Topping.

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Chicken

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can someone teach me how to top?

my plants are 1 month and 10 days old. I really need to start topping it.

some picture would really help. Text would help, but please be very detailed.

thanks in advance
 
Chicken said:
can someone teach me how to top?

my plants are 1 month and 10 days old. I really need to start topping it.

some picture would really help. Text would help, but please be very detailed.

thanks in advance
Whats up Chicken. Topping is very easy. All you need to do is remove the newest growth at the top of your plant with a sterile razor blade. I will post a few pics of where you should make your cut on the plant. Make the cut where you see the scewdriver.

100_1292.jpg


100_1293.jpg
 
Will this speed up the flowering or just give you an aditional bud? While, is it recommended to wait untill the plant as started to flower? my tips look like the photo you have a couple pistils but thats it. Would this be recommended?
 
heavyfreak said:
Will this speed up the flowering or just give you an additional bud? While, is it recommended to wait until the plant as started to flower? my tips look like the photo you have a couple pistils but that's it. Would this be recommended?
Pruning a plant, or HST as some call it, will create two branches from each pruned spot. You'll have a plant with more "top" buds. If you don't prune, you'll end up with one major Kola on the primary trunk of the plant.

It's been shown countless times that the final trimmed, dried, cured product weight is not affected by either method. It's virtually the same.

Now, if you mix in a whole shit load of other variables, yes, you can increase your final yield by pruning. If you take the cost to produce and compare it to yield your true advantage or/not of method tells the story.

You could for example, prune and heal one branch at a time so as not to stress the plant too much at once and you could leave no budding sites on the plant except your top buds that are cradled and supported with non-intrusive methods. Keep training the buds over and up over an extended vegetative growth until they have become big ass tops. Then flower them using the same support/training method until the buds have NO support required by the plants stem. The bud will get as big as any Kola on the plant ever could get.

However, you just used enough time to grow two crops.

So, advantage lost.

Do you see what I mean? Pruning will extend the time that you can grow within a certain height indoors. It will decrease the size of the main buds, but make more of them. Everything is a trade off.

If you're growing for just you, then why bother? Just let the ladies grow and bud. Stay within your height restrictions. You'll have one huge bud instead of 50/100 tops by pruning. The end weight will be the same total, and the single Kola plant will be one hell of a lot easier to manicure later.

Good luck to you.

Edit: I use the pruning method when growing superior weed because I like to have a shit load of small, very potent, whole buds to smoke. I pop one of them in the pipe or bong and it's like a neat little package from Nature to my lungs and brain.

If I'm going for oil, the bud to plant ratio using the one Kola method is easier to deal with. I use the top Kola for smoking and everything else goes in the processor to be chopped for oil production.
 
stoney,
So, ok so topping give syou more smaller yeilds rather then one large yeild. You mentioned pruning. Does this speed up flowering? for example If I was to prune off all the aditional leaves on the plant and just keep the first 4 nodes would this help increase the yeld or potency?

I'm sure the first sign of a newbie is the lack of patience. .. isn't it.
heavy.

heavy.
 
You shouldn't ever remove leaves.

They are food factories, turning light & water into the food the plant needs, and the leaves also store nutrients.

Removing leaves doesn't speed up flowering. Nothing "speeds up" flowering. Good growing conditions (lights, nutes, ect.) will help a plant reach it's full potential vs. a plant grown under poor conditions, but there's no "gas pedal".
 
heavyfreak said:
ok, its offically beat into my head thanks!!

Get back here right now I'm not done beating you yet.
Don't make me come upstairs!
 
I agree with stoney that any type of topping, lst or hst(which the method I learned is a little different, it actually is like low stress training except that you actually crush the main stem to acheive the same bend as lst, it use to be very popular before LST came to fruitition, but is not recommended) is going to be pointless if your area is already maximixed.

But with that said the point is to fill all of your lit area with bud sites to maximize your lighting. Without training you have to grow more plants to acheive this and even then it is hard because everything is at different heights.

I usually always LST and then screen my plants before putting them into 12/12. I love scrog, because this give me a totally even canopy which allows me to be able to lower my lights thus increasing and maximixing the intensity of my lights. This also opens up things so that my lower branches get the same amount as everything else, and allows this definiatly increases my yeilds.

I use chicken wire or plastic strawberry netting with 2" square holes for my screen, and it works marvolous. It is truly amasing to see the screen fill up, and everything crown at the same time.

Although it does take a week or two longer to veg, in my opinion it is well worth the wait. Once the screen is full it looks like a carpet of green, with absolutely no unproductive space, there are just buds everywhere. I tuck all of my fan leaves underneath the screen so it is just buds growing on top with their bud leaves.

I am not going to lie though, it is a lot of work until the screen is full, but that alright for me because I love playing with my plants everyday and this gives me a reason too.

By the way Ganja is 100% correct, I like to look at the fan leaves as solar panels, I never remove any unless they are diseased. It is better to let them fall off. I even keep the fan leaves way down under my screen, but I do remove any and all shoots that do not make it to the screen, because they will be unproductive. When I grow I like to be as efficient as possible.

I know this post is looooong but I wanted to explain what I do and why it works for me. i am going to take a pic later of the screen material that I use. Peace to all
 

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