ADVANCED
CANNABIS GROWING TECHNIQUES
Author: Michael Jooste Advanced outdoor growing techniques can take your garden to the next level if you want to reap massive yields with resinous flower buds.
Bending, tie-downs, pruning and other gentle and aggressive cannabis training techniques can focus the energy of your cannabis plant on growing buds full of flavour and aroma and rich in trichomes.

These techniques require trial and error, and growing outdoors has pros and cons.
From battling the local climate to selecting plants able to survive in that environment, there are many cultivation factors to consider.

Try these advanced outdoor growing techniques once you've mastered the basics.
Top Outdoor Growing Techniques
1. Fimming Cannabis
Like topping, fimming is a type of high-stress training (HST) technique that removes the top of the plant. Instead of completely removing the top of the main stem, fimming requires removing about 50-75% of the stem.

Think of it as a botched topping technique. Despite its messy look, fimming can result in four new stalk growths compared to 2 when topped. In addition, both methods can spur lateral branch growth over vertical growth.

2. Topping
Generally, cannabis plants have one main stem that grows vertically. A training technique called topping involves the removal of the top of the plant. While it may seem counterintuitive, cutting off the top of the main stem causes the two lower growth tips underneath a plant to grow into their stems. This, in turn, causes colas in the flowering stage.

3. Screen of Green (SCROG) Cannabis
The screen of green (SCROG) method is an effective way to increase your cannabis yields. In this technique, you stretch out and weave the branches through a trellis netting using posts to hold the netting.

Essentially, the netting is used to train the plants to grow horizontally, which increases airflow and provides light for the entire plant. In addition, SCROG can help support heavy branches and buds from breaking off.

4. Super Cropping Cannabis
Super cropping is a form of HST that involves gently crushing (without completely breaking) a part of the top branches from your cannabis plant to create an even canopy. Crushing the inner core of a healthy branch makes it more pliable and easy to bend as you please.

At the site that's been compressed, you can bend the stems at a 90-degree angle away from the weed plants to allow the lower bud sites to get enough light. Perform the technique across the entire canopy.

5. Lollipopping Cannabis
Lollipopping involves removing most of your plant's lower and underdeveloped branches and leaving behind the top and most productive branches. In the end, your plants will have a lollipop look with a thin lower stem and a bushy upper part.

Removing the branches and leaves that don't get enough light allows you to focus growth on the bud sites on top.

6. Flushing Cannabis
Flushing is a method of removing as much of the nutrients from the plant as possible. By only feeding your plant water, you can improve the quality of your buds right before harvest. However, timing is everything.

Growers can flush their plants of nutrients from a few days to a few weeks before harvest. Flushing can also be performed when nutrients are locked out from overfeeding or during the transitioning of the growth and feeding cycles.

7. Monster Cropping Cannabis
Monster cropping involves taking healthy cuttings from a mother plant during the third week of the flowering stage instead of during the vegetative stage. This is the traditional method of cloning.

By taking the cutting during the flowering stage, the plant re-enters the vegetative stage and may produce many more branches full of nodes. If done right, monster cropping yields extremely bushy plants with tons of new bud sites on top of your mother plant's buds.

8. Main-Lining Cannabis
Main lining combines LST and HST techniques, such as lollipopping and topping, to create a manifold of branches directly connected to the main stem.
Once a young weed plant has developed about five or six nodes, you can begin to top the plant above the third node. Remove all foliage under that node to focus growth on everything above.
Additionally, the new branches are gently tied down and grow at a 90-degree angle. Subsequent topping and tying eventually create eight colas at the very least on an even canopy.