if a growers goal is lots of well developed female flower from a plant, just purely to maximize his yield in the shortest amount of time he can.. then how in the world does cutting any part of a plant in the early veg development make sense? topping and fiming will result in more branches sure, and a more bush like canopy.. but at around 3-5 days minimum of repair and slight risk of disease being instead of continued rapid growth being the cost.
To me it comes down to plant numbers allowable and the amount of time you wish to spend training plants. If maximising yield quickly is the goal and plant numbers is not a concern then a SOG grow ticks the boxes pretty well. Smaller plants, single cola, large numbers can do very well yield-wise.
If however youré limited to the number of plants you can have and aren't in a huge hurry to have them finish then you can have a very nice yielding harvest by using some of the training methods and tweeking nature. Yes it takes longer during veg but one well trained, healthy plant will yield more than one plant left 'natural' - within a reasonable time frame of course (not talking trees here). In my experience anyways.

I like to always use one training method or another on my girls and they respond well to anything - thats just lucky as not all plant strains will. If I'm busy and have little time then topping is very quick, easy and the girls bounce back quickly, although as its high stress training its a slower bounce back than LST. With more time I like to do LST on some, its fun and low stress on them and having a mass of tops florish in flower is pretty cool. Supercropping is pretty stressful for them but I've found the timing when doing it helps. If I pinch them just as lights go off, they've turned back up by lights on time. Its a help in keeping an even canopy and therefore making efficient use of your lighting.
All the best with your venture
rattlingdags Reviewed by rattlingdags on . just a few questions about the methods I may get to start a legal grow here soon so I'm reading up on some different things and some questions have popped up. So, first one.. if a growers goal is lots of well developed female flower from a plant, just purely to maximize his yield in the shortest amount of time he can.. then how in the world does cutting any part of a plant in the early veg development make sense? topping and fiming will result in more branches sure, and a more bush like canopy.. but at around 3-5 days minimum of Rating: 5