Greenman71
Active Member
I've been growing for about ten years now and I have always kept my plants in flower for weeks upon weeks, topping multiple times and LSTing my girls to make an even canopy and get as many tops as possible. But recently I have been experimenting with various other methods and seeing just how effective my maximum effort grow style was benefiting my grows. Turns out not so much. By that I mean, not as much as you'd think, considering how much time and effort I put in.
So my last two or three grows I have been doing NO TOPPED plants and ONE TOPPED plants and seeing how they develop and what kind of yield I get compared to my long veg plants. Yes, there's a difference in yield, of course there is, but when you factor in my time as a grower, the electricity used for lights, the extra nutes and the time they spend taking up a slot, I just don't think the difference is as much of a pay off as some people might think.
Some other interesting things I've discovered: by not topping until the 9th or 10th node, my plants shoot through their veg stage to sexual maturity super fast. Seems like as soon as I put them in their final pot, they are ready for their single top and then the flower room. I've also found that my plants just naturally seem to form an even canopy, without requiring much manipulation of their branches. Mainly all I do is bend them slightly sideways so that there isn't as much overlap and shadowing from the upper branches onto the lower branches. They take this sideways shifting very well and do not even require tying to get them to bend slightly into the open spots. All I really do besides the single topping is defoliation when the plant gets too bushy. And when I do that, I do it all at once, stripping them down to 2 to 4 big fan leaves per branch, and then I leave them alone to recover.
I thought this growing method might significantly impact my yields, and it does to a degree, but I am moving plants through their entire life cycle so quickly that I am ending up with MORE bud in the same amount of time as I had with my long veg times. I am also able to fit MORE of these smaller, more compact plants into the same amount of grow space. And they are growing bud from bottom to top, with closer internodal spacing, so I'm not wasting a month growing two feet of branch that I am just going to strip bare because they aren't getting enough light. Shorter plants with lower lights means light penetration is much improved from bottom to top. My plants also seem more vigorous and produce stickier, harder buds. Maybe because they are smaller and younger...?
The plants I did not top at all are also doing surprisingly well, although I think a single topping is superior, mainly due to the central cola getting tall enough at times to force me to back off the lights. I think from now on, I'll just do a single topping somewhere between the 8th and 10th node, and then let them go. I like the way that central spire gets nutty big, but it isn't practical.
Anyway, just wanted to share this, and see what the rest of ya'll think. Have you done this type of growing, and what did you think of the results?
Thanks for reading!
Photos included are of a few of my current plants in flower, topped once and non-topped. I'm sure you can tell which is which.
So my last two or three grows I have been doing NO TOPPED plants and ONE TOPPED plants and seeing how they develop and what kind of yield I get compared to my long veg plants. Yes, there's a difference in yield, of course there is, but when you factor in my time as a grower, the electricity used for lights, the extra nutes and the time they spend taking up a slot, I just don't think the difference is as much of a pay off as some people might think.
Some other interesting things I've discovered: by not topping until the 9th or 10th node, my plants shoot through their veg stage to sexual maturity super fast. Seems like as soon as I put them in their final pot, they are ready for their single top and then the flower room. I've also found that my plants just naturally seem to form an even canopy, without requiring much manipulation of their branches. Mainly all I do is bend them slightly sideways so that there isn't as much overlap and shadowing from the upper branches onto the lower branches. They take this sideways shifting very well and do not even require tying to get them to bend slightly into the open spots. All I really do besides the single topping is defoliation when the plant gets too bushy. And when I do that, I do it all at once, stripping them down to 2 to 4 big fan leaves per branch, and then I leave them alone to recover.
I thought this growing method might significantly impact my yields, and it does to a degree, but I am moving plants through their entire life cycle so quickly that I am ending up with MORE bud in the same amount of time as I had with my long veg times. I am also able to fit MORE of these smaller, more compact plants into the same amount of grow space. And they are growing bud from bottom to top, with closer internodal spacing, so I'm not wasting a month growing two feet of branch that I am just going to strip bare because they aren't getting enough light. Shorter plants with lower lights means light penetration is much improved from bottom to top. My plants also seem more vigorous and produce stickier, harder buds. Maybe because they are smaller and younger...?
The plants I did not top at all are also doing surprisingly well, although I think a single topping is superior, mainly due to the central cola getting tall enough at times to force me to back off the lights. I think from now on, I'll just do a single topping somewhere between the 8th and 10th node, and then let them go. I like the way that central spire gets nutty big, but it isn't practical.
Anyway, just wanted to share this, and see what the rest of ya'll think. Have you done this type of growing, and what did you think of the results?
Thanks for reading!
Photos included are of a few of my current plants in flower, topped once and non-topped. I'm sure you can tell which is which.
