Hello all! First off, yes. I am a n00b and yes, this is my first grow. I’ll give all my specs if you think it’s needed but this is more of a visual opinion that’s needed.
2 gorilla glue af from ilgm. One of my plants was growing big, the other, not so much. Day 21 and 19. I decided to start lst on the little plant. Sloppy, I know. On the other plant, I was worried about bending her over for fear the leaves would be in the dirt. After watching some videos after the fact, I think I topped too much. Yes, in know you’re not supposed to top autos… thoughts??
While I have never topped, and I am also a new grower, many here have topped autos and have had great success. 4 or 5 node is where I think most do it.
I guess we’ll see, right?
Best way to learn, at least for me, is to do it - hands on!
I’ve followed threads before where people top their autos, and I’ve seen them have great success!
Your plants looking nice and healthy, I’m sure you’ll be fine.
Your plants look good. I tried to fim or top all my autos this round. They don’t mind it when they are healthy. Going to fim or top everything that I can going forward.
The only reason ppl dont top autos us bc they have such a short life already. So your taking away from grow time by topping. Bc she will need a week to recover. But… My first grow was an auto and i didny know,bag seed, i topped her and she turned out great
You had the option to grow another day or two then cut above the leaf nodes. Or, just like you did it. The important thing is how many nodes tall it is after being topped. You would like to have four or five. The plant looks healthy and vigorous so it should handle the topping well. A lot of growers top autos. Now for some LST to spread it out and take advantage of the topping
@beardless - So the whole reason I topped was because the plant was so short that I was worried the leaves would be in the dirt if I bent her over. Is that a problem?
Nice! Well, hopefully I do as well. Thanks for your insight!
Rather than bending the whole plant, you can separate the new main stems you created by topping. The lower growth points are spread out and positioned so they don’t grow into something above it.
I did this as an example some time ago. Hopefully it makes more sense than me trying to describe it.
Line 4 is the two growth tips exposed from topping the stem. #3 is the set of branches immediately below, #2 is next lower set of branches.
Without any additional topping this would create 8 main colas.
More branches than shown would be difficult to manage and separate using this LST model.
I have used this on shorter denser plants.
@beardless Liked reading those words for sure as I am in the process of creating the 8 Colas with the Autos I purchased at ILGM. I almost talked myself out of it, but going thru with the attempt as a short Squat plant is perfect for my space.
I hope it works for you. It is a straight forward example and is a good introduction to some basic LST. Topping is actually a high stress technique but done early the plant has time to recover and be productive.
