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You dont see many questions about topping on here anymore i notice...so i have one that im curious about....how many of you out there do vs dont and why......do you feel you get more yeild out of toping your plant b.c it gives off more bud sites...or do you not b.c you feel you get a large amount of yeild per plant with one large cola.....just curious...this way i can get your opinions so i can decide if i will top my babies for my 2nd grow when i start....ty all
i always top my plants, usually several times. i do get a larger yield, and it controls the hight. the only time not topping is better is a S.O.G. method. outdoors, it will also help to camoflage the plants better. plus, very large colas are more susceptible to mold, and are usually cut into smaller buds to cure any way.
i like the idea of topping the plants and thus increasing the yield but doesn't this mean that the overall time start to finish that is going to be increased as well?LST technique instead of topping isn't as good?
my first grow and i've used the LST method with a 4ft plant. i did not top the plant because at that stage i did not know about that and i was too aware of other things i had to be doing to keep it alive LOL.
my next grow here with clones i am going to top them as i don't want them too tall and to be able to see which i like better. i do believe i will top them AND apply a little bit of LST to go with it to give optimum light exposure to my topped plant.
i CAN tell you that in my plant that i did NOT top, i have at LEAST 120 bud sites. don't know if that is alot or not.
a lot or not that sounds plenty to me and real promising especially if out of these 120 budsites you manage to make a gram,on average, of dry weight from each site.... :)
yup, i would say i can count......20 that are at a size that are very good and i will be flushing in the next day or two to be able to harvest those buds and then reNUTE them until the other bud sites fatten up.
from what i realised so far, if you hurt the plant a bit (a little scratch, some tear on the stem etc.) that makes the plant produce more....i guess topping it although it produces two colas, it is one way of hurting it i suppose.....during my grow i LST them as well....in one plant i pulled it down too much.....it was bent a lot downwards and accidentally the stem was broken...not very much but a bit broken.....this plant recovered quite well, very fast and now is the best and most promising above all, even from the one with the 20 tops/branches....in my photos: http://boards.cannabis.com/showthread.php?t=14998 it is the plant in the front, right side with the big cola on top :)
ya, lst is good, and i use both methods. topping does slow down the growth for a bit, but i grow outdoors, so i have a long veg period regardless. i have also, broken branches, on accident of course, and the plant would recover fine. last year i split a plant almost in two, it was only hanging on by a thread, then i just tied it togather. the plant heald up good, but later caught some type of diesese, which i blame on the injury.
Oh man, Dylan you opened a can of worms now :D
Just kidding (i think) for some reason people seem to be pretty passionate on both sides (i don't know why)
IMHO and only my opinion I believe it doesn't really make a difference in terms of yeild, its seems to be a matter of a bunch of small buds as opposed to fewer larger buds, and lets face it the big ol juicy buds always seem more desirable. Just my .02 :D
i agree with you nosehit....big buds are more desirable, but, in the end total yield is the same....this is my first grow and i seem to have a jungle of small buds and nuggets growing everywhere.....if you take a look here : http://boards.cannabis.com/showthread.php?t=14998 what you see is only the biggest buds because the camera is a cheap one and got the pics during the light cycle standing around 4 ft away with digital zoom of 1.6x....do not really know how much my final yield will be but no matter what i get i will be very very very happy as it's going to last me between six months up to a year of smoking.....
i beg to differ, but it does depend on the type of plant. some will naturally grow branches and others are more resistant, so it can increse the yield. also, topping is better outdoors than indoors because the sum light will reach the bottom of the plant much better than HID lights. i easly get colas 10-15" long on plants topped several times. indoor, however, the buds do get quite smaller when topped, but most states punish growers for the amount of plants rather than the amount of weight, so a few plants topped could fill the same amount of space as many more plants grown S.O.G method, thus giving the grower less jail time in the worst case situation. moreover, larger buds are more susceptible to mold, and are usually cut into smaller buds to cure any way.
interesting conversations here. yes i as well have smaller buds in my big baby. but the ones on top are very nice and plump and starting to get that glistening look to them. i'm thinking of flushing for a week, then harvest the good size ones AND the ones with good pistil color change (don't have 30X microscope to see cloudiness) and then let the rest try to fill in and finish the flush. i'm going to try a top off on my next grow so i can have first hand experience.
topping/pinching is a good thing but it must be done early or well before flowering...preferably early.
i top once (and only once) at the 3rd or 4th node then veg for another 6 weeks minimum before flowering begins.
thanks for all your opinions guys...alotta good converstation and different views from different growers...does anyone have a decent pic of a plant that HAS NOT been toped and is close to harvest ?....thanks for participating all
in this picture ,even though it is low quality, i drawed with the red line the two diggerent plants i have that are going to be harvested within 10 days.....the one on the left was LST only once, from one side so as to reduce the height....then it was released after being tied down for almost two weeks.....the other plant on the right is the one that had broken stem and recovered....big colas are great , oh well, even a large number of small buds makes me happy....same strain different height and same yield more or less
:)
It depends. Sog is high yielding and you don't top at all, Scrog is also high yielding and you usually have to top it quite a bit. The end goal is just getting more budsites in an even canopy so they get more light. It also depends on light setup, a vertical setup and horizontal setup throw light differently.
Training, topping, sog, scrog, pruning are all just different techniques to direct the plants energy into making an appropriate canopy to make the best use of your light setup. Coli's are freakin cool.