Super Cropping Marijuana Plants

Super cropping is one of the best pruning techniques that you have available to you. It’s also one of the easiest to perform. It isn’t like pure pruning where you actually snip off some of the plant. Instead, it’s more like putting the plant through a little bit of stress to get it to increase yields. The basic crux behind super cropping is that you are trying to increase the number of “tops.” You want to push the lower growth higher and wider so that it will flower.

This technique essentially allows you to take the auxins (or growth hormones) and detour them from growing tips to other areas where they can maximize growth. This is a technique that can be performed on virtually every plant (excluding autos) and you can actually do it multiple times during the vegetative process. This allows the nutrients to work double duty, producing much heavier yields in areas that wouldn’t have been particularly productive. The plants themselves tend to look bushier and more robust as a result of super cropping. Download my free  grow bible for more marijuana pruning techniques

How to Super Crop

(Note: Not all plants will react the same to super cropping, so it’s important that you test it out on a few branches prior to taking on the whole plant).

The goal here is to essentially make the plant think it doesn’t have a top. This allows lower growth to expand upwards in the place of some of the branches in the top canopy. To perform a super crop, you don’t need any special tools or devices. It’s a really simple process that only requires a thumb and a forefinger.

Tip: make sure to download our free Grow Bible for more information

First, you’ll want to find a plant that’s ready for super cropping. Generally, anything that has advanced past seedling stage or is about 3 or 4 weeks old should be eligible for super cropping.

Then, you need to pick a specific point (generally near the 1^st and 3^rd node sets) where you want to create an imaginary horizontal line of “damage.” This point really depends a lot on the spacing of the plant. Everything below that horizontal line will start to gain nutrients at a faster rate.

Once you’ve picked the horizontal line, you need to take your thumb and forefinger and squeeze at that location. You should do this for virtually every branch if you think the plant can withstand a full super cropping. You should squeeze at a uniform point, turning you’re the branch about 90 degrees every time. The tops themselves should end up folded over. You don’t want to be too firm to the point where you break the branch entirely off, but you also don’t want to be too lenient to where the plant regains its vertical posture within a matter of hours.

Over time, the point where you “broke” the branch will start to heal. Again, you don’t want to snap the branch entirely off. You just want to bend it (like a kink in a hose) and then let it flop over.

TIP: Looking to buy seed? Check out our seed shop

Want to grow start super cropping? Check out our marijuana seedshop  for a wide selection of top-quality seeds. We ship to the United States, Canada, and number of other countries. If the order doesn’t get to you or the seeds don’t germinate, then you can get new seeds free of charge. And don’t forget to download my free grow guide 😉  

Robert

The founder of I Love Growing Marijuana, Robert Bergman, is a marijuana growing expert that enjoys sharing his knowledge with the world. He combines years of experience, ranging from small-scale grows to massive operations, with a passion for growing. His articles include tutorials on growing... [read more]

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