First Steps of Training Autoflowers - by breadbox_grows

Howdy Meph Heads!

Welcome to a new entry in our series of blog posts guest written by members of our Tester team. In this series, you'll hear from a diverse group of growers all with different prospectives and methods but with the same end goal; growing something they're proud of. Whether you like to keep it simple or get down to the nitty-gritty and comb over the finer details, hopefully, you'll find the voice here that matches your vibe. 

This entry into the series is written by breadbox_grows, otherwise known as Breado, who tackles some of the first steps in autoflower training and how to find which methods work for you!

If you want to see more of what breadbox_grows has going on, along with the giveaways he often does, you can find him on Instagram @breadbox_grows.

Tester's Perspective

Intro to Breado

Autoflower training over the years has changed for me personally. Well, not only for me personally, but it's always changing in the industry as well regarding what you can and cannot do. At first you hear about how sensitive autoflowers can be, or that they cannot handle the stress like a photoperiod plant could. What if I told you that was a myth? What if I told you they can take it, and everything you may know about training may be wrong? I have been running autoflowers hard for years now. High EC, very rough training, even have won awards with some of the plants I have trained. My name is Breado, I am a tester for Mephisto Genetics and a Brand Ambassador for Grove Bags. I have been growing automatic versions of these plants for some time now. I have been known to produce autoflowers that look like photoperiod plants over the years and the main question I get is, "Well, how?" Let me break that down for you so you also can grow some big, beautiful plants! Before we get into this I want to make a disclaimer. What I say is not set in stone, everyone's environment is different and everyone grows differently. This is what I do and what helps me! So let's get into it.

Seedling Stage 

At the seedling stage I normally will leave the seed alone. I only spray a mix of green coconut powder, seaweed extract and RO water the first 2 weeks of the seedling stage. Training begins for me around week three of this seedling/vegetation transition. I do count foliar spray as a form of training since this is not common with most growers. I HIGHLY recommend you find or make your own spray. This is a boost to the plant itself. Picture going to the doctor and getting an IV. This is technically the same thing, except you wouldn't want to have an IV daily, so make sure you skip a few days spraying but continue your normal growing schedule with your nutrients. Foliar spraying can also be tricky because you don't want to give a plant too much of one thing, this can cause deficiencies over time. Adjust accordingly to how the plant reacts. This may take a grow to dial in spraying but the boost to the plants' health and reaction it will have will be worth your while.

Here is the spray I use:

• 64 oz RO water
• 0.5 ml silica from PowerSi
• a pinch of BuildASoil green coconut powder
• 0.5 ml seaweed extract from PowerSi

My secret-sauce foliar spray, used from day one. I've used this for years and never leaked the recipe!

Topping/High-Stress Training (HST) & Defoliation

Once we start getting nodes, we want to see if we can top the plant. This of course depends on the strain. There are some strains that do not need this, but more than 80% of the time topping is the move, but it doesn't stop there. There is one more thing that is important besides topping. Every day that your plant grows, new leaves form. Once you top, the plant will focus its energy towards the nodes that are already there. So not only will topping happen, but any nodes covered by leaves get cleared as well. How often? Every. Single. Day. Picking here and there does not stress out the plant. Now if we go hardcore on the plant and make her look like a "bare naked lady" then there are going to be some issues! We want to clear those sites as much as possible. Plants may look ugly in vegetation, but once flower hits, that stretch will make up for it!

This is how I top my autoflowers, clipping right above the node. I do this because it promotes multiple main colas instead of just a single spear, massively increasing yields.

Low-Stress Training (LST)

Topping and defoliation are not the only forms of training. There is also Low Stress Training or a method called "super-cropping." Low Stress Training is the most common technique when training your plant. There are times when Low Stress Training goes so far that it ends up super cropping plants by accident, but 9 times out of 10 breaking a branch can help a plant more than hurt it! Simply taping or using Low Stress Training wire to hold that branch back will help it grow back and come back stronger, most of the time. The main reason for super cropping a plant is if that plant stretches too far towards your light. Instead of letting that branch hit the light, super cropping is the move in that situation. Low Stress Training starts from the day of topping, helping spread the bottom branches to receive light and opening those nodes in the meantime. The branches get moved every other day to assist with keeping those nodes open while the plant continues to grow. Plants can change fast, so working them daily or every other day does help with these training methods. But even then, there is still more we can do after all of this!

Lollipopping

But wait, there's more! Don't forget about lollipopping! This is important so that the plant can focus on what matters. If you are not bubble hashing a whole plant or using the lowers for hash etc., then lollipopping is a must. Do not be afraid to do this, you are helping the plant focus its energy to the tops of the plant. Normally removing anything that is 1/3 to 2/3 up the plant before stretch is the most common. However, each plant gets looked at differently. The main question is how much light will those lowers actually get? If it's nothing, then the branch is gone. If there is some hope of them getting light, then clean them up by removing nodes and fan leaves to a location on that branch where the light can penetrate. Continuing to remove fan leaves here and there during stretch also opens these nodes up for more light. As you can see, the most important concern is opening these nodes - the more nodes, the bigger the yield.

My plants after a round of defoliation. Don't go too crazy and strip your plant of all her leaves, she needs them!

Training in Flower

Trellising

As the plant continues in flower, leaves get removed here and there to keep those nodes open. As the plant continues to grow, there are times when it gets heavy and will need to be helped by holding up branches with Low Stress Training wire, or you can trellis a plant to help it keep that structure. Trellising autoflowers isn't something done every run, but when it is, there is a certain method to follow. When using a trellis, the bob and weave method is the move once this plant goes into flower. The branches get taken daily and woven in and out of the trellis to open those nodes on the bottom, bringing every node that was lollipopped to the front stage. This will allow all the nodes that were opened up to get some light. Since this is the stretch portion of that vegetation/flowering transition, those branches will be moving daily. Continue to weave them further and further outwards until that plant stops stretching. This can give a small autoflower a big advantage, by allowing the plant to stretch horizontally instead of vertically, allowing all those sites to have access to light. Which is crucial in the flowering stage.

Yo-Yo Method

If a trellis net is not in the picture, the "yo-yo" method works great. There are times when plants get heavy and some of us do not have a net to catch those fallen branches. So we resort to holding all branches up by wire or string until the last days of its life. This is an actual method called "yo-yo." This method can become a headache so please plan accordingly for how large that autoflower may become. Bigger plants should have some kind of support. This fully depends on you and how much time you have. Being very hands on, the "yo-yo" method tends to be the go-to. Just a few more tricks used towards the end of a plant's life -- not flushing! This is a huge one. People argue you are just putting money in the nutrient companies' pockets at that point. What I think you should do is, do what you want. What do you think is right? Flushing has been done before, and from flushing you are depleting the nutrients from your media for the last two weeks. Technically starving the plant the last few weeks. The plant will use what it has left, as in the fan leaves or other leaves, to survive. This will cause a fade on your plant, but dropping the temperature and continuing to feed the plant the last two weeks of its life is the preferred approach. Once again this is totally on what you think is right.

Notes on Drying & Curing Your Autoflowers

Last but not least is the way you dry or cure. Everyone has it put in stone that you have to have 60/60 for temperature and humidity during dry. It takes around 3 weeks to dry, and not everyone's environment will be perfect. The preference here is to dry with all fan leaves removed and hung on a chandelier-style dry tent that rotates the branches every second. The drying room stays around 65 for temperature and 55 for humidity. The best part is how easy the cure is; trimming tight when it's done drying and using Grove Bags for the cure is the way to go. We like to do the "set it and forget it." Fill totes with bags and let them cure in a cool spot for about a month. There are multiple versions of bags you can use. The cheaper ones are great to heat seal and also use the set it and forget method. There are times when the upgraded bags with soft touch and upgraded zippers are the ones to dig in and out of! Grove Bags cannot be recommended enough. As someone who doesn't have time to burp hundreds of jars, Grove Bags are the go-to! Go check out the new upgraded 1/4 pound bags from Mephisto Genetics and Grove Bags, you won't be disappointed! (Note from the editor: These are coming soon!)

Image Gallery

Find Your Own Style!

All growing styles are different for everyone and every environment is different at the end of the day. Grow how you want to grow, and don't give up. Get weird, try new methods! There is no right or wrong way to grow, nothing is set in stone. These are just some of the things that have been done over the years to improve yield and overall grows with autoflowers. Continuing to train plants daily - moving leaves here and there for nodes, moving branches to open up light, foliar spraying, Low Stress Training, and super cropping - these are what have helped produce some beautiful plants from Mephisto Genetics over the years! Now get to training, I want to see some large beauties soon from everyone!