The result of FIM'ing vs. topping

Can someone tell me what different effect on the plants these two procedures have?

I've seen exactly how each procedure is performed, but I want to know what the difference is in the ultimate effect to the plant! My understanding of topping is that when you top the plant, growth focuses on the sidebranches and you get two smaller colas instead of one large one. For FIM'ing, I assume growth focuses on the side branches as well (maybe to a lesser extent), but what happens to the cola(s)?

What is the advantage of FIM'ing over topping?

FIM has the capability of producing multiple tops with one cut. Traditional topping usually results in the 2 nodes just under the cut becoming tops.

A week or so after the FIM you may notice 5 or 6 branches competing to be the main top where with traditional it's usually just 2 tops.

That is the difference as far as my experience has shown, I would be interested to hear others experience with it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by irydyum

FIM has the capability of producing multiple tops with one cut. Traditional topping usually results in the 2 nodes just under the cut becoming tops.

A week or so after the FIM you may notice 5 or 6 branches competing to be the main top where with traditional it's usually just 2 tops.

That is the difference as far as my experience has shown, I would be interested to hear others experience with it.

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As an experiment I fimmed (I never know how to conjugate made up words) 2 of my current grow, and each ended up with 4 main tops. Ironically though, it seems as if they are quite a bit smaller than the main colas on the plants that were not cut. How it all adds up in terms of weight I don't know. The plant that actually looks to have the most bud weight so far is actually one that developed (on its own, apparently) 2 main stems early on in veg. They stayed the same height and now both main stems have buds as big as the main cola on plants with only one. Weird.

My first real grow i wanted to try and top one plant for experience. I really thought i was topping, but while reading, i discovered that i had fimmed my plant. Well, my mistake earned me 7 tops. Not small ones, but good size tops. I will post a pic of what it looked like. I believe it was at the third or forth node that i fimmed and this was grown in a flower tray, so if it had been in the ground, i believe it would have gotten even bigger. IMO, fimming is the way to go, but i haven't topped correctly. But with my result, id go back this year with the same technique.

This was my fimmed plant. Trying to show where i fimmed them, the tops and the frosty big bud the method did for me. I hope this helps as a pic can sometime help me to understand techniques iv never tried. Shows what it can do, but as a topping im unsure, like i said i thought this was a top.

But, irydyum helped me a bunch last summer and taught me a lot, so if ya got him chimming in, your in good hands:thumbsup:. I think if you open the second pic you can see at about a foot into growth is where the extra branches took off.

BTW this was some really crappy bagseed, but was all i had. Thing is, after i grew it out couch lock for sure, so must of had good genetics in it:D

:rasta:

Thanks guys.

This sounds like the easiest way to keep 'em low and bushy without delving into LST, SCROG, etc.

I read somewhere the other day that the effectiveness of topping is strain-dependent... that was kinda interesting. I didn't think it would matter much as all plants would recover from injury. They said blueberry was a strain that thrived on topping. What are some other topping friendly familys/strains?

I grew AK47 last year and am doing the same again this year, I tried to FIM last year but I missed and topped them, I've done the same this year and I know that 3 of the 4 plants have FIM'ed ok (have 4 shoots). I don't know if its gonna stress them into being male or not yet but last years topping produced 50% M/F which i guess is right as I never bought feminized seeds.
my temps go quite low and a couple of occasions the lights went out for 12+ hours when supposed to be on (having wind as primary energy has its downfalls) so to sum up... AK47 does seem like quite a forgiving/hardy strain in my opinion.:)

Opps, I meant AK48.

Even though I am still experimenting with essentially this, I see no real difference when it becomes a fim and I top.

I have learned that sativa genotypes really produce well and stay shorter if topped or Fimmed.......but the colas are smaller. Indica genotypes do better without trimming.

I top mainly for height considerations as I grow about 8-10 different indica and sativa genotypes, and keep a constant cycle going, so I want my canopy in the flower room to be fairly consistent.

Some genotypes will do better, some will do worse with the fim or trim methods