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Thick stems but leaning... support needed?

buggedcom

buggedcom

I have nagas with big thick stems, mainly down to the fan that blows on them for 20 mins every half hour. However as they are spreading out horizontally and setting flower a slight lean (see below) when fruit sets in do you think I should add a support?

The plant is approx 35-40 cm high and the canopy is about 70-80 cm x 35-40 cm wide.

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HELL YES! Please support it. I have a Scorpion that i did not support and i lost two thirds of it from snappage (branch snapping, actually the V but any way) drive a stake down and tie it as soon as possible mate.
 
Cool thanks for the advice and compliments. I will get some canes this weekend. It had lots of leaves under the canopy too, however they all dropped off when I relied on a friend to do the watering when I was away over Christmas.

Also any advice on encouraging upward growth except repotting? It's grown sideways too much and taking up too much room in my limited space.
 
yes, beautiful plant...

suggestion...do you have a larger container?....repot it...it looks like it could use the room...just be careful with your rootball...you can "straighten it up" during repot
 
AlabamaJack said:
yes, beautiful plant...

suggestion...do you have a larger container?....repot it...it looks like it could use the room...just be careful with your rootball...you can "straighten it up" during repot
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I agree AJ. Bugged asked if he could go for height instead of width. How about using florist wire to tie the plant to his cane? He sure can look after a plant so it shouldn't be a problem!
 
Maybe you could rotate the plant so the fan doesn't blow on the same side of it all the time? Also, 20 minutes every half hour? I'd say 20 mins twice or three times a day would be enough.
 
if the light you are using is mostly red, I think that makes the plants bushier...you might try adding a lot of blue to make it taller...
 
Thanks guys.

suggestion...do you have a larger container?....repot it...it looks like it could use the room...just be careful with your rootball...you can "straighten it up" during repot
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Yeah I said before I can't do that, but I didn't explain why. The pots they are in are concrete without a lining so the insides are quite rough and getting the plants out of these would most likely destroy the roots. The reason I got these pots was so the girlfriend wouldn't complain as much as she favoured these pots. However now that this little hobby has taken over one corner of my office/dining room I don't really think it matters anymore and I will get some square plastic pots for next year. Also I wanted to limit the size of the plants with these 2 litre pots because as you can see I have very limited space.

I agree AJ. Bugged asked if he could go for height instead of width. How about using florist wire to tie the plant to his cane? He sure can look after a plant so it shouldn't be a problem!
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I'll probably do this. Do you mean some thing like this?
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Maybe you could rotate the plant so the fan doesn't blow on the same side of it all the time? Also, 20 minutes every half hour? I'd say 20 mins twice or three times a day would be enough.
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I rotate them once a day when I use a brush on the flowers. So I don't think that's necessarily the problem. Especially as some of them are fine.

if the light you are using is mostly red, I think that makes the plants bushier...you might try adding a lot of blue to make it taller...
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The red lights are on 24 hours/day, but for flowering. I wasn't aware about the promotion of bushiness. I have a 300w blue CFL on for 16 hours a day. Perhaps I do swap out some reds for blues then, maybe on a ratio of 2:1
 
Yes, train it to wherever you want it. I promise that it will work if you do not stress the stems too much. Even if you do they are still young and green so no problem.
 
I'd pot the plant up to a bigger pot and bury the stem an extra inch or two to help support the lean. If you want tall growth instead of bushy, you probably need more light and preferably from directly above the plant. Your window light seems to be providing a lot of side light causing a more bushy, spread out top and I'm unsure of your supplemental lights. I'd also consider pruning some of the branches to encourage taller growth, and maybe encourage some new lower shoots if desired
You just can't avoid repotting in my opinion, your pot is quite small, and your plant is going to continue to grow
 
you may shock it during transplant but if you are careful, it will probably be OK, heck, I have pulled plants up by the roots, repotted them and they still grow, they are pretty hardy plants IMO
 
Novacastrian said:
Yes, train it to wherever you want it. I promise that it will work if you do not stress the stems too much. Even if you do they are still young and green so no problem.
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Yeah I'll do this over the weekend. Thanks for the advice Nova.

NoVa Hothead said:
Absolutely agree, that is a beauty!
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Cheers. It means a lot.

POTAWIE said:
I'd pot the plant up to a bigger pot and bury the stem an extra inch or two to help support the lean. If you want tall growth instead of bushy, you probably need more light and preferably from directly above the plant. Your window light seems to be providing a lot of side light causing a more bushy, spread out top and I'm unsure of your supplemental lights. I'd also consider pruning some of the branches to encourage taller growth, and maybe encourage some new lower shoots if desired
You just can't avoid repotting in my opinion, your pot is quite small, and your plant is going to continue to grow
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I might not do it with the ones currently in these concrete pots, but perhaps I will get plastic ones for the seeds in the germinator.

AlabamaJack said:
you may shock it during transplant but if you are careful, it will probably be OK, heck, I have pulled plants up by the roots, repotted them and they still grow, they are pretty hardy plants IMO
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Yeah, I'm sure I could but they are starting to fruit at the moment and I don't really want to interfere at this point.

Noshownate said:
Nice plant bugged!
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Thanks. I have a few others like that also. Big thick stems and bushy tops. One is slightly spidery though, which is odd because it's had the same treatment as the others.

POTAWIE said:
Is that a spider-man dog on top of your monitor? :)
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Yeah. Spiderdog. Awesome. It dances to the base in music. Kinda cool at first but annoying after a while. It just sits there doing nothing now.
 
AlabamaJack said:
if the light you are using is mostly red, I think that makes the plants bushier...you might try adding a lot of blue to make it taller...
Click to expand...

AJ,

It's the other way around, generally. Blue is suppose to encourage foliage. An incandescent bulb, OTOH, will provide quite a bit of far-red which helps it grow taller. It's even more effective under lower lighting levels, such as twilight (but it doesn't do much if added at dawn or when no other light is available). Also, increasing light levels as the temps rise will make the stem stronger and the plant taller.

Mike
 
I have a plant that looks like it is growing sideways. As it's fallen victim to shithead mites though, I'm just gonna leave it and see what happens. It looks three or four times worse than yours, buggedcom, but it's a lot younger too.
 
Yesterday i spotted what i think is a Dorset Naga growing sideways in my chilli patch, the plant next to it has grown faster and the foliage has pushed it over. It will have to stay like that though as there is no longer any room to stand it upright!
 
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