Topping buds to gain massive density

[Spinme]

If you cut off a cola tip the lower buds grow out of control just like topping in veg.
Do it when streatch is all the way over and buds swell like crazy

 

[farmerlion]

Topping/super cropping plants raises plant alkalinity and causes nutritional deficiencies. It doesn't make buds bigger or produce more buds. If this process worked in the plant or animal kingdom. Why aren't men standing in line to get a second or third circumcision???

Take your time while you ponder this obvious answer.
Peace brother

 

[Creeperpark]

Topping/super cropping plants raises plant alkalinity and causes nutritional deficiencies is very important to know. There's also a loss of time in the growing cycle due to the recovery that the plant has to make. One can gently tie the top to the side to induce side branching without any downtime.

 

[chilliwilli]

There was a grower here who did this and claimed that some of the monster headbud plants that are used to advertise seeds are grown that way. But u only have a small and strain dependend time window where u have a positve effect and are not stunning the flower production.

Never tried topping while flowering but i always topped my plants early and didn't question that. Until i saw the reaction of bending down the mainstem. With bending there is no stunning of the growth and the plants end up bigger in the same veg time.

 

[vtgirl]

Topping/super cropping plants raises plant alkalinity and causes nutritional deficiencies. It doesn't make buds bigger or produce more buds. If this process worked in the plant or animal kingdom. Why aren't men standing in line to get a second or third circumcision???

Take your time while you ponder this obvious answer.
Peace brother

Fair enough......

Can one harvest as the plant matures towards senescence? Can morE mature top flowers be harvested without bad things happening and allow lowers to get mature?

 

[GoatCheese]

Fair enough......

Can one harvest as the plant matures towards senescence? Can morE mature top flowers be harvested without bad things happening and allow lowers to get mature?

Usually there’s stress for the plant when you remove alot of plant material off it at once and the growth may stun abit, but alot of people do that if they feel it’s worth to let the bottom flowers to ripen more.

 

[vtgirl]

I only ask because I've never paid attention to if any of the hundreds of plants I grew ever hit senescence all at once. I mean sure the lower canopy is smaller cause of light penetration (never lst before ) but they aren't chronologically that much "younger" then the bigger apical flowers I'd imagine

 

[farmerlion]

Vtgirl, thank you for the question. The real issue is this practice started in Scrog type grows, be it in soil or hydroponics. For screen grows this technique has merits.

When this technique is used on indoor grows in a continual harvest scenario. The plant isn't thriving, it's fighting for the life of the seed it's hoping to make.

It will gain some mass to the lower bud areas as the upper branches have been trimmed away for light penetration. The hormones of the plant has switched back to vegetative fiber production.

Your plant doesn't and won't produce more leaves than it needs for optimal growth. There are some strains like Lebanese that have a higher leaf ratio than say a equatorial Thai. This is due to sun angle and elevation.
. This situation for indoor growers can be avoided to some degree by studying your genetics more closely before germination. This is part of maximizing the potential of your growing environmental conditions.

This might not be the answer you wanted, but it is the root cause of what you are experiencing. The technique used for scrog/screen grows is a effort to fix a symptom not the real issue.

I hope this helps you in the future with your genetics selections.
Peace farmerlion

 

[f-e]

I know a lot of people do tops then bottoms. Usually a couple of weeks later. If you veg for weeks then flower for months, then your daily production isn't perhaps the best. In which case, them two weeks might produce a reasonable amount. Especially if your cuttings are not ready to use the space anyway.
For me, those two weeks are over 25% of a cycle. I would need 25% more bud out the room, grown on the bottoms in those 2 weeks. There just isn't the potential to do that. My daily output is to great be me stalled waiting for the bottoms. I shouldn't grow them at all.

With regard to pinching and training, you really want to identify your tops while there are a few days of veg left. We can't be changing our minds during flower. Putting well established leads into second place, behind tops that never got the supporting branching formed during veg and stretch.

 

[Switcher56]

I know a lot of people do tops then bottoms. Usually a couple of weeks later. If you veg for weeks then flower for months, then your daily production isn't perhaps the best. In which case, them two weeks might produce a reasonable amount. Especially if your cuttings are not ready to use the space anyway.
For me, those two weeks are over 25% of a cycle. I would need 25% more bud out the room, grown on the bottoms in those 2 weeks. There just isn't the potential to do that. My daily output is to great be me stalled waiting for the bottoms. I shouldn't grow them at all.

With regard to pinching and training, you really want to identify your tops while there are a few days of veg left. We can't be changing our minds during flower. Putting well established leads into second place, behind tops that never got the supporting branching formed during veg and stretch.

Is that because you are caught on the "hamster wheel" e.g perpetual growing? Whereas, if time wasn't a constraint, would you revisit the comment made herein? I grow for only myself and therefore I am not on what I would call a constrained/artificial schedule if that makes sense. The only thing that constrains me is the summer months here, where I have restricted growing because of climate. As climate is a constant state of flux, from a period of late May to mid June even to the end of June we are usually safe, as mid Aug to end Aug before I start my fall run. This particular run is is the catalyst of the entire growing season, because if I am late starting I will be late finishing in June, which in turn can be problematic some years.

 

[flylowgethigh]

There was a grower here who did this and claimed that some of the monster headbud plants that are used to advertise seeds are grown that way. But u only have a small and strain dependend time window where u have a positve effect and are not stunning the flower production.

Never tried topping while flowering but i always topped my plants early and didn't question that. Until i saw the reaction of bending down the mainstem. With bending there is no stunning of the growth and the plants end up bigger in the same veg time.

I am doing the bend the main cola trick this run #4 in one tent. What is strange is the top colas on the main stems, off at the sides of the tent, aren't dominant. I may SCROG what has grown up above the lower net, so the canopy can even out. What is under the lower net gets trimmed off.

There are two plants here:



In the other tent are 4 plants I will top when the tops show that they are ready, and let the lowers have more time. No rush as Switcher said, just my own stash.



Looking back at my first grow diary, I am kinda amazed it is less than a year since I have set up these tents last March. 2021 has been a crazy long year with a decade of BS crammed into one. My biggest lesson learned has been:

You have to roll with the situation, and adapt to the circumstances.

 

[chilliwilli]

flylowgethigh Try to bend early. One grower i know always got a nice mainbud with bending after ~10-14d veg under sanlight leds. He use pipe cleaner for this to not harm the plant.
i grow under a wire mesh so i bend when the plant hits the net.

 

[f-e]

Is that because you are caught on the "hamster wheel" e.g perpetual growing? Whereas, if time wasn't a constraint, would you revisit the comment made herein? I grow for only myself and therefore I am not on what I would call a constrained/artificial schedule if that makes sense. The only thing that constrains me is the summer months here, where I have restricted growing because of climate. As climate is a constant state of flux, from a period of late May to mid June even to the end of June we are usually safe, as mid Aug to end Aug before I start my fall run. This particular run is is the catalyst of the entire growing season, because if I am late starting I will be late finishing in June, which in turn can be problematic some years.

Yes I must maximise production within my space. It's space (and count) that effect the outcome in court where growing is illegal. While you have a window of time you must crop within, which isn't so constrained.

Their are other logistics at play. Moments before I go 12/12 I take cuttings for the next crop. In true hamster wheel fashion, they sit in a prop while my veg space is used to dry the crop that just came out. I get two weeks rooting/drying time, before that space becomes veg again. I can't veg for over 6 weeks, it's an eternity. So the flowering plants have to come out, as the wheel turns perpetually. From prop, to veg, to bloom. With the veg space servings as drying space. The only unproductive space I have is when my prop is empty.

Here in the UK you can't rely on the cuttings guys.

 

[Switcher56]

Yes I must maximise production within my space. It's space (and count) that effect the outcome in court where growing is illegal. While you have a window of time you must crop within, which isn't so constrained.

Their are other logistics at play. Moments before I go 12/12 I take cuttings for the next crop. In true hamster wheel fashion, they sit in a prop while my veg space is used to dry the crop that just came out. I get two weeks rooting/drying time, before that space becomes veg again. I can't veg for over 6 weeks, it's an eternity. So the flowering plants have to come out, as the wheel turns perpetually. From prop, to veg, to bloom. With the veg space servings as drying space. The only unproductive space I have is when my prop is empty.

Here in the UK you can't rely on the cuttings guys.

That's what I thought good buddy. Everyone's circumstances are different as every strain is different. It is whatever works for you. If you remember our conversation of the run before last, I said I would modify my light settings due to tip burn. I did and as presumed it worked out during the last run. Because I was growing Ringo and the King Louis (new strains) I was expecting more from my last run, but after checking out the mfr specs, I was pretty much on for Ringo, but the King although dense buds only produced 1/2 what the mfr stated (which should be taken with a grain of salt. It did not like being manifolded (note to self for next time). But no light burn

Later...

 

[Greenheart]

I kind of saw a different question here in this old skeleton that surfaced.

Did anyone else understand the OP to mean something more like nip the tip so the sides swell up to compensate? Meaning the tips of individual forming buds causing them to do something akin to branching instead of stacking. I might have to play with this if I ever get my shit together and bloom something.

 

[Bigdumb]

I kind of saw a different question here in this old skeleton that surfaced.

Did anyone else understand the OP to mean something more like nip the tip so the sides swell up to compensate? Meaning the tips of individual forming buds causing them to do something akin to branching instead of stacking. I might have to play with this if I ever get my shit together and bloom something.

Yeah, just the top 1/8” of the buds, all around, it’s called back building.

 

[Creeperpark]

Fair enough......

Can one harvest as the plant matures towards senescence? Can morE mature top flowers be harvested without bad things happening and allow lowers to get mature?

Take it off the bottom and never the top for samples.