That's a good question that doesn't have an exact answer.
The reason that there's no exact answer is that like many others have said, you can train pretty much any strain in any way you want. Usually, the issue isn't the strain that doesn't like a particular type of training, it's the experience of the grower.
That sounds like I'm being a butthole, but let me explain:
- Training is inherently stressful to a plant, even the most gentle of training.
- Before training a plant, it should be healthy and growing vigorously with the environment all dialed in.
- During the training, it's easy to go too fast and stunt the plant or stress it too much
- After the training, that's sometimes when the poo can hit the fan. Or a grower gets worried that it's growing slowly or stunted or they don't adjust watering schedules (ie. after defoliation), etc. and they overcompensate which causes undesired outcomes.
That's why it's more the experience level of the grower as opposed to the strain. A few things to keep in mind with training:
- If it's your first time, just like with an edible for the first time, start low and go slow. Begin with gentle, low-stress manipulation and see how the plant reacts.
- As you get more confident in 'reading' your plants you can get more aggressive with your technique or try a different more aggressive technique altogether.
- Realize that any training will slow/stress your plants a little bit (or a lot a bit) and the goal is to balance the benefits of the training with the slower rate of growth/increase in stress
- After you do anything to your plants, be patient with them. It's like when you go to the gym and rock out on leg day....you wouldn't expect to run a marathon right afterward, but with consistent training that is appropriate as well as increased/decreased in intensity as necessary, you'll be able to finish that marathon.
- Lastly, it's completely possible that you'll f-it up. Maybe you break a stem. Maybe you remove too many leaves. Maybe you realize you could have done more than you did. The most important thing to remember is that you learned something and you'll use that knowledge on the next grow and almost anything can be remedied with time and patience. Sure over-training may stunt the growth or add a week or two to the grow. But you're not in a hurry and at the end of the grow you'll have weed! Afterall, if you were in a hurry for weed, you wouldn't be learning stuff on these forums, you'd be driving to the dispensary.
If you want a rule of thumb, generally plants that grow taller can be trained in more variety of ways. Plants that are growing fast and healthy are also more versatile when it comes to training. Just keep in mind, the main reason for training is primarily to manage the height on indoor grows so that all the bud sites get as much light as possible. Training can also increase yields indoors but that's not because of the training directly, rather because of the first reason: more bud sites get more light which means higher yields.
Feel free to experiment! Keep notes and let us know how it goes!
