To Top Or Not To Top?

JbirdKushman · Jul 10, 2017

These are some GG#4 x Animal Cookies from seeds that I bred earlier this season when I put some plants out too early with a Male. Got em in 7 gal fabric pots that I only filled with 4-5 gal of soil. All looking great. I was planning on not topping any of these. Lmk what y'all think

Crop Duster · Jul 10, 2017

I vote for a topping.

DrMcSkunkins · Jul 10, 2017

I would top them leaving 2 or 3 nodes behind and then poke the cutting down in some coco or a root plug and save the cuts for after I sampled to see which one was gonna be a mommy and which were gonna just get flowered out again.

tinderthumbs · Jul 10, 2017

plants them selfs have a chem in them if u do not top them that chem stops the other buds from growing out so u want to top so the chem is moved around to more tops making the plants foces on making all tops growing big in strong

GanjaNGains · Jul 11, 2017

JbirdKushman said:
These are some GG#4 x Animal Cookies from seeds that I bred earlier this season when I put some plants out too early with a Male. Got em in 7 gal fabric pots that I only filled with 4-5 gal of soil. All looking great. I was planning on not topping any of these. Lmk what y'all think

Top ant least twice

JbirdKushman · Aug 11, 2017

GanjaNGains said:
Top ant least twice

Great advice, these plants have taught me that it's important to top as needed to provide the plant with the most beneficial frame for a heavy harvest. I'm sure as I continue to learn I will start to pick up on just what exactly that frame is.

Here is some current progress pics, 3/5 turned out to be dudes so I'm left with two beauties.

GanjaNGains · Aug 11, 2017

JbirdKushman said:
Great advice, these plants have taught me that it's important to top as needed to provide the plant with the most beneficial frame for a heavy harvest. I'm sure as I continue to learn I will start to pick up on just what exactly that frame is.

Here is some current progress pics, 3/5 turned out to be dudes so I'm left with two beauties.

3/5 that is a bummer but ya man just keep developing your green thumb and it will come good vibes your way

OldManRiver · Aug 11, 2017

I don't like to top outdoor plants. In my experience, they tend to branch just fine. In the pics below, the left two plants were topped once at about a foot tall, the right four plants were not (they were LST'd a bit). You can see that the un-topped plants are generally larger. You can LST them to encourage side growth if you want. I think you get the best yields if you let the plant do what it wants. This is for outside.

Those are 8 foot stakes, for scale.

below frigid · Aug 11, 2017

JbirdKushman said:
Great advice, these plants have taught me that it's important to top as needed to provide the plant with the most beneficial frame for a heavy harvest. I'm sure as I continue to learn I will start to pick up on just what exactly that frame is.

Here is some current progress pics, 3/5 turned out to be dudes so I'm left with two beauties.

When your only cracking 5 seeds it's a roll of the dice. Most times I average about 60 % female but I crack over 100 seeds. 2 out of 5 is not bad, it could be worse if you were really not lucky. I always crack about 20 extra just to be safe. I never top my outdoor plants. https://www.thcfarmer.com/community/threads/below-frigids-2014.63072/

JbirdKushman · Aug 11, 2017

GanjaNGains said:
3/5 that is a bummer but ya man just keep developing your green thumb and it will come good vibes your way

Aye if it was baseball I'd be hitting .400 with my female rate which is a HOF average so I'm not too upset. All about learning for me anyways. I love growing from seed because of the vigor of growth and symmetry but I'm getting a couple more clones today to make up for the males.

JbirdKushman · Aug 11, 2017

below frigid said:
When your only cracking 5 seeds it's a roll of the dice. Most times I average about 60 % female but I crack over 100 seeds. 2 out of 5 is not bad, it could be worse if you were really not lucky. I always crack about 20 extra just to be safe. I never top my outdoor plants. https://www.thcfarmer.com/community/threads/below-frigids-2014.63072/

I germinated over 100 seeds and selected the best of the best to go into these 7 gal pots. I have another garden where I put the plants that weren't "special pot" worthy.

JbirdKushman · Aug 11, 2017

OldManRiver said:
I don't like to top outdoor plants. In my experience, they tend to branch just fine. In the pics below, the left two plants were topped once at about a foot tall, the right four plants were not (they were LST'd a bit). You can see that the un-topped plants are generally larger. You can LST them to encourage side growth if you want. I think you get the best yields if you let the plant do what it wants. This is for outside.

Those are 8 foot stakes, for scale.

Looks really nice my man, what strains, and when did you start those babies?

OldManRiver · Aug 11, 2017

JbirdKushman said:
Looks really nice my man, what strains, and when did you start those babies?

Those are four white widows on the left, two AK48's on the right, all from Nirvana Seeds. They were started indoors on 3-20, put outside about 4-20.

GanjaNGains · Aug 11, 2017

JbirdKushman said:
Aye if it was baseball I'd be hitting .400 with my female rate which is a HOF average so I'm not too upset. All about learning for me anyways. I love growing from seed because of the vigor of growth and symmetry but I'm getting a couple more clones today to make up for the males.

I had only 4 of 12 seeds turn out to be females on my last batch but that's the roll of the dice. Absolutely it's all about learning my friend knowledge comes with time and experimentation keep it up all looks really good (thumbs up)

JbirdKushman · Aug 11, 2017

GanjaNGains said:
I had only 4 of 12 seeds turn out to be females on my last batch but that's the roll of the dice. Absolutely it's all about learning my friend knowledge comes with time and experimentation keep it up all looks really good (thumbs up)

I appreciate the feedback and support brotha. Always looking to learn from others especially a SoCal guy like yourself figuring I'm in San Diego so we encounter similar things.

GanjaNGains · Aug 12, 2017

JbirdKushman said:
I appreciate the feedback and support brotha. Always looking to learn from others especially a SoCal guy like yourself figuring I'm in San Diego so we encounter similar things.

Used to live there im bout an hour out from SD now. Although my knowledge is limited I'm happy to share ( thumbs up son)

OldManRiver · Sep 26, 2017

OldManRiver said:
Those are four white widows on the left, two AK48's on the right, all from Nirvana Seeds. They were started indoors on 3-20, put outside about 4-20.

Current pics. I submit that topping is not necessary.

BudBogart · Sep 26, 2017

OldManRiver said:
Current pics. I submit that topping is not necessary.

Remember a lot of us have fences and neighbors to consider.
Your plants, however, are looking absolutely awesome.
On topping plants you intend to grow big, topping the plant after the 3-5th node, as is popular with indoor grows creates a "Y" that will tend to split like a wishbone when the two branches get heavy enough.

To Top Or Not To Top?

JbirdKushman

Crop Duster

DrMcSkunkins

Dabbling in Oil

tinderthumbs

GanjaNGains

JbirdKushman

GanjaNGains

OldManRiver

below frigid

JbirdKushman

JbirdKushman

JbirdKushman

OldManRiver

GanjaNGains

JbirdKushman

GanjaNGains

OldManRiver

BudBogart

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