimpy @73 days of age (there's a handful of pistils in there somewhere... nothing I would call a flower yet. Remember the vendor said these are 90 day autos, lol. True, there's probably some nute imbalance going on but nothing that bad.)
Ren poses for a [blurry] closeup (note the upside down leaf blade at left... some of them do that under training but doesn't seem to make any difference... plant leaves have light receptors underneath just not as many)
These are both Gorilla Glue #4 auto-flowers (at least that's the seeds I paid for, twice), even though they look and act NOTHING alike. I've nicknamed them Ren and Stimpy. Ren, on the left, is the scrawny little scrapper with big ambitions. Stimpy, on the right, is the big galloutte with no goals at all. Stimpy began life over 75 days ago (supposed to be complete in 90 days... HA) and still has only 1 or 2 dozen pistils on it. It has a huge stalk like a tree and leaves fatter than my head after shooting up to 4 feet in the first 40 days. Completely on the other end of the spectrum, Ren started blooming when it was only 20 days old and 10 inches tall! It had 8 little tiny pairs of branches. With flowers. Wow. Believe it or not, they were raised identically, just planted a month apart.
This is what they looked like a few days after I gave in to their pleas for more light and reluctantly brought them into the grow room for some artificial light and training to see what I could salvage. Not much to look at, huh? Yea, I figured this would be a total waste of electricity. Fortunately, it only costs about $20/month to run the 432 watts of T5s here in hydro-electric Oregon.
23 day old Ren on left, 53 day old Stimpy on right (for reference, those are 14 inch pots)
Ren @23 days
Stimpy @53 days
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As a beginner with limited space and light, I'm really into the LST and SCROG approach in my little garage grow room. I especially like that it creates multiple top colas since it allows little side branches the opportunity to get more light, climb to the top of the canopy, and become "the best that they can be". I could tell that Stimpy was going to become a 10 foot monster that wouldn't fit in my tiny "semi greenhouse" outside, so I had to get it under control. And Ren would become nothing but a stick if I didn't get all of its tiny branches/flowers spread out under some bright light. I began tying and tucking daily. For a little while I had strings and wires all over them. Here they are a couple of weeks after putting them into training. Looks like its working. Note that as they grew I pushed the pots outward, keeping the crown of the plants under the center and best light of the T5 fixture.
2 weeks of training
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now look at them today! Lots of spread and lots of bud sites! I'm very surprised at the difference and will chalk this up as a fun and revealing learning experiment. Ren now has more hair than the average chihuahua, lol. Seriously though, I think Ren is actually kind of pretty with its multitude of tiny fluffy flowers and might be on its way to producing a whopping 1/2 oz of smoke, lol! If so, I will barely break even on the investment. As for Stimpy, well, I don't think Stimpy is ever going to amount to anything in the time it has allotted. I have to start a new crop in mid-Sept and Stimpy will have to go back outside into little sunlight and the wet weather of the Pac NW fall season. I'll care for it until it finishes, gives up, or succumbs to white powdery mildew.
So, for you other beginners out there like me, if you get a misfit like I have, consider thinking outside the box, ignoring what the books say and just have fun with it. With these amazingly resilient plants, you just never know what might happen. And if you're afraid to try LST (low stress training), think of these two and BELIEVE that it really IS hard to hinder a determined pot plant!
After 3 weeks of training
Ren @43 days of age, 23 days of flower
Stimpy @73 days of age (there's a handful of pistils in there somewhere... nothing I would call a flower yet. Remember the vendor said these are 90 day autos, lol. True, there's probably some nute imbalance going on but nothing that bad.)
Ren poses for a [blurry] closeup (note the upside down leaf blade at left... some of them do that under training but doesn't seem to make any difference... plant leaves have light receptors underneath just not as many)
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