topping

jivalst

jivalst

Well-Known Member
I can understand topping your plant in a limited space if your plant is going to grow into your light (if tieing over isn't an option). It's been a while but maybe I can recreate something I remember from my pre-harvest physiology class or at least the moral. If you take 2 equal pizzas and cut one into 8 peices and another into four they are still the same size pizzas except the one with 8 peices will be a little harder put back together. Stay with me I know this is a dumb explanation but a plant will take up the same nutrients and kreb out the same atp no matter how many sites it has working. Bigger buds in theory removed force your plants energy into a smaller yet a more abundance of buds. The weight should be very similar for each plant. The thing he was saying was why put them through the stress and heal time to get the same amount of pizza.
 
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P

ProCanadianGreen

Active Member
I'd take a clone off the top once the seedling has new branches forming at the bottom 3 nodes so that would be about 5 nodes high depending on the strain
 
jivalst

jivalst

Well-Known Member
I would say he isn't using his top to clone. Its near impossible to take a clone from a flowering plant and it survive.
 
Seamaiden

Seamaiden

Well-Known Member
Because, plants respond to stress by building tissue. If the logic followed, then how would body building work? It stresses the body, actually destroys a little bit of muscle tissue, yet the muscle, all one muscle, gets BIGGER. You don't grow more muscles (number of muscles), you grow BIGGER muscles.
Jables&Jakoseph said:
Do you use the cutting when you top the plant for a clone? Seamaiden what strain(s) are you and your son growing? So let me get this right, when you top in veg it give you a better chance for more top colas therefore a higher yield?!
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When you top you force apical branching growth. In other words, where you had ONE growing tip you now have two. Now, how that translates into less yield, I don't really know. But, I do have an idea of how auxin works, how light affects yield, and how topping at the right time definitely produces that apical branching I'm after.

I should take some pix just to show you guys what I'm talking about. The difference is quite notable. Because I'm forcing this side (apical) branching, the plant is growing outward as well as upward. It's not like a person, though, in that if you keep feeding a person they can only grow so much so quickly, a plant has more flexibility than that (obviously, within its genetics). However, I have yet to run across any other plant that does not benefit from pruning, and I have yet to run across any other plant that does not respond to pruning by GROWING, often remarkably so. It's not as though you're cutting off its finger. You're doing something that it's evolved to "expect" in nature.

Do we need the pix to see what I'm talking about?

I am growing three strains; Papaya; California Indica x Big Bud, and Conquistador. My son is growing AK47, Master Kush, and... now I can't remember what else. One or two or maybe even three others.

I could take the topped bits and clone them, but I am not currently set up to do that, and this is not a plant that takes to cloning very easily like, for instance, geraniums, because I've tried it the way I root other plants and it hasn't worked.
 
Jables&Jakoseph

Jables&Jakoseph

Well-Known Member
Seamaiden said:
Because, plants respond to stress by building tissue. If the logic followed, then how would body building work? It stresses the body, actually destroys a little bit of muscle tissue, yet the muscle, all one muscle, gets BIGGER. You don't grow more muscles (number of muscles), you grow BIGGER muscles.

When you top you force apical branching growth. In other words, where you had ONE growing tip you now have two. Now, how that translates into less yield, I don't really know. But, I do have an idea of how auxin works, how light affects yield, and how topping at the right time definitely produces that apical branching I'm after.

I should take some pix just to show you guys what I'm talking about. The difference is quite notable. Because I'm forcing this side (apical) branching, the plant is growing outward as well as upward. It's not like a person, though, in that if you keep feeding a person they can only grow so much so quickly, a plant has more flexibility than that (obviously, within its genetics). However, I have yet to run across any other plant that does not benefit from pruning, and I have yet to run across any other plant that does not respond to pruning by GROWING, often remarkably so. It's not as though you're cutting off its finger. You're doing something that it's evolved to "expect" in nature.

Do we need the pix to see what I'm talking about?

I am growing three strains; Papaya; California Indica x Big Bud, and Conquistador. My son is growing AK47, Master Kush, and... now I can't remember what else. One or two or maybe even three others.

I could take the topped bits and clone them, but I am not currently set up to do that, and this is not a plant that takes to cloning very easily like, for instance, geraniums, because I've tried it the way I root other plants and it hasn't worked.
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I think i understand... What you're trying to say is that by topping you're still getting the top cola and the plant will also grow outward more so then it would have without topping?
 
Seamaiden

Seamaiden

Well-Known Member
Right, you get more than one main cola. Sort of like what you're trying to achieve with LST or ScrOG.
 
jivalst

jivalst

Well-Known Member
It's a timeless debate but plants don't have muscles to work out and we are assuming the plants are under equal conditions. You'll have to experiment with topping one and not topping one in the same hydro system to see what I mean. The plants show almost Identical yeild while I've seen the topped plant take a week longer than one that hasn't been
 
Seamaiden

Seamaiden

Well-Known Member
Sorry for not getting back, we had a bit of a family thing, and then I had myself some wine. :oops: (Still a bit lit on the wine, doesn't take much)
jivalst said:
If the colas split so does the energy.
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Ok, then how about other fruiting or flowering plants? How come they respond so well to pruning? Why would Maryjane be so different? How do plants cope with being eaten? Anyone who's grown fruit trees knows, for a fact, that if you don't prune your crop won't be of the same quantity or quality the next year. Plums, peaches, nectarines, apricots, I've grown all of these, and the trees that didn't get the pruning didn't produce well, i.e. small fruit of poorer quality and lower numbers. I've seen the same thing with flowers and vegetables.

See, I'm sorry, but this idea of "Oh no! Don't cut your plant because it's too stressful!" doesn't hold water for me. I can't say I'm a master gardener or anything like that (although I have two friends who are), but I can say, unequivocally, that when we're talking about a healthy plant that is receiving sufficient light, food, and water, the response to pruning (a.k.a. topping) is renewed growth, not just up, but out (apical branching). I dicked around with FIMing, and I won't anymore. I've done this four times now, with a bagseed of undetermined variety that ultimately has show four general phenotypes, Papaya, Conquistador, and Cali. Indica x Big Bud, and they ALL are showing phenomenal response to full on topping. It is my belief that it may be just as much the timing of the pruning (topping) as anything else. I mean, for Christ's sakes, they can't all be that different, can they? And, if it really affected yield so negatively, why would so many people be writing about its efficacy in increasing yield?

I'm not trying to be too argumentative, if there are truly valid reasons NOT to top, FIM, or LST, I'd like to see what they are.
 
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BigBudBalls

BigBudBalls

Well-Known Member
xxbxrxextxtxx said:
how long after i take my plants out of flowering before i can clone them.
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Huh? You should take clones in veg, before flowering. If after flowering why not just try re-vegging the plant. The flowering stage is basically the 'death stage' of the plant.

If you are flowering just to determine sex, best advice I can give is prior to that to take a few clones. Once they are rooted and growing, toss the mother into flowering. If its a female, enjoy, and you have a few more waiting to go in when momma is done.. If its a male, nothing really lost.
 
Kludge

Kludge

Well-Known Member
A picture is worth a thousand words. This is why you do topping.



Notice how it doesn't have one main top, but instead has FIVE MAIN COLAS!

Here they are up close, this is about four weeks into flowering I think.




So basically this plant will have a bunch of fat ass colas instead of one big one with a few small colas.
 
jivalst

jivalst

Well-Known Member
It's just a theory yet it is widely recognized in the horticulture field. Yeah it has five colas but the plant is 2.5' tall. Different strokes....
 
Kludge

Kludge

Well-Known Member
jivalst said:
It's just a theory yet it is widely recognized in the horticulture field. Yeah it has five colas but the plant is 2.5' tall. Different strokes....
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Yep, it's exactly the height I want it. I have limited space and only a 400W HPS so I'm maximizing my yield for my space and lighting.

I can say each of those colas is as big as the main cola was on my main plant at the same time in flowering. But we'll have to wait and see if each cola can produce, in the end, as much bud as a single main cola and if so will it be any weaker.

But that's why this is my experimental crop. Trying all sorts of things so I can screw up on free bag seeds and not on $5 seeds.
 
Seamaiden

Seamaiden

Well-Known Member
That's one method for cloning. What help do you need? Sounds like you're on the right track to me.

By the way, you can clone during flowering.
 
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