The goal of topping and fimming is to stop the main stem growth, so the plant will divert and evenly distribute its energy, nutrients and growth to the existing branches. These techniques should result in more than 1 top cola.

Topping should give you 2 new top colas while fimming should give you 4 new top colas. You can see from this diagram that new tops are grown from the top internode space.

This is 1 day after I fimmed my plant. If you look closely you can see the main stem was not cut during the fim cut. (Fuck I missed) I think the goal is to stop the main stem growth, so you can take full advantage of the hormone change in the plant, but if you don’t stop the main stem growth then that’s okay you should still get some type of result from it. (Although I don’t think the hormone change is near as drastic because the main stem is still intact, but still enough to allow the closest internode growth to catch up to the main stem growth) This is why they call it fuck I missed because sometimes you miss the main stem when the goal is to cut it. Either way it gives a result. If the main stem is missed during the fim cut then the main stem will continue growing out, but I would still consider it a successful fim because the internode growth has time to catch up to the main stem growth which gives it 3 top colas instead of 1 top cola. I did not want to keep the main stem growing though so this is what I did..



3 days after I fimmed I plucked the center out of the cola perfectly which stopped the main stem growth. I did this carefully because I didn’t want to damage the internode growth - it was very very very tiny at this time. I could barely see them there, but they were there for sure. The internode growth grew out and now I have 4 new top colas. The pictures above are 2 days after I plucked the main stem growth out. If you look closely you can see the internode growth that turned into my 4 new tops.

The reason fimming should give you 4 is because the new node growth on the main stem is very close to the previous node growth, so the internode growth on the 2 nodes close together are able to grow out at the same time with an even distribution of energy, nutrients and growth. Look at the topping vs fimming diagram above to get a good grasp of this.

This is what those 4 new tops look like in my plant today.

You can clearly see the 4 new top colas, and the other 3 colas are from lower nodes that grew out healthy and strong from stopping the main stem growth. Remember when you stop the main stem growth the plant hormones kick in and tell the plant to divert its energy, nutrients and growth to existing branches. The hormone change was very noticeable in my plant. I have 7 healthy colas.

If you miss the main stem during a fim it is still considered a successful fim because the hormones in the plant change enough to tell the plant to divert energy, nutrients and growth to the internode growth. This internode growth catches up to the main stem growth, so you end up with 3 tops instead of 1.

I prefer to stop the main stem growth when 2 nodes are close together, so that the 4 internodes grow out at the same time resulting in 4 new top colas. If you look at it like this then you see there really isn’t a huge difference between topping and fimming. The biggest difference is when you fim you stop the main stem growth when 2 nodes are really close together as opposed to stopping the main stem growth when 2 nodes are farther apart. (Topping)

In conclusion these techniques come down to stopping/stunting the main stem growth, so the plant will divert its energy to the internode growth.