Announcing the

Plant Training Grow Challenge (PTGC)!

I am excited to announce the Plant Training Grow Challenge!

We are going to organize into groups based on how we plan to train our plants! Let’s see how “The Toppers” do compared to “The Non-Toppers”. Let’s help each other through the Mainlining process. Let’s see how different methods all compare in terms of veg time, manageability and harvest. I think this is going to be a lot of fun!

Start Date and Flowering Date

The PTGC is going to start on or about August 15^th. Rather than trying to coordinate the germination/start date – we want to place more emphasis on the flowering period. The goal for all growers should be to flip to flowering on October 1. If you want or need a longer veg time then you can start early. If you grow autos or like to flip quickly, then you can start late. The August 15^th start date is not that important. Instead, do what you need to do so that you are ready to flip (photos) or entering flowering (autos) on October 1^st.

The Party Cup Challenge

To make it even more fun, we are going to do an optional Party cup challenge along with the PTGC! The rules will be pretty simple – basically just grow a plant in an 18 oz party cup all the way to harvest. It is an optional addition and the Party Cup Challenge will feature its own prizes and awards.

I plan to run my party cup girl in the tent with the other plants. I will track them all in the same journal. However, I am going to start the partier once the other girls are well into veg. It’ll be a fun twist for sure – I hope we have a lot of partiers in the challenge!

What is a Grow Challenge?

The Coco for Cannabis grow challenges are not competitions! Our goal is to bring new and experienced growers together in the spirit of collaboration. We coordinate timing to grow along together and learn from each other.

We create a special forum for each challenge where growers keep grow journals to document their grows. We organize the journals into groups for each challenge. For the PTGC, the groups will be based on training method (See Below). The groups, the forum, and the whole idea behind growing together is about creating community and supporting fellow growers. We cultivate the Spirit of Collaboration along with our plants.

To be a full part of the grow challenge, all you need to do is sign up and keep an updated journal. How you manage your journal is up to you. You can document every step every day, or you can post a few pictures and a quick blurb once a week.

PTGC Prizes and Giveaways

To help keep everyone motivated and having fun we will have prizes! There will be some cool prizes like Grow Tents, Grow Lights, and Exhaust Fans. We will have monthly prize drawings that all Challenge growers can be eligible for. We will also have special recognition for Best Journals of each week and month. At the end of grow we will save some of our best prizes for Best Journal, Best Recovery, and Best Growmie. There are no prizes for best harvest though – we are all in this to help everyone have the best harvest!

The PTGC Groups

For the PTGC, we are going to organize into four groups around plant training methods. You join a group by starting your grow journal in that group’s section of the PTGC forum. As soon as the Forum is ready there will be links here to each group’s section.

The Toppers

“The Toppers” is the group for almost all growers that plan to top their plants. If you do a single top or even multiple topping, this is the group for you. It does not matter what you plan to do beyond that – unless you plan to Mainline or Manifold (They have their own group!)

The Mainliners

Mainlining and Manifolding are related plant train techniques that involve strategically topping the plant multiple times to produce 8 main colas. They are popular training techniques and present some unique situations – so we decided to give them their own group. I plan to join this group myself!

The Non-Toppers

This is the group for all the growers that do not plan to top their plants. Maybe you do an aggressive LST… Maybe you go Au Natural… if the plant gets to keep its apical growth tip then this is the group for you!

The Misfits

There are always misfits! This is the group for those who feel that their training method does not fit in any of the other groups. It is also the group for those who plan to “wing it” and train according to the plant’s growth. The “misfits” may be the perfect fit!