Uncle Ben's Topping Technique to Get 2 or 4 Main Colas

IIm sure it has been said somewhere in this thread, but I like to top four the 4 main colas, then tie them down, you end up with about 8-10 tops all at the same height which works well for smaller grow lights like CFL's or low watt HID's.

can you top so there are 4 and then top it agian to get even more top colas?
Side question - what are some ideal temperatures for vegging and for flowering

woomeister has a good, true point. on my first grow i had 1 100 watt hps for floweringover 2 plants and flowering took about 4 months. it took so long, the female plants started to fertilize themselves and make seeds. on my second i had a 400 watt hps and flowering took maybe a month and a half. with much denser buds, and it was the same strain, and about the same height. ive topped before, and maybe i did it wrong, but the 2 buds put together weighed almost the same as an identical plant that i didnt top's one bud.
im not saying topping dosnt help, because it was my first grow, i waited til maybe the 10th node. but human intervention definitly will lengthen the flowering time.
my point is, try to make ur grow as natural as possible.try organics maybe? i will top again on my current grow and in a few months, check for a thread by me and ill post pics on the yeild of a topped plant and a non-topped plant.

Yeah Ive found the best way is to grow to 7 nodes, top at the 2nd node and then tie down for an even canopy with 4 dominant colas, it yields more, not to mention the plant just looks so much more bad ass, peace every1

I'm starting to wonder if topping or any kind of training is all that great. I've been seeing a bunch of untopped outdoor plants on the forum that have 10+ or 20+ huge 15-20inch colas. Is topping useless for outdoors?

I have four main stems going since I topped my plants. Side growth has gone nuts and I have four thick stems curling upward with more nodes popping. The plants look great. I had to slightly increase nutes because with 4 main stems going, it requires more energy.

Check out my pic of a runt that was topped about 10 days ago. You can see the 4 main stems growing and no more growth from the center. It has transferred to the 4 colas.

Naturally, this plant needs more nutrition, it is growing 4 tops!

Theres alot of old timers that will swear by not touching your plants at all, dont even pick off dead leaves. My friend and I have a sizeable outdoor medical garden, we've been growing outdoors for almost 10years now, so between us both we have tried alot of different techniques. Alot of it depends on the strain and how it grows, what and how it responds to a given technique and what your trying to accomplish. Ive taken the same strain and let it grow and do its thing, while pinching(fim'ing) the shit out of other ones and besides the look Ive never noticed any sort of signifigant difference or patterns in the yield. For me the most important factor for outdoor plants is the having the garden where it will recieve the absolute most sunlight possible, while also providing the plant with the most space for its roots to spread and giving it the maximum amount of food that the particular strain can handle, so alot is strain specific. Ive always dug big ass holes and back filled them with my own blend of organic's or soil compounds, but Im quickly becoming a much bigger fan of 100% organic grows cause the biggest plants Ive seen are always pure organic, and Im talking about 10+lb plants, huge 15ft monster bushes. I saw a picture of the biggest plant of the year last year, over 17lbs of dried product, never could find out the strain, trust me I tried everything I could to try and figure it out with no success, I believe it was in an issue of high times but I could be wrong. One thing for sure is I do alot more training, topping, fimming etc. for plants indoors to maximize space, but Ive only been growing indoors for almost 2yrs now and Im just now getting everything dialed to where it needs to be, although I just lost a cycle to mites that I battled for weeks before I finally threw in the towel, so now Im remodeling and adding on, so I'll eventually have over double the sq. footage I do now, plus a seperate vegging room, so I can have a true perpetual garden going, instead of grow tents and closets.

Forgot about super cropping, that is far and away my newest favorite technique to play around with mainly indoors, but its so simple yet absolutely genius, if for some reason you dont know what super cropping is by all means look it up, theres a few different techniques by either squeezing or twisting, both work fine, but Ive snapped few branches during my learnig process, my buddy calls me "Lenny" from "of mice and men" cause Im kinda rough with the girls, but we all know how resiliant these bitches are, lol.

Topping really is a training technique that is to be used indoors. Ben has pointed out he came up with his method to control the height issues people run into when growing Sativa's. Outdoors it really probably isn't necessary. I wouldn't say it is useless for outdoors as you can train a plant wherever it grows, just makes a little more sense when you are talking about growing plants that like to get 5-6 feet tall indoors....

Serapis said:

I have four main stems going since I topped my plants. Side growth has gone nuts and I have four thick stems curling upward with more nodes popping. The plants look great. I had to slightly increase nutes because with 4 main stems going, it requires more energy.

Check out my pic of a runt that was topped about 10 days ago. You can see the 4 main stems growing and no more growth from the center. It has transferred to the 4 colas.

Naturally, this plant needs more nutrition, it is growing 4 tops!

Click to expand...

Now you should tie those main shoots down and watch the growth in the middle of the plant explode into 6-8 main shoots, all being the same height.

One advantage of topping is you end up with two opposing tops, kind of like a twin towers. If you tie some string between the two, they will support each other. No need for poles to keep them upright. If you get four, you can even loop them all together. These are the perfect support for each other because they are exactly opposing in direction of lean.

plaguedog said:

Topping really is a training technique that is to be used indoors. Ben has pointed out he came up with his method to control the height issues people run into when growing Sativa's. Outdoors it really probably isn't necessary. I wouldn't say it is useless for outdoors as you can train a plant wherever it grows, just makes a little more sense when you are talking about growing plants that like to get 5-6 feet tall indoors....

Click to expand...

I've made it a habit to top for 4 main colas, inside or out. My outdoor plant is finishing around 5' including the height of the pot.

Best way to support the 4 colas is with a strip of women's hose wrapped loosely around the perimeter of the plant, tied here and there with twist-ties.

check out what i did, i did this exact same technique and look what i got
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Uncle Ben said:

I've made it a habit to top for 4 main colas, inside or out. My outdoor plant is finishing around 5' including the height of the pot.

Best way to support the 4 colas is with a strip of women's hose wrapped loosely around the perimeter of the plant, tied here and there with twist-ties.

Click to expand...

ud filles

Thats awesome really, they must be some nice bushy filled stalks!

Doin' fine my friend.

i just topped my nothern lights and jock horror, suppsoed to be autos but i dont think they are... by nirvana... anyways

take a look, and tell me if i did this right, first time i ever topped

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Looks like a good topping to me. I can't quite tell how high you topped, but all looks good.

Oh how, I miss that first topping I did. Your so nervous that you're going to fuck it up some how and mangle your beautiful baby. Eventually, topping will become routine, so enjoy that special feeling now while you can.

=D I am enjoying it! thanks!!! they are 6.5" inches tall after topping was 7" or so

Uncle Ben said:

I've made it a habit to top for 4 main colas, inside or out. My outdoor plant is finishing around 5' including the height of the pot.

Best way to support the 4 colas is with a strip of women's hose wrapped loosely around the perimeter of the plant, tied here and there with twist-ties.

Click to expand...

Hey Ben, do you mind posting some pictures of your 5' monsters? I've went through 150+ pages of this thread and haven't seen a single picture from you other than the ones on the 1st page.
Wish there was a thread tool to look at the pictures only...

I'm wondering what's the benefit of topping for 4 colas outdoors because I see so many untrained or LST'ed outdoor plants that have like 50+ colas 12-24" in length, and here I am with only 4 colas 12-24" inch in length... blows my mind.

thought id drop a line and show the results i got with bens tech. worked out great, though next time around ill probably do a little more under-branch pruning to try to control my results a little more. i wanted to know how leaving the coty nodes on would effect the cola results, so 2 plants were planned as 2 toppers (one with coty nodes, one without) and the third was supposed to be 4 tops (left the coty nodes just because on it). heres a few details about them that made me want to control the branches more next time:

pic 1 - this was supposed to be the 2 top WITH the coty node still intact. well, one of the branches on that coty node caught some auxins, and it turned into a 3 head.
pic 2 - this was gunna be the 4 header. well, one branch just never got as mature as the other 3, so it ended up mainly just a 3 top. if you notice the cola on the left of the pic, its a bit bulkier and mishapen than the others. early on in flower it stretched to the light overnight and burned it. it was stunted for about a week, then started putting on weight twice as fast as the other 2.
pic 3 - this was the double that i removed the lower coty branches off of. came out exactly as intended, 2 tops, no retarded branches of any sort, and even looks more lush than the other 2 girls.

this has led me to want to remove those coty leaves on future girls, just for the control factor if anything. anyways, ive rambled enough, just wanted to share my results and thank everyone for the previous help and of course thanks to Ben for the great guide!

Keep it Rolled guys!
-edit- kept the 3 pics of them when they were a little younger below to show how they looked just before flower =D
-edit2- you may also notice pic 2 is showing a discernibly different pheno than the other 2 (which are identical). not sure if this has something to do with the stress from the light burn incident or what, but should be interesting to see since i imagine it will yield twice as much as the other 2 in the end.