is topping really worth it?

Last time I topped a plant side by side i didnt notice much of a yield difference, does it depend on strain?

Im questioning wheter to start topping my new plants, but i dont know if its going to help at all or if its really doing anything but encouraging more branches, but not MUCH more yield

What is everyones opinions?

I think it only helps with height and light, not yeild. A plant can't grow any faster because you cut it.

Yeah. What little experience I have with it seems to indicate that topping doesn't increase your yield really but it doesn't seem to hurt it either it just gives you a larger quantity of smaller buds. I personally just do it to keep my plants short.

'uncle bens topping technique' is said to give you 4 main colas. Its on this forum, just search it, alot of people seem to be praising it. I am yet to use it tho. xx

I have never really found topping makes any improvement to the overall yield. I tie mine down and have found that does make some difference.

I like topping for 4 colas... seems to me getting four colas of the same size of a "main" cola on a regular plant is worth it. Plus, doing a double harvest will net you even more.

LST is better.

i only top my plants based on height. if one is growing faster, then i top. i have found that if you top while vegging and let the shoots grow out, cut the smaller ones and leave the large and you end up with another main cola. i got 12 colas of 5 plants, but only topped one. that one had five colas

Man you guys are all like Einsteins, lots of good advice here. Topping doesn't increase yield, it just makes it possible to have a shorter plant. LST is better.

fimming maybe?

LST will probably give you a bigger yield , SCROGing also.
But !
topping is the most simple way of them all, no maintenance, no ropes, no nets, just a beautiful cup form plant with 4 (or more ) colas.
in my current grow i topped for the first time and i guess ill do it with my future grows.
if you are limited with your light penetration or your height, topping makes your life easier.

Topping (like anything else) is only a tool. If used in the overall method as a tool, for grow it can certainly add up in the end.
Topping just for the sake of topping (and hoping) is very debatable.

Like your auto mechanic. If there was only one screwdriver in the box he wouldn't accomplish much.
(and I doubt he could make a hotrod with just that screwdriver)

Used plenty of pruning techniques and trained plants to grow whatever shape i wanted them to come out, the only real-world benefit to topping is to allow the lower nodes to become exposed to a greater intensity of light which can turn into more colas potentially. i personally like to use a combination of topping and FIM to get large dense cola clusters. It really depends on what you want the plant to do. FYI, the more pruning is done the more the plant has to recover = more energy spent on healing itself. To limit the plants look at the genetics and find out what its flower stretch is. EG: our Blue Dream is supposed to stretch 300% from end of veg to harvest.

hughesresearch said:

i only top my plants based on height. if one is growing faster, then i top. i have found that if you top while vegging and let the shoots grow out, cut the smaller ones and leave the large and you end up with another main cola. i got 12 colas of 5 plants, but only topped one. that one had five colas

Click to expand...

cool i got one plant that ive lst'd from week two and it now has 11 tops.
lst is the best tool ever discovered

Yeah, I like lst better. There's more stimulation and less shock to the plant.

here´s another trick,

wait till the plant has about 5-6 nodes and the secondary growth is coming in,

then softly bend the top in the direction that exposes the most tops,usually if you lst, you lose a few budsites to the dark side of the plant, but done this way, you maybe lose one budsite, possibly none.

you need to feel the stem as you bend it, some plants are more breaky than others. just bend it back as far as it goes(or where you want it). slowly, especially first time, very slowly, feeling the tension in the stem.

it will revert somewhat, but be more or less bent in the direction you want.

the next day, repeat, the top will perhaps have reverted completely back, but in about 3-4 days of this (5 min each day, depending on plant and you,im usually seconds now) the plant will have reached the shape you want (the lower budsites grow as they are exposed, helping with the top going backward.

and in about 2 weeks (with some adjusting along the way, same method, but rarely much is needed)

voila, at least 4 tops (up to 10 if you want, though i generally trim some to give more light to the best ones)

mostly the same size but with 1 the thickest, if you do it right, they will be all the same height, at most an inch difference if you dont get it quite right.

(this method depends greatly on your strain, some strains will bend easy, other will be more fiddly and break more easy, some will be no trouble at all, work of seconds to shape others might require 5 minutes of careful bending, feeling the stem as you slowly go)

It makes your colas smaller but keeps your plant small and manageable