In no way is this a new idea nor am I trying to take credit for any techniques I used because most of them were borrowed from others but I talk a lot about training on here and there are many people confused about what I am talking about.

Training has been arround since Jesus grew herb... or at least Id like to think so.

Training is anymethod you use to control the growth of your plant. Topping is probably the most common form of training(for canabis). Topping is high stress training. Cutting the main grow stem off stresses the plant and causes it to redistribute its hormones to other grow tips resulting in the multi cola plants.

This method is low stress training. There is little if any recovery time because you are not damaging the budsites of your plants. When you tie the top grow tip below the rest of the plant the plant has the same reaction as topping... oh shit something is wrong effect... and the axial growth tips are redistributed. The key to LST is to create a horizontal plane of buds so that they all get the same light and grow at the same rate. You end up with a bush of many colas instead of the traditional christmas tree bud plant with one main cola.

There are many ways to LST using steaks, chicken wire screens are common, many other I probably dont know about.

This one is easy though. First step is to get a large pot the final size you want your pot and put a bunch of screws arround the lip of the pot I used 8 screws. These are the tie points for your training

This next step is CRITICAL!!! I cannot stress this enough. This is the countertie. It is used so that the bottom part of your plants stem stays straight and in place. Without a countertie you are likely to uproot your plant because training usually occurs when there about a month or so old and not extremely established.

Its simple just tie a piece of twine from one of the screws arround the bottom of your plant. Make sure that your twine is tied above the first leaf pair so that it doesnt slip all the way down to the bottom of the plant.

Thats simple right? You can see it kinda pulled my plant to one side. I dotn think thats necessary i just got a little bit carried away and tied it real tight.

The next step is to tie the main growth tip down so that the plant will release hormones that cause all the other growth tips to start functioning like the main cola.

I use a simple overhand knot and tie my twine UNDER the highest set of developed leafs. Once again you need to make sure that the knot doesnt slip off of your plant. Then i tie a slip knot arround a screw. I use slip knots so i can just tighten the string as the plant grows. You can retie it everytime but im super lazy and that wouldnt cut it.

heres a pic that shows how the stem will bend when you train it. I tie it pretty tight and i havent broken a stem yet but if your worried about that just tie it lose at first and slowly tighten it. The plant will adapt.

That plant sure is ugly! lol it has all kinds of mysterious spots dying on it but whatever i got a couple further along that are good so Im not concerned with it....
Speaking of plants that are further along....
This is my second oldest plant that was LST'd about 4-5 days ago. You can see along the main stem that the growth tips are starting to get real developed. I move the leaves away from these growth tips so they get a lot of light and are happy.
They will soon start growing like crazy and you will start to train them to make your plant into a full on bush.

This is the last post i can make on this topic for now because it is the furthest along plant I have. Its about a month old and it has about 6 very strong growth tips. I have started to tie down the most vigerous ones to let the others catch up. I have also had to tie down some of the large fan leafs so that the budsites will get more light.
As soon as the other ones that are younger get to this point I will probably flower... maybe a little past this point. Then supposedly they go crazy and you really have to vigerously train and do a little pruning... I will post pics when they get further along.

P.S. If anyone has any ?'s about this method just reply here or hit me on the PM. Im new and just learning but I thought I would share this remarkable easy method as an alternative to topping. Supposedly it drastically increases yeild. It is perfect method for people with size restraints or about any personal grower. I hope it helps all of you PS'ers!!!

Oh by the way on the above picture the tie that goes to the direct left of the picture is the countertie and the tie/budsite straight to the right is the original main budsite... not anymore though

Nice Dubman

If possible could you take a pic when they get a little bigger ...to demonstrate how the plant goes using LST

Also any chance you could make the pics a little less wide so i dont have to scroll to the right to read the post

600 wide will fit the screen better

Oh ok sorry i have a flat screen i forget sometimes... ill try to edit the post and make them smaller.

And when they get bigger ill definately post pics... i might go steal one from someone just to show people what the final results are so they dont have to wait on me.

Ok I hooked all you small screen people up and resized all my pics and hopefully ill remember in the future... Heres some pics I jacked from smokinrav and delta at overgrow... hope they dont mind!!!

This first one is about as far along as my big plant but it has less vegetation and its easier to see all of the nodes growing up at the same time... I tied mine at this point because i want my plants to be wider than these guys...