My babies are 3-4 weeks old and only about 6 inches tall. Within the last week they've really starting showing rapid secondary growth. There are 4 nodes on each plant, each node with secondary growth. I want to cut the tops off just above the 4th node so that the 2 growths at that node can get light and grow. Just checking to make sure that I'm on the right track and that it's no too early.

Any what happens to the nub where I cut -- does that just heal up and stay a nub?

Attached is a pic of my most compressed-looking plant. Do my annotations make sense -- do I know what I'm doing here?

Thanks!

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0606070926.jpg (81.5 KB, 54 views)

yes it will heal and be a nub may slow growth for a bit but they will be good as new when they heal with two tops good luck

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this may just be me but i heard you have more to lose then potentially gain from topping your plants. Leaves your plants susceptible to infection/disease.

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I only top moms but have never had a problem low stress training is also an option search the forum for lst to learn more

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illmatic grower Wake & Bake Knife Hits...Life is parallel to hell but I must maintain
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that is absolutely right , IF you wait until after the plant is 10 or 12 inches tall. If the plant is still a baby, then topping would be a good thing to do, just don't do it to a mature plant. IF you just snip that very top baby growth, you will promote two tops appearing , giving you two top colas later.
If you do it now. If you wait, then topping slows and shocks it for a week.
Very experienced growers argue or debate topping or triming or pruning, but I have found there is no drawback if done early to a baby plant. There are disadvantages if done to a mature plant or 4 weeks in Hydro grow or over ten to 12 inches tall..
Good Luck bro,

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I think you need to be perfectly clear in what you're trying to achieve here and why you're trying to achieve it. Firstly, topping and FIMing plants stresses them, is it a good time to be doing that right now when they're recovering from a previous problem?

You also need to be aware that 'topping and 'FIMing' are two different techniques used for different reasons. People top plants generally to keep height down and to encourage greater lateral and side branching, which are good for taking clones from. It does this because the hormones and auxins at the growing tips switch from the top growth taken away to the side growing shoots. The plant basically gets more bushy laterally, rather than growing taller.

FIMing is a slightly different technique to 'topping' and produces a different result. To FIM a plant you take off the top growing meristem along with the emerging leaves from it. The 'FIM' cut is made higher than the 'topping' cut and it does two things: 1) it encourages the leaves cut through to form separate colas, and encourages the side shoots and growing tips to grow taller and catch up with the now slowed down top growth, so you basically get more colas, than one large central one.

The other thing to remember is that both toping and FIMing plants stresses them and it can take 1-2 weeks for the growth to resume, so you need to allow at least 1-2 weeks after topping and FIMing before flowering. Also, not all plants like to be topped and FIMed, some do and respond well to it and some don't.

If this is your first grow, my advice would be to leave well alone and let the plants grow naturally. Once you've got more experience by all means experiment with this, but you need to understand natural plant growth and what plants do when grown naturally before you can start influencing their growth behaviours in this way.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

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To add to babygro's informative post, if you insist on topping, do some research first. Not all strains respond to having there heads chopped off.

Most do, some don't. It would be nice to hear from someone who's grown the strain your growing, and say yes, it responded as expected.
Peace

The idea was to top the 4 bigger plants in order to promote secondary growth and to allow the 4 younger plants to catch up in height. I've gotta wait for the younger ones to grow enough to start flowering, so I figured why not?

By babygro is right, I should just leave these guys alone.