As we can see from the diagram above, the trained plant has a much larger surface area when looked at from the top, meaning it is collecting nearly twice as much light as the untrained plant. A good comparison is that training a cannabis plant for light exposure is the same as spreading out solar panels (i.e. your plant's leaves) that were previously stacked on top of each other, so that the bottom panels can catch some light. Here are the two most common ways to accomplish more light exposure.

The first way to gain more light exposure is called low-stress training (LST) and it involves gently bending the branches of your cannabis plant sideways and then tying them with a garden tie. 

The second way to increase light exposure is called high-stress training (HST), which involves bending the branches of your cannabis plants until they "crack" into position, thus removing the need to tie them down. 

While both techniques achieve the same result for light exposure, we don’t recommend HST since it stresses the plant by up to 3 days, while LST only stresses the plant by just a few hours. In fact, HST is used more often as a remedy for when plants are growing too close to the lights and you can't tie them down anymore, while LST is used much more broadly.

If you want to find out more about Low-Stress Training, read this complete LST guide.

But something else happens while plants transpire and water evaporates. Since the stomata are open, the leaves take this opportunity to absorb CO2 and expunge oxygen at the same time, thus enabling the photosynthesis process. In a nutshell, the more your plants transpire, the more nutrients they take up via the roots, the more CO2 comes in via the leaves, and the more they photosynthesize (and grow).

In fact, when leaves become clustered they inhibit airflow and also attract many pests. This is why it is important to remove leaves and branches from your cannabis plant in a way that contributes to more air movement. But be careful! Defoliation and pruning can be damaging too. Read this article to learn how to prune & defoliate cannabis plants for maximum yield. 

The reason why a lot of plants grow toward the sun in a Christmas-tree shape is because they produce high levels of growth hormones (called auxins) nearest the top of the plant, while inhibiting the side branches from getting it. This phenomena is called apical dominance, and is the reason why cannabis grows one tall cola in the center and many smaller ones off to the side. This plant, for example, grew “naturally”. You can see how much thicker the top cola is compared to the side ones. This is not good because it means you get some good bud from the very top but a lot of popcorn bud from everywhere else.

Generally, indoor growers want their plants to grow as much cannabis as possible, but they also want to use as little space as possible. Training marijuana plants allows you to control their final shape, meaning that you can make them as short or as wide as you want in order to fit whatever space you have to work with. 

Another way to shift hormones in the cannabis plant is by pruning weak shoots (AKA growth sites AKA new branches) so that they don’t develop into weak colas during the flowering stage. When you remove the weak branches, you give the larger branches an opportunity to grow even stronger (as we learned on Step 4 of our cannabis training method).

The truth is that there isn’t a single technique or method that works best. What does work best is putting all of these 3 elements - light exposure, air exchange, and hormonal distribution - together in a way that maximizes the rate of photosynthesis of your plants. For this, we recommend doing a little bit of everything depending on your growing space.

Spider mites, on the other hand, are tiny bugs that eat cannabis leaves and make webs all over the plant, also like the same type of humid environment and will thrive if the temperatures are high as well. So if you can add some air movement by defoliating your canopy and using training techniques to “open up” your plant, you will make it very uncomfortable for pests to set in, which means they will end up choosing your neighbour's plants instead.

Our sun is almost 100 million miles away from earth, so even if you have an outdoor plant that is 20ft tall, the bottom leaves and the top leaves will feel no difference in light intensity (as long as they are not shaded). However, when it comes to indoor lights the intensity of the light decreases drastically as you get farther away from the source - getting up to 5 times weaker every foot of distance.

Autoflowers only have around 30 days in the veg stage before they automatically go into the flowering stage (AKA “auto-flower”), so it is best to only use low-stress training techniques on your auto-flowering plants and never top them! Here is a complete guide on how to low-stress train cannabis plants for maximum yield. 

You should also avoid high-stress training or pruning, as they will also cause too much stress on your autoflowers and stunt their growth for a few days. Since autoflowers have such a short cycle, a few days is too much to afford and you will lose a lot of potential growth (and bud). In a nutshell: only LST your autoflowers, never top them, and only remove old and yellow leaves or very small shoots in the middle of the canopy.

It is very common for new growers to fear training their cannabis plants. After all, you are hurting them by doing things that seem very counterintuitive. The thing is, if you get unlucky and break a branch that you can't tape back together, your plant will automatically start growing out the other branches and you won't lose much yield. All in all, it’s better to try and screw it up a few times while learning, because plant-training will be with you forever!