When: 1 to 2 weeks after topping

Stage 1 is all about optimizing for bud size. It’s meant to help you create a strong branch structure that allows your plant to grow bigger, denser buds. It is important not to wait too long before performing Stage 1 of training, otherwise your branches will grow too large and woody, and will be prone to breaking.

When: 1 to 2 weeks after stage 1 (can be repeated multiple times)

Stage 2 of marijiuana training, Branch Management is all about optimizing for bud consistency. It is meant to help you fill your entire grow space with buds of the same size. It can be done 1 to 2 weeks after Stage 1, and can be repeated a few times.

When: 3 weeks after flowering

Stage 3 of cannabis plant training, Bud Support, is meant to help your plant withstand the weight of those big, juicy buds you are about to grow. If you don’t support your buds during the flowering stage, your plant will get floppy and fall over to the sides.

The second stage of plant training is meant to help you organize your grown branches in such a way that maximizes your buds’ exposure to light and airflow, and increases consistency. It has 3 main steps that you will need to cover: a light defoliation, topping for a 2nd time, and training your branches further.

The second stage of training can be repeated many times over, every 1 to 2 weeks from the previous training session, as long as your plant is still in the veg stage. This is great for growing marijuana outdoors, when you have a few months of growth in the vegetative stage and your branches are growing in every direction. Training every week or two will allow your weed plant to be distributed more evenly, yielding multiple buds of a similar size instead of a few big ones and a number of small ones.

At this point, your plant will be in weeks 5 to 8 of the vegetative stage, and some of its young leaves will be older than 30 days. This means they will start consuming about as much energy from the plant as they produce, so they are not that useful anymore. In fact, the older they get, the more energy they consume, which is why removing them is a good idea. Our next lesson, Lesson #5: How to Defoliate Cannabis covers this topic in more detail, but for now you can go ahead and follow the steps below.

Please note: if your plant is suffering from nutrient deficiencies, do not defoliate and skip this step instead.

The main stalk leaves are the oldest leaves on your plant, and as much as they might look plump, massive, and beautiful, it’s time to remove them so that your plant can pump those juices to the other leaves. In fact, after removing these large and old leaves, your other ones will become twice as large in a matter of only 1 to 2 days.

In order to accomplish this, simply pick up your leaf by the petiole (the small stem that attached them to the main stalk), and pull it down until you feel a crack. This means the leaf is broken. Now you can simply pull the leaf away until the last piece of skin tears. And that’s it! You can do this to all 8 leaves from your first 4 nodes.

Another type of leaf that is just consuming energy away from your plant is the leaf in the shade. Just imagine what would happen to a solar panel that is installed UNDER the roof, and not on top? The same is true for those small, shaded leaves and branches.

Not only are they already small now, but they will continue to grow small, only sapping energy away from the good ones. In fact, if you allow those small branches to go into the flowering cycle, they will become small, larfy popcorn buds.

Please note: this plant didn’t need the branch squeeze, but it was done to help you better understand this lesson. When in doubt, a squeeze is always better than a break.

Please note: skip to Step 3 if you are growing autoflowers, as it is not recommended to top them twice. At this stage, they will already be well into the flowering stage.

Topping shouldn’t be anything new to you at this point, as you already learned how to top your cannabis plants on Lesson #3: How to Top Cannabis. 

Well, this is the part where you get to top our cannabis plants for the 2nd time. When topping for the second time it is important to only top the 4 top branches, and not the 4 bottom branches, as they already have to work harder to make their way to the top of the canopy. By topping only the top nodes, the lower ones can “catch up”. To top again, simply cut the top 1 inch from each one of the 4 top branches, leaving behind 2 or 3 nodes on each (4 to 6 new growth sites each).

Yes you can! While not recommended when growing indoors (unless you have more than 15 sq.ft per plant), if you are growing outdoors you can top your plant for a 3rd or 4th time after 1 to 2 weeks from the previous topping. This will once again “multiply” your plant. The plants below, for example, were topped a total of 4 times using the mainline training method.

Once your plant is “clean” of old and shaded leaves, and small branches, you can start doing two things: re-training your old branches from the week or two before, and training the new branches that already grew off of them. You will be using both the BudClips, and the BudHuggers and BudPots combo.

Top 2 Nodes

Since you used the BudClips on your top 2 nodes during Stage 1 of training, now it is time to reapply the BudClips higher up on the branch in order to continue training it sideways. It is very important to remove your BudClips once the branches become thicker, otherwise they will start getting squeezed if you don’t.

Please note: if you are using the BudHuggers to tie the top branches to the BudPots, simply reattach them further up on each branch in order to continue training it sideways.

After you finish the top 2 branches, you can repeat the process with the 2 branches just below it. In total, you will have moved 4 BudClips higher up on the branch, as shown in the image below.

Extra Branches

At this stage, your plant may already have big growth sites coming out of the main branches, which are already long enough (2 to 3 inches) to get trained with the BudClips. If this is the case, simply attach your BudClips to these new branches in such a way that provides your plant with maximum light exposure and air circulation.

Bottom 2 Nodes

During Stage 1 of training, you used the BudHuggers to train your bottom 2 nodes. Now it is time to remove the BudHuggers from where they were, and move them higher up on the branch, pulling it down and to the sides even further. This will help you gain a few extra square inches of canopy area.

Please note: if the bottom branches are already below the canopy, do not pull them down. Instead, you may train the bottom branches from left to right, in such a way that they will be under direct light and away from the shade.

Now that you trained your plant during both stages 1 and 2, it will be ready for the flowering stage. All of your branches will continue to grow and thicken up from this point on, making way for the largest buds you ever grew. After Stage 2 is complete, wait 3 days in order for your plant to fully recover, and then switch it to the flowering stage with a 12h ON/ 12h OFF light cycle. You can start Stage 3 of training as soon as the 3rd week of flowering is complete.

Veg Training

Since outdoor plants flower automatically after late July/August, you can train your plants as much as you would like until that point on Stage 2. Indoors, however, it is not recommended to veg your plants for longer than 7 or 8 weeks, which means you only get to train your plants once on Stage 2. Growing outdoors also requires constant defoliation, which is the topic of the next Lesson #5: How to Defoliate Cannabis, while indoors only requires a few leaves to be removed.

Airflow

As we have seen before, airflow is essential for plants to absorb CO2. For this reason, it is equally important to train indoor and outdoor plants to maximize airflow around the leaves. The main difference, however, is that outdoors plants have the extra pressure from pests while indoor plants generally don’t. This is why we highly recommend defoliating outdoor plants at least once a month to clear out all old leaves that are turning yellow, not catching any more light, or that are blocking airflow to the middle of the plant. As long as you don’t create pockets of clustered leaves, you should be safe from pests.

Support

When growing cannabis indoors, we never have to worry about strong winds breaking our stems. But outdoor growing is a different story. We personally have friends who lost entire plants because of strong winds that broke them at the stem. This is not an uncommon story. Many growers fail to train their outdoors plants and instead let them grow naturally into the Christmas tree shape. The problem with this is that, after flowering, the untrained plant gets very heavy at the top, and any strong wind can break its main stem in half. This is why it is crucial to give your outdoor plants the side support they need in order to survive strong winds. You can do this with tomato wires, garden stakes, garden ties, trellis nets, and ropes.

Indicas

• Easier to train
• Requires more defoliation and pruning
• Only needs to be topped once
• Needs to be trained less frequently
• Lower profile plants

Due to their genetic makeup, cannabis indicas have a sturdy growth structure, with thick fingered fan leaves and short spaces between each set of leaves (called internodal spacing). These features make indicas great for beginners who want to practice all training techniques, including topping, low-stress training, pruning, & defoliation. Since indicas are short and stocky, they are super easy to train when compared to their tall and lanky sisters: the sativas.

Sativas

• More difficult to train
• Requires less defoliation and pruning
• Needs to be topped multiple times
• Needs to be trained more frequently
• Higher profile plants

Sativa cannabis strains have a tall and skinny structure, with longer internodal spacing (space between each node). This makes it extra important to constantly low-stress train and top them so that they stay low to the ground. We recommend topping sativas once every 2 weeks until it is time to switch them to flower. This will ensure your plants don't grow too tall too quickly and end up reaching your lights (indoors) or becoming prone to breaking under strong winds (outdoors).