I am getting ready to start my second grow and I have come across an intriguing article on manifolding vs mainlining.
I am curious to get peoples opinion before I start.
I am not to experienced, but I think this could work and save some time .
What you y’all think!
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Mainlining or manifolding actually greatly increase veg time.
To clarify: save me some time training lol
I concur with @BobbyDigital
If your limited to 2-4’ of overall height then go for it but otherwise it’s not a technique to use for production
Hmmm the research shows similar grow size and says account for over two feet tall plants . y’all don’t think this is plausible ?
I’m not trying to be argumentative. Just trying to spark input 
It’s not only plausible but it’s something a lot of growers do and get great results. It does add a bunch of time to the grow though.
Time one may not have, if they’re growing an autoflower variety.
Or if you don’t want to sit in veg for 4 months
One tip I’ve learned when topping is to leave a nub of 1" or so of stem above the node you are topping to. All of the nub will not die off and it helps the plant develop a solid knuckle more quickly than a plant that has been topped down as close as possible to the node.
They way the blog made it seem That it was pretty quick. That is why ask on here
I also did this
Of course they did, and didn’t explain there’s a 2-3 week time between tying down and topping the next tier to do it all over again
And this is why I explore feedback. Thank you sir
I found out the hard way my first time. I ended up splitting damn near the whole stalk. Saved it though and got over 14 good ounces
Yeah, I learned the hard way too. I split a stalk in half trying to train the 2 new mains.
I saved mine too. I just put a few drops of honey on the wound, propped the halves together as best as I could, and the next day it was fine. Two weeks later it was like nothing had happened. Strong little suckers, aren’t they?
It’s a great technique. I use it but I only top twice at beginning. Then top the tallest colas a week or so pre flower. 3 consecutive tops slows growth too much . But totally worth doing if you want to wait longer to flower.
Edit: typos
@BobbyDigital
@PharmerBob
@KeystoneCops
@MidwestGuy
How long is the extra wait and is it worth it?
I have other questions as well…
I understand that manifolding is simply topping a plant twice. I took my most recent 2 plants and topped them once and FIMed them once, which is similar since they’re both HST and take some recovery time. I was still able to flip them at 7 weeks.
Every time I’ve HSTed a plant it took about 5 days for the plant to recover and show vigorous growth again. The one exception I’ve experienced is with supercropping. Every time I’ve supercropped a plant it would just kept on trucking like nothing had happened.
The few days wait is worth it, imo. I’ve got 2 girls in flower now and I hope to get between 4 and 6 colas off of each (as opposed to 1.) That’s worth 10 days of wait time to me.
Here are my current girls. They look small, but they’ll produce. I put a lot of light on my plants and it produces short, dense plants. They are really compact, so I defoliate and train quite a bit.
Well, it’s a little more than that. First you have to let the plant grow to around 5 or 6 nodes, then you basically chop it in half. Then she has to recover and let her two new mains grow out. Then you top those. Now she has four mains. Four main colas aren’t going to yield much so you let those mains grow out and top them. You can stop there if you want, but who wants 8 main colas when you can have 16? Start the process again, lol. Now is 16 enough? You’ve vegged this long; what’s one more topping? Another week and 32 mains, lets do it, lol.
Really depends on how well that particular plant recovers. Some plants scoff at toppings and keep chugging along. Other plants are like “yo, WTF man?!” Also depends how many main colas you’re wanting. After each topping, you’re looking at a week or two before the new mains grow enough to be topped again.
