So I have been hearing and reading a lot about lollipopping plants lately. (where one cuts the buttom 4-6 branches away to allow the plant to put more energy to top of plant)

The timing of this seems to be crucial because if you trim the bottom branches too soon you could cause the plant to grow taller than it normally would?

When is a good time to do this? I was thinking maybe two weeks into the bud stage so the plant cant react to it by growing more, but also dont want to allow the plant any time to put energy into those small weak buds on the bottom.

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i would do it the week before u start flowering, so that its healed before its
worrying about growing buds, hope that helps

Look at uncle bens posts

I liked Uncle Ben's Post, thank you for pointing me there. It gave useful tips on acheiving four cola tops instead of one, but I did not find too much specific regarding the technique of lollipopping. If anyone else has any insight on this much is appreciated.

I have heard to go up to 1/3 of the plants base, another thing I have heard is to clip everything that doesnt represent the top canopy.

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2 weeks before flower and up to 4 weeks into flower.

Here are the results I got lollipopping gigabud:


I stripped 10" - 12" of growth off the bottom by the way. If you're like only penetrates 20 inches, and the plant is 40" tall, then the bottom 10" is wasted plant energy.

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yup yup...best to do it when there smaller..or bigger... like flower at 12 inchs..clear out the lower 5 to 6 inchs of the plant and the top will form one big bud and yo uwont get that fluffy pop corn bud that doesnt do anything

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if any can offer advice it's appreciated . I lost all the bottom leafs off a 7 foot brazilian Big Bud plant to some nasty rabbits .Evasive action has been taken to stop any more critter damage . The top of the plant seems to be "lolly popping " better than I expected and am wondering if I should cut all the lower branches back to the stem as the critters just pulled off the leafs ( along with leaving the budding flowers in the dirt . Plant has survived but is valuable energy still being routed into these leaf less branches on the bottom ? Thanks for any advice .

Great pictures my brotha! This is exactly what I am talking about, and its great to see some proof in the pudding too!

I did not lollipop enough this grow and I have ended up with some small popcorn buds again on a few of the bottom branches of my largest plant. I didn't want to go overboard, but with this experience as well as advice like yours it seems a few more inches up next time around and I will be golden.

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I trigger flowering at about 24", so next time I will go ahead and lollipop at LEAST 12" up from the bottom of the plant as a rule of thumb. This time I did about 8-9" and it just wasnt enough. Only a few, but spindly branches none the less, do exist on the bottom of the plant. I have collected some pollen, which I plan on using to pollinate a few select buds at the bottom of the plant towards the end of the grow.

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Greencross:

Your time frame of 2 weeks before flowering and 4 weeks into flowering is a pretty long duration to choose when to lollipop.

I really liked your results, I was wondering what factors lead you to choose when exactly during that time period to begin lollipopping.
OR
Are you suggesting to lollipop off spindly branches during that entire phase?

Thanks much for your help in this post, its been great.

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