Has anyone experimented with topping your plants multiple times before flipping to flower? I topped once already, and it grew beautiful branches, but it’s getting too tall again lol. Will topping help reduce the height? It’s already a 3 and a half foot plant. And my tent is only 6ft tall, I’d like to have at least 18 inches from the light to the plant to prevent any burning or stress. Especially the fact that the plant will double in size in flower. There is these new colas that grew from the first topping, can i top those colas too?
I’m just trying to figure out ways to keep the height to a minimum, but have a nice, more wide canopy.
I always top 2 to 3 times.
Look into supercropping. That’s about all you can do this round. For next run, look into LST techniques. Once you top, bend the branches down and out, let the lower branches catch up to the upper branches. Results in a nice even low canopy
Agree…best way to get a noce bushy plant…plants tend to thrive after topping
After I top my plants the first time and start LST, once the bottom branches turn upward and reach the upper ones and the canopy is fairly even, I FIM top every branch that’ll be a cola. That’s what works for me to get a low even canopy.
Start of LST
Canopy evens out and FIM topping method
Stretch going into flower
Flower time
This is my method of training that I have found works for me. Not intended to be a definitive guide.
Just give them time to recover before the flip and you’ll create a bushier weed lol.
Cannabis plants have a strong central leader. One dominant stem - an attribute that is called apical dominance. The main stem is cut to divide the dominance between what is now 2 stems. Mere topping does not redirect the growth hormones. Topping just slows them down for a couple of days. What you are missing is LST. The two new stems needed to bent and lowered to the height of the rest of the plant. With this done, the growth hormones are more evenly distributed to other parts of the plant rather than mostly the main stems.
Training 101
I assume the plant is a photo and not an autoflower. You can cut off as much of the tall stems as you want. I’d cut them down to the same height as the rest of the plant. Let it recover. Then keep an eye on the cut stems and tie them down to the side if they start to take off again. Then flip and keep doing LST during the stretch
you can see where this plant was topped the 2nd time - at both end
In theory you could keep one in veg for years and top it a hundred times if you wanted to. Wouldn’t recommend it though. I’ve topped plants twice many times. Three or four times is probably about as much as practicality allows for if you want to stay on a normal time frame for your grow. More topping means more bud sites if you ask me.
I’ve found topping once and then dropping a net on her works well for me in a 2x4 tent.
@Adtr.bran Great advice from the other cultivators and the goal is an even canopy like @Spudgunner showed in the pic. I see 2 options and will depend on how rigid the stem/stems are. You could super crop or bend and tie them down to let the lower bud sites catch up as much as possible
Wow thank you so much for this info!
The picture you’ve posted of your topped plant. You can cut it down that much and it’ll still grow?
That’s insane lol.
I would love to see the end result from that 2nd topping if you got a picture
That’s really neat that they can recover from being topped that low.
Id love to get myself a trellis net. I think it would help a lot. But I don’t know how big they are, I only have a 3x3x6 tent.
Could I cut it into different sizes like you can with plant shade neting?
I picked up some green plant ties from Amazon, I would love to train my plant, I was told that it’s too late to train by someone I know, but I don’t really believe that lol.
I believe plants can be trained at any point.
You should be able to buy a 3x3 net or make one. As the plant matures it can become difficult to train as the stems harden up too much.
I’m sorry. That is the stem after I harvested the plant. I meant for it show that a plant can easily be topped twice.
This is the same plant shortly after it was topped the 2nd time. It was pruned to what is commonly referred to as a Nebula Manifold. #1 is the first topping which creates the manifold ( T shape).
#2 shows the 2nd topping.
However, you can see that the plant is still alive. I could have actually let it reveg (live and grow new branches etc). People do it but that is not something I want to spend time on.
Oh awesome, thank you for this info.
This last pic helps a lot.
I think I’ll give my plant another topping on those 2 branches that grew from the first topping !
Beautiful LST my friend!!!