August 04, 2020
Supercropping is a hands-on high-stress training method that’s brutally effective. If the idea of breaking branches strikes you as “Breaking Bad” don’t worry. This supercropping grow guide will give you the confidence and skills to apply the technique properly.
There is no one right way to cultivate medicinal plants for maximum yield in your indoor grow tent. Fortunately, there are many. Supercropping is a proven high yield medicinal plants growing style. The only must-have for the medicinal plants grower is a safe pair of hands to experiment with supercropping.
There are several reasons to supercrop medicinal plants. The primary application is to manage the growth of the canopy especially during the stretch. Plants that are topped or trained to have multiple colas often benefit from supercropping to keep the canopy a uniform distance from the indoor grow lights. You can also use supercropping to maneuver plants to fill areas where light maybe going underutilized. In addition, during vegetative growth, supercropping is useful to create structures such as mainlines and manifolds.
Most growers turn to supercropping for the first time when they have individual stalks which rise higher than the rest of their canopy. These “too tall” colas will require you to raise the light, which reduces the efficiency of your canopy in harnessing the light energy. The taller stalks can also shade out the lower growth and stunt its development. In extreme cases, these “too tall” stalks may actually grow too tall for the space that they are enclosed within. Supercropping is the most effective way to lower the height of these “too tall” colas and maintain an even canopy. In the process, supercropping creates sections of horizontal stem which often provide additional growth points for stalks and buds.
If you’re a rookie grower, we recommend super cropping your plants just once during the late vegetative stage, ideally 3–7 days before you flip them over to flowering. This will give them time to recover from the stress of cropping before they start focusing their energy on developing buds.
Remember to never super crop plants dealing with pest infestations, nutrient deficiencies, or any other type of negative stress. Super cropping is a very stressful technique, and your plants need to be extremely healthy to be able to cope with it.
If you have some experience with this technique, we recommend super cropping a second time within the first two weeks of flower. This is because plants tend to exhibit a final period of explosive growth at the beginning of bloom (known as "stretching"). After that, let your plants recover and feed/water them as usual. You should notice an increase in bud sites along the cropped branches.
As you become more familiar with super cropping, feel free to experiment more with this technique. You can super crop in different ways, and at different times, during your plant's life cycle. Some growers find super cropping early on in the vegetative stage helps spark rapid growth and bigger, more structurally sound plants.
If you're super cropping to help your plants better support their buds, we recommend doing so as soon as they grow their third node. Together with a bit of LST, you'll end up with big, strong plants come flowering that are ready to support even the densest of flowers.
On the other hand, you can use super cropping in the late vegetative and early flowering phases if you want to even out your canopy and boost resin production for a bigger, more aromatic, and ultra-potent harvest.
In this section of the guide, you’ll learn the basics of super cropping.
Select the branches to be cropped. The vegetative phase is the right time to super crop plants because they’re growing healthy branches and they haven’t quite reached the flowering stage. When super cropping plants, it’s best to select branches that are older but still flexible. Apply the technique to green parts, not the woody lower portion of the main stalk. If a plant has only one cola, the goal is to create a flat upper canopy.
Squeeze and bend the branches. In super cropping, the objective is to slightly damage the plants’ inner tissues without harming the outside skin. With this method, the stem can be bent in the desired direction. When squeezing the branch, use a firm thumb and forefinger to create a new joint in the stem. Wiggle the plant stem until it feels soft, then gradually and gently bend it in the appropriate direction before securing it in position. Medicinal plants are very resilient, so the site may recover within a few hours if a proper technique isn’t used.
Make repairs and tie stems down. If the stem’s outside skin is intact, you can skip this step. However, if there are any breaks in the skin, duct tape provides reinforcement. Once the stems have been inspected and repaired, tie it down with twist or zip ties. The place where the stem bends will grow a big knot that transports the water and nutrients the plant needs to grow strong and healthy.
Remove the tape: It’s best to wait about a week before removing any tape you’ve applied. It’s normal for stem tissues to be slightly discolored, especially around healing sites. If any of these areas appear wounded and gray, replace the tape and wait for a protective knuckle to appear. If the stems are reinforced with tape, normal processes such as nutrient and water transportation will go on as normal. If any branches have straightened themselves, simply use LST techniques to get them to grow in the right direction.
I hope you enjoyed this article and found it useful. If you’ve never tried this technique before, I advise you to start with only a couple of plants, so you can see the results and how the plants further develops after super cropping them.