My First Grow

Ok this is at least a 4 weeks old and its over 6 inches tall, and i was wondering if i could get some advice on toppin the plant? And also how much longer to keep it in veg state before switching.

ANd i have yet to use a plant food, but i have this MG pellet stuff (10-10-10), but i was reading pellet stuff isnt good.

if that is all the light you are going to use i would start flowering now. if you want to top and veg longer and add more light, you could take that TOP CLUSTER of leaves and cut about 80% of it off.

Right now i have 4 27W 6500K Cfl's(i had to take the other one on top of the canopy out of the pic). I bought one 42W Cfls from walmart, but i bought it at a risk cuz it didnt say K number, but when i plugged it in it was a yellow, so should i still use this one for veg or shoudl i save it for flowering?

And how much bud do you think this plant can produce if i start flowering in about 1 week or so?

i have 2 of the 42w CFL bulbs from walmart. they work good. but they are a different color from the smaller ones. i had problems mixing the 2 for some reason. one of my plants didnt like it ad started to go yellow.

as for topping. When you see 3 nodes you can top the crown. I did this and now i have 2 nice strong crowns on my biggest plant. If you dont know what a nodes is u sggest you read the GrowFAQ.

Dont use feeding sticks. Dont give your plant anything. It looks really healthy! If you are using miracle grow soil especially dont give it anything.

If you are using regular soil when you switch it to flower then find a good flowering nute at your local hydroponics store and feed it maybe 3 times throughout your flowering stage. you should end up with a beautifule plant!

Thanks for the advice. Yea i will just hold up for food until flowering. And i dont want to risk using the 42W right now as my plants are doing good and i dont want to mess anything up. And i will look into topping. How many more weeks should you say i keep it in veg before flowering and how much could i produce, and i will get a lot more cfl's when i flower (the 3500K are easy to find anywhere, the 6500K veg are really hard to find)

baller24 said:

Thanks for the advice. Yea i will just hold up for food until flowering. And i dont want to risk using the 42W right now as my plants are doing good and i dont want to mess anything up. And i will look into topping. How many more weeks should you say i keep it in veg before flowering and how much could i produce, and i will get a lot more cfl's when i flower (the 3500K are easy to find anywhere, the 6500K veg are really hard to find)

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i topped my plant at 3 nodes.

As for how long to Veg. there really isnt any given amount of time for it. It really depends on the size of your grow area. I have read on here about a few guys starting flower from seed. When deciding when to flower keep this in mind. your plants will triple in size give or take. it depends on the strain and its flower time. flowering can take anywhere from 6-10 weeks. So you need to look at the size of your grow area, and how much room is under the lights at their full height. subtract the distance you need between the lights and you plants so it doesnt burn, and devide the left over space into thirds. dont forget about your pot either.

i cant tell you how much you will get from your plants. im still on my first grow. and from what ive read that as well depends on the strain you are growing. if you go to http://www.vancouverseedbank.ca/ and surf the seeds it will show you what height they will grow to, how much you can yeild from that strain, and even flowering times. maybe you can find the strain you are growing and compare.

good luck and sorry for the long waited reply i work monday - friday bud.

its all good. i will read the grow faq before making my decision as to topping this plant or just going into flowering in about a week. The reason i kind of dont want to top is because of how long it can take to recover, and that fact that if i mess up my plant will suck. Is it a risk worth taking and if it doesnt work what happens?

I would not top your plant. look into LST in it's place.

I dont like topping and I dont think there is really much benefit from it. I prefer to FIM the plant.

M Blaze said:

I dont like topping and I dont think there is really much benefit from it. I prefer to FIM the plant.

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if you only have a few plants then its good to top it so you can have multiple crown buds. the two top nodes will grow larger then if you were to not top the plant. If you have room for several plants its better to not top and get one larger beautiful crown bud.

in the end its all a matter of opinion and experience.

This is my first grow, do you think i could do the FIM method with this plant, or is it too late? Or should i just let it veg another week or 2 before going into flowering?

And i only have 1 plant lol so what should i do

Extortion22 said:

if you only have a few plants then its good to top it so you can have multiple crown buds. the two top nodes will grow larger then if you were to not top the plant. If you have room for several plants its better to not top and get one larger beautiful crown bud.

in the end its all a matter of opinion and experience.

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I have found that topping doesnt really increase yield much at all because it stresses the plant and creates 2 main colas of smaller buds instead of one main thick crown. So basically the topped plants seems to produce smaller buds overall. FIMing on the other hand doesnt seem to stress the plant much at all and it can get upto 8 main colas in some cases.

FIMing is the way to go

baller24 said:

This is my first grow, do you think i could do the FIM method with this plant, or is it too late? Or should i just let it veg another week or 2 before going into flowering?

And i only have 1 plant lol so what should i do

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Its pretty much a good time to FIM the plant now but I would veg it for at least another 2 weeks after FIMing. I would also cut off some of the lower branches and some leaves.

OK I will FIM it tomorrow. I will upload more pics in about 30 minutes, and do yall think you could maybe save them and open them with paint and show me where to FIM (i know the general idea) and show me what leaves or branches to cut off?

I will keep vegging for another 2 weeks.

There is basically only one part of a plant to FIM but there are a few different methods or ways of doing it. I will check out your pics later and give you my opinions.

M Blaze said:

I have found that topping doesnt really increase yield much at all because it stresses the plant and creates 2 main colas of smaller buds instead of one main thick crown. So basically the topped plants seems to produce smaller buds overall. FIMing on the other hand doesnt seem to stress the plant much at all and it can get upto 8 main colas in some cases.

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I am not sure that I can agree with you. I have topped and sometimes topped twice and gotten multiple very large colas and very large fairly lower buds.

I tend to believe that if you do it right and at the right time and have adequate lighting you will come out ahead but if anything necessary is missing from the proper equation then you will likely not see much of an increase.

But then two or four fairly large colas can add up to a good bit more than just one large one so you could still be ahead when it comes to colas and when I did it I didn’t see signs of shocking and reduction of plant growth overall. The plants just put more growth into the lower buds until the topped part healed and sent out more shoots to grow into two of four tops.

You may want to follow the link below and read some about topping. Maybe it will change your opinion some.

https://www.rollitup.org/advanced-marijuana-cultivation/151706-uncle-bens-topping-technique-get.html

if you top it and leave it in veg long enough to recover the buds will grow to almost their full size as if you didnt chop it. if you top it and throw it into flower right away then it wont recover in time. i top mine as soon as it has its third node out and its fourth starting, then i left the top branches get to the 3rd or 4th before i flower it.

Extortion22 said:

if you top it and leave it in veg long enough to recover the buds will grow to almost their full size as if you didnt chop it. if you top it and throw it into flower right away then it wont recover in time. i top mine as soon as it has its third node out and its fourth starting, then i left the top branches get to the 3rd or 4th before i flower it.

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Im not quite understanding what you are saying


Im about to put more pictures up, i will put large ones up so yall can see

Brick Top said:

I am not sure that I can agree with you. I have topped and sometimes topped twice and gotten multiple very large colas and very large fairly lower buds.

I tend to believe that if you do it right and at the right time and have adequate lighting you will come out ahead but if anything necessary is missing from the proper equation then you will likely not see much of an increase.

But then two or four fairly large colas can add up to a good bit more than just one large one so you could still be ahead when it comes to colas and when I did it I didn’t see signs of shocking and reduction of plant growth overall. The plants just put more growth into the lower buds until the topped part healed and sent out more shoots to grow into two of four tops.

You may want to follow the link below and read some about topping. Maybe it will change your opinion some.

https://www.rollitup.org/advanced-marijuana-cultivation/151706-uncle-bens-topping-technique-get.html

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I knew someone would jump on my earlier comments rather quickly lol but I stand by all I have said. When I say that FIMing is the better option its because the plant grows more than 2 or 4 main colas in the same time and there is very minimal stress and no signs of slowed growth.

The pic below is one plant (couple of branches of the other two got in the sides and bottom of the pic) with many main colas which was a result of good FIMing technique. Can you count the number of main colas? This plant yielded over 1 pound in less than 4 months.



There is almost 2 plants in this pic