Topping a 4' tall plant? Need advice.

[PatrickBateman6]

Hey all. First off, this issue is from poor planning pure and simple. My fault, I get it.

Im attempting my 2nd grow outdoors. Small scale. Just 7 plants atm from seed. 3 started first and 4 a month or so later.

Here;s the deal: I started seeds way early in March using shitty CFLs at night and just window light, so as you can imagine they stretched pretty bad. I knew this would happen and my thought was that no matter how lanky they were I would just use the females as mothers and if they vegged well enough just take clones off them and go from there.

Along the way I decided not to bother planting at a site this time and would rather keep them "nearby". I now have them all outside (they've been out for a month or so) and the 4 youngest ones were topped and are only 9-14" or so tall and the oldest 3 that I thought I would use just as mothers are all over my waist now and looking very good. THey are in 25 cm pots (not sure how many G that is) and Im not sure if I will leave in pots so I can move them around or not.

The issue: I am growing along a 7' or so wooden fence and dont want these 3 waist tall plants to get anywhere near the height of the fence. They are in a fern garden totally invisible from the outside by thick 4-5' ferns which these plants will soon dwarf. I wish they were going into flower now but I have so long to go that the size is gonna be a huge issue.

Can I still top 4' plants?? I know that I have really messed up here by not topping them at 4th node or so initially but I wasnt gonna keep these plants.

Can I just cut off the new growth at the top? Im wondering if the plant will be able to support 2 main growths 4'(or so) up instead of way down by the base like usual...

Ive seen ppl just cut their plants in half essentially but that seems like a waste. Not looking to really cut the plant in half and try and root it.

What are my options so this plant doesnt' get more than 6' or so? Id rather top it or prune it than tie it down I think.

This issue is compounded in that they are mostly sativa and I grew the same seeds in '09 and they ended up 12' or so with heavy nutes.

I really wish they had been topped and bushy now opposed to Xmas trees. Im kinda leaning towards topping them at the new growth in that the vegging kinda stalls for a few weeks which is good in that thats 2 weeks of little vertical growth.

Any tips and advice is hugely appreciated.

 

[yortbogey]

just bend the plant gradually over and tie down the top to a stake in the ground to cause the plant to stop growing UP.... and focus on growing out......

 

[FoCo(No.Co)]

You can top your plants anytime during veg, you did not screw up! Many sativa dom hybrids can even be topped in early flower with good results.

I say go for it dude, or bend the bitch as yort suggests. Another option is to put up a panel of wire fence parallel to your current fencing and weave the branches through the panel.

 

[joedogsong]

If you don't have the room to bend them over you can top about wherever you want. I've had 'em break from the wind, stuff falling on them, intentionally topped. What I think important is that you do it before your daylight hours drop to 14.5. This is when most mj plants start the flower phase. After the 14.5 hour point you'd be better tieing them down.

Here is a link that is great for letting you know daylight hours:

http://astro.unl.edu/classaction/animations/coordsmotion/daylighthoursexplorer.swf

 

[PatrickBateman6]

Thanks for the responses so far. Part of the reason I was leaning AWAY from tying it down is that its in a pot for portability. It may go in the ground but Im not sure at this point.



** To the ppl saying that a plant can be topped at any time: Do you mean that I could/should top conventionally by cutting new growth at the top or would you go and cut the plant like 2/3 of the way down (where it should have been topped) and just dispose of the top 2 feet or so of plant?

 

[PatrickBateman6]

Hoping to work on these plants this weekend. Any advice on what height/where to top is hugely appreciated.

 

[jackel]

If u wanted to, u could cut it down to one lateral branch. But I don't advice this.
You can cut it back 2/3 if you'd like. It will recover. One thing Iv done instead of tying is pinch the stalk real hard about half way down. Crush the stalk, then lay it sideways.the vertical growth will slow down, laterals will grow up, plant will heal and it will start to grow up again, but sideways.
Plus it's still mobile cuz u didn't tie it

 

[GrowersUnite]

Yes super crop it! Just gently squeeze the steam and roll it slightly under it gets mushy and want to flop over. It keep your current height while giving the lower stuff about a week to grow up. Do it as much as you like.

I'm doing that on a clone I have, its 3 feet and soon enough it will grow over the surrounding foliage. Super cropping is low stress training, unlike topping which is high stress.

If you do top just top the very top and decide what to do after that. You can top and super crop together too.

 

[Goodkarma]

four branches

four branches

A few years ago I had a similiar problem. i needed to keep the plants below the fence.

I had read on here about a prunning method that was used with great results.

I tried it on a Mandala #1 plant with a very good outcome. The plant was over 4 feet tall at the time.

Start at the bottom and prune the smaller branches. You should end up at about the third node. Then hard top the plant so you end up with just four branches.

When I tried this method, I ended up with four branches from the third and fourth nodes. The plant grew and produced very, very well. You can top those four braches later, if needed.

 

[FoCo(No.Co)]

** To the ppl saying that a plant can be topped at any time: Do you mean that I could/should top conventionally by cutting new growth at the top or would you go and cut the plant like 2/3 of the way down (where it should have been topped) and just dispose of the top 2 feet or so of plant?

Here I made you a crappy graph!

 

[airplane]

To late in the game the STRESS will effect yield & potiency, use bending mehod of growing, it east

 

[PatrickBateman6]

thanks for all the suggestions. I ended up just doing a conventional topping job and cut off the new growth on top. Foco's suggestion is what i was kinda leaning towards but I figure if I change my mind I can still do that. Having topped 4'or so up I know the plant will kinda stall a bit while it sorts itself out and I am well aware that the plant will now get much taller yet opposed to if I had made my cut much lower. I just figure I will try some bending once it get big. Again, I have no goals for these plants and yield/potency isnt a concern for me. I just enjoy the plants and see what happens.

 

[niceeven]

I would do just what yortbogey said and bent the plant. You can also either just top it, or top it and bent it. But overall I have always found that bending on it's own works just fine!

 

[Mr Apricot]

If you don't have the room to bend them over you can top about wherever you want. I've had 'em break from the wind, stuff falling on them, intentionally topped. What I think important is that you do it before your daylight hours drop to 14.5. This is when most mj plants start the flower phase. After the 14.5 hour point you'd be better tieing them down.

Here is a link that is great for letting you know daylight hours:

http://astro.unl.edu/classaction/animations/coordsmotion/daylighthoursexplorer.swf

sick link bro!

 

[GrowbagUK]

I would attach lengths of wire to the fence so you can bend and tie in branches that are getting too tall.

Similar to espalier fruit trees: