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1st time grower. Need help with topping plants
- Thread starter Drwarren75
- Start date
Drwarren75
New member
Thanks!
Speed of green
Active member
they arent too big, the more you top the more top heavy/unbalanced the plant will get, they will need something to support the branches. tomato cages are cheap and easy for that size plant.
good luck.
good luck.
M
meowmeowmeow
Hey Drwarren75 what strain/s are you growing?
That will help with the decision as GrnEyes and Speed of green statements also covered.
I top all my shit, but I have a 5 ft ceiling in my tents.
If I don't I end up with 6 ft plants scrapping the lights.
The room and space you have should help with your decision making too.
Along with how much work you want to put in and have to do with your ladies.
Good Luck they look healthy.
That will help with the decision as GrnEyes and Speed of green statements also covered.
I top all my shit, but I have a 5 ft ceiling in my tents.
If I don't I end up with 6 ft plants scrapping the lights.
The room and space you have should help with your decision making too.
Along with how much work you want to put in and have to do with your ladies.
Good Luck they look healthy.
Chilly Willy
Member
Hey bud, what's your plans for those plants? And, thought about getting new friends? First you need to check this forum to find out how to tell if they are male or female. If you take them indoors then you can harvest every two months. If this is your plan, then you want to put them under a regular fluorescent bulb that you buy at the store down the street. The idea is that they grow slow, and have lots of nodes so in a month you can cut off these branches and make clones. The trick to clones is when you place the branch into the past moss it is very tight around the circumference of the stalk. Put these clones inside a small twenty dollar plastic green house, and spray water inside it with a spray bottle each day so the humidity is close to 100%. If you take the clones out early and put them under MH or HPS light you can skip the vegetive stage of their growth and they will stay short in height. That way you don't need a big powerful light, just a 400 watt bulb will do for about nine plants 3ft x 3ft area with a canopy that will not exceed about 18" in height. A bulb like that will only penetrate about 12 inches into the canopy at full sun's strength.
Let me tell you why toping plants is a very bad idea. Efficiency is all lost, the plant no longer concentrates it's growth in the center. The rest of the buds are garbage, it is this concentrated top that you are going after. Secondary buds are too far from the light, your top should be about 5 inches away from the hood of the light fixture. If you do it the way I suggested all thetas from each of the nine plants will be the same height. If you are contemplating just growing a plant or two think instead about justifying the cost and trouble of getting the equipment and risk. The equipment dictates how many plants to grow. I take it those are hybrid plants, in two months or just after they start gulping up water like they ran through a dessert, what you want to does go out and spend about fifty bucks and get a handheld microscope from a science hobby shop online. Look at the bud and se what color the trichosomes are: clear is an up type effect high, amber is a down in the couch type high, and cloudy is in the middle. Since it is a hybrid, then the sativa genetics will allow the color touching and cycle in approx a week, but watch close for this. That way the same genetics can be two different kinds of effects.
Don't listen to friends, most people who say they know do not, and the ones who know you can tell. There is nothing I have told you that I have not already done. If you just want to grow one or two plants and ignore some of what i said then use the same size light (400) and obviously skip the cloning. The problem with that is this, those plants are too tall. This is the whole reason why breeders make a hybrid plant. The light will not penetrate the whole long length of the plant and if you force this with a big build (1000) then now you are generating a lot of heat. You could use C02 to buffer this and run your operation at say 82 degrees instead of the normal 78, but you are also going to burn a lot of air-conditioning. You see how efficiency is important. If you can grow short lollipops with all having a main single bud, it is not just pretty it yields really well for the low cost in power and equipment. I will check back here and see what your plans are, and what you would like to change in them. Your harrow just got a turbo charge from all this advice, you should not pass up this opportunity.
CW
Let me tell you why toping plants is a very bad idea. Efficiency is all lost, the plant no longer concentrates it's growth in the center. The rest of the buds are garbage, it is this concentrated top that you are going after. Secondary buds are too far from the light, your top should be about 5 inches away from the hood of the light fixture. If you do it the way I suggested all thetas from each of the nine plants will be the same height. If you are contemplating just growing a plant or two think instead about justifying the cost and trouble of getting the equipment and risk. The equipment dictates how many plants to grow. I take it those are hybrid plants, in two months or just after they start gulping up water like they ran through a dessert, what you want to does go out and spend about fifty bucks and get a handheld microscope from a science hobby shop online. Look at the bud and se what color the trichosomes are: clear is an up type effect high, amber is a down in the couch type high, and cloudy is in the middle. Since it is a hybrid, then the sativa genetics will allow the color touching and cycle in approx a week, but watch close for this. That way the same genetics can be two different kinds of effects.
Don't listen to friends, most people who say they know do not, and the ones who know you can tell. There is nothing I have told you that I have not already done. If you just want to grow one or two plants and ignore some of what i said then use the same size light (400) and obviously skip the cloning. The problem with that is this, those plants are too tall. This is the whole reason why breeders make a hybrid plant. The light will not penetrate the whole long length of the plant and if you force this with a big build (1000) then now you are generating a lot of heat. You could use C02 to buffer this and run your operation at say 82 degrees instead of the normal 78, but you are also going to burn a lot of air-conditioning. You see how efficiency is important. If you can grow short lollipops with all having a main single bud, it is not just pretty it yields really well for the low cost in power and equipment. I will check back here and see what your plans are, and what you would like to change in them. Your harrow just got a turbo charge from all this advice, you should not pass up this opportunity.
CW
Top or trim back branches other than main cola. We top and split ours around solstice for bushes. Could be different in cooler/shorter grow climates.
Is there not a way to edit posts?
Op, why I would have topped it sooner is because you put a decent amount of time into growing something you are about to cut off. You could have topped at that moment the structure appeared and that time would have been put into the structure you kept.
But your good. Nothing tragic.
Op, why I would have topped it sooner is because you put a decent amount of time into growing something you are about to cut off. You could have topped at that moment the structure appeared and that time would have been put into the structure you kept.
But your good. Nothing tragic.
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So many conflicting opinions...
Chilly willy: topping is a bad idea? Rest of the plant will be garbage?
Trust me, as that plant sits right now un topped, it will have only one big cola, the rest of the side branching will put out golf balls at best.
If he would have topped that or lst when the main branch was about 4" taller than the side branching...the energy would shift to not only the two new tops but also the side branches. Keep that even growth rhythm through the veg and now you have 10+ big colas.
I'm not a big fan of the Christmas tree shape like that. It's simply not efficient indoor.
Some strains need more topping than others. I have some strains I don't touch that naturally have a nice canopy. And other strains I have to top really early.
It really comes down to what your plans are. If it's indoor, how your lights are setup? If your hanging bulbs, topping isn't that important due to more even light around the sides. If your over head hoods, you'll need to train a more even canopy. Whether that's by topping, lst, super cropping etc...
Willy,
"Let me tell you why toping plants is a very bad idea. Efficiency is all lost, the plant no longer concentrates it's growth in the center. The rest of the buds are garbage, it is this concentrated top that you are going after."
Do you grow all yours with just one top?
Nothing wrong with that, I'm just one that likes to get as much as I can with what I have.
The whole point of training, topping and methods is to manipulate the growth to a more efficient shape.
Chilly willy: topping is a bad idea? Rest of the plant will be garbage?
Trust me, as that plant sits right now un topped, it will have only one big cola, the rest of the side branching will put out golf balls at best.
If he would have topped that or lst when the main branch was about 4" taller than the side branching...the energy would shift to not only the two new tops but also the side branches. Keep that even growth rhythm through the veg and now you have 10+ big colas.
I'm not a big fan of the Christmas tree shape like that. It's simply not efficient indoor.
Some strains need more topping than others. I have some strains I don't touch that naturally have a nice canopy. And other strains I have to top really early.
It really comes down to what your plans are. If it's indoor, how your lights are setup? If your hanging bulbs, topping isn't that important due to more even light around the sides. If your over head hoods, you'll need to train a more even canopy. Whether that's by topping, lst, super cropping etc...
Willy,
"Let me tell you why toping plants is a very bad idea. Efficiency is all lost, the plant no longer concentrates it's growth in the center. The rest of the buds are garbage, it is this concentrated top that you are going after."
Do you grow all yours with just one top?
Nothing wrong with that, I'm just one that likes to get as much as I can with what I have.
The whole point of training, topping and methods is to manipulate the growth to a more efficient shape.
Chilly Willy
Member
Hey PdxFarms, how you doing today? I felt a newbie asking about toping, and not including any other information shows us he needs help from a little misdirection. Having a stable strain helps in having a cleaner operation. A lot of these staring that sound great in wording are very hard to grow, yield less, and make you want to throw your arms up into the air. I grew AK48 for three years and it is a pretty stable easy to grow plant. If you are burning big bulbs then this helps with a strain that has arms and legs all over the place, but you have to admit the further away from the light the less sun it gets. On 400 watt bulbs the area is only 12 inches, and five of those are the distance between the top of the top and the bottom of the bulb.
If you get all the details done, you can achieve for the most part, just growing tops. There is little foliage, and less roots. A good example of the opposite is growing aeroponics, you have all that root mass which is a waste. Now if you run 600 watt bulbs then the canopy can be deeper, or should I say the buds longer in height before they hit the light but why do this?
My suggestion for this new grow he is questioning is make sure it is is a female first, then make clones from it. It looks like if you ut that plant in the closet under low blue light (fluorescent) it will make a good mother for clones in a month. Now you have corrected the problem with his first plant being too tall, and causing all those problems associated with that thus discouraging him during his first grow. Skip the vegetive stage of growth, and this is the key to growing lollipops that fit perfect under a smaller efficient lamp. Not let the size fool you, the sun's full strength for a 400 watt bulb is 12 inches so your coloas will be about ten or so inches tall, and about three inches wide. I looked at growing as efficiency, and the equipment and genetics dictates everything else. The buds that fall too low under the light, or off to the side outside the perimeter are called nuggets, and sure they are not garbage. But I was trying to make a point here, you want to focus on the primary coala. There is a lot of material I have read about this topic, and topping is wrong for any reasons. Just making a single cut to the main stem will result in two lesser mass colas, and the more you do this the less mass you get. It is better to just get more plants, and add their mass up to get the amount you are going after. To give you an idea, during the harvest of 38 plants only 18 inches tall yielded a little over 2.25 lbs. each and every time during the three years. My next focus was not the mass, but the quality, here you introduce Co2, use organic soil and nutrients (be careful the word organic when referring to soil is an over used term), and don't forget about the length of cure. After six months it reaches it's half life and begins to degrade. So cure them for up to six moths and you will be really surprised, at least do it for one or two months minimal.
It funny how a person can forget where they left their car keys, but they don't forget what they learned from the grow experience. I started a few threads here today, would be glad to see you come by and visit; click on my bio, and pull up a chair, got a smoke report that is 15years old, and a talk about movement of plants as the sun naturally moves across the sky (why that matters).
If you get all the details done, you can achieve for the most part, just growing tops. There is little foliage, and less roots. A good example of the opposite is growing aeroponics, you have all that root mass which is a waste. Now if you run 600 watt bulbs then the canopy can be deeper, or should I say the buds longer in height before they hit the light but why do this?
My suggestion for this new grow he is questioning is make sure it is is a female first, then make clones from it. It looks like if you ut that plant in the closet under low blue light (fluorescent) it will make a good mother for clones in a month. Now you have corrected the problem with his first plant being too tall, and causing all those problems associated with that thus discouraging him during his first grow. Skip the vegetive stage of growth, and this is the key to growing lollipops that fit perfect under a smaller efficient lamp. Not let the size fool you, the sun's full strength for a 400 watt bulb is 12 inches so your coloas will be about ten or so inches tall, and about three inches wide. I looked at growing as efficiency, and the equipment and genetics dictates everything else. The buds that fall too low under the light, or off to the side outside the perimeter are called nuggets, and sure they are not garbage. But I was trying to make a point here, you want to focus on the primary coala. There is a lot of material I have read about this topic, and topping is wrong for any reasons. Just making a single cut to the main stem will result in two lesser mass colas, and the more you do this the less mass you get. It is better to just get more plants, and add their mass up to get the amount you are going after. To give you an idea, during the harvest of 38 plants only 18 inches tall yielded a little over 2.25 lbs. each and every time during the three years. My next focus was not the mass, but the quality, here you introduce Co2, use organic soil and nutrients (be careful the word organic when referring to soil is an over used term), and don't forget about the length of cure. After six months it reaches it's half life and begins to degrade. So cure them for up to six moths and you will be really surprised, at least do it for one or two months minimal.
It funny how a person can forget where they left their car keys, but they don't forget what they learned from the grow experience. I started a few threads here today, would be glad to see you come by and visit; click on my bio, and pull up a chair, got a smoke report that is 15years old, and a talk about movement of plants as the sun naturally moves across the sky (why that matters).
Chilly Willy
Member
Correction:
A lot of these strains that sound great in wording are very hard to grow, yield less, and make you want to throw your arms up into the air.
A lot of these strains that sound great in wording are very hard to grow, yield less, and make you want to throw your arms up into the air.
W
Whoscottgreen
Good luck, it's hard for us newbies
I respectfully disagree...
I respectfully disagree...
That's why I think it's beneficial to grow as many as possible. While topping you slow the main colas and allow any side branches worth keeping time to reach the canopy. I run the plant like a manifold.
Maybe you are talking about only having 400w on tap? Even still, I would focus on making multiple "primary" colas. That's where the plant puts the most energy. So long as the strain tolerates it, why not make more of them?
But you also get less mass with smaller plants, and not enough roots. But you seem to be a proponent of that?
^That aside, I haven't found topping to decrease the size of the main cola. The only thing I've noticed that does is defoliating the mains. I'm not trying to give you a hard time, I'm trying to understand your reasoning.
I think it's better to get the metabolism rocking, and get the right size pots and veg time to maximize the space you are growing in. E.g. 9 plants in 3 gallon pots, with 600w, in a 4x4 tent is too much, even though the pots fit nicely. If it's not, the person is probably doing something wrong. 4 plants is about the limit. The only reason I can think of to grow more, and smaller plants, is to avoid issues with height.
How many watts? I'm not knocking your grow style, to each his own. But I would rather grow 10 plants to capacity than have 38 18" plants. I'm not sure I've ever seen a finished plant that was 18".
Perhaps we disagree bc I'm hydro/scrog and you are soil (or whatever). But unless it's an auto, I don't find the christmas tree shape to be as productive. It's less work, that's about the only benefit I can think of. It's all love, just adding my my opinion.
This is 4 plants right here. Look how many tops...
**Edit - It might be 6 plants. The plants in the 3rd bay are Grape Diesel and look the same as Snow Diesel. But after that it's LL x Lav which looks totally different. In fact, that's very likely 6 plants, that's probably why I cut the shot that way. But you see the point. I have (should have) 24 tops from those 6 (that looks about right +/- what's not in the frame). It's way more convenient (imo) and higher yielding than 24 single plants. It also makes more efficient use of the cubic feet available vs christmas tree imo. Almost everything you said, I respectfully disagree.
I respectfully disagree...
That's why I think it's beneficial to grow as many as possible. While topping you slow the main colas and allow any side branches worth keeping time to reach the canopy. I run the plant like a manifold.
How are less roots a plus? Growth below = growth above and vice versa.
I'm not sure I understand your reasoning with this...are you asking why one would use more/stronger light? More light is almost always a positive when talking about the plants production.
Maybe you are talking about only having 400w on tap? Even still, I would focus on making multiple "primary" colas. That's where the plant puts the most energy. So long as the strain tolerates it, why not make more of them?
But you also get less mass with smaller plants, and not enough roots. But you seem to be a proponent of that?
^That aside, I haven't found topping to decrease the size of the main cola. The only thing I've noticed that does is defoliating the mains. I'm not trying to give you a hard time, I'm trying to understand your reasoning.
I think it's better to get the metabolism rocking, and get the right size pots and veg time to maximize the space you are growing in. E.g. 9 plants in 3 gallon pots, with 600w, in a 4x4 tent is too much, even though the pots fit nicely. If it's not, the person is probably doing something wrong. 4 plants is about the limit. The only reason I can think of to grow more, and smaller plants, is to avoid issues with height.
How many watts? I'm not knocking your grow style, to each his own. But I would rather grow 10 plants to capacity than have 38 18" plants. I'm not sure I've ever seen a finished plant that was 18".
Perhaps we disagree bc I'm hydro/scrog and you are soil (or whatever). But unless it's an auto, I don't find the christmas tree shape to be as productive. It's less work, that's about the only benefit I can think of. It's all love, just adding my my opinion.
This is 4 plants right here. Look how many tops...
**Edit - It might be 6 plants. The plants in the 3rd bay are Grape Diesel and look the same as Snow Diesel. But after that it's LL x Lav which looks totally different. In fact, that's very likely 6 plants, that's probably why I cut the shot that way. But you see the point. I have (should have) 24 tops from those 6 (that looks about right +/- what's not in the frame). It's way more convenient (imo) and higher yielding than 24 single plants. It also makes more efficient use of the cubic feet available vs christmas tree imo. Almost everything you said, I respectfully disagree.
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I would recommend on learning the basics before you start throwing a bunch of shit at a plant. For real. Keep it simple. Learn how to grow a healthy plant basic and than you can start to fine tune and get into top, lst, prune etc. If you don't, you'll set yourself back cause you won't know what it was that went wrong cause you will have thrown so much shit against the wall you will never figure out where u f'd up. Good luck
