Need a topping experts advice!!!

When they are "staggered" as you say its saying the plant has reached maturity. those branches are called "nodes" they are closer together and grow a little faster. When staggered the more nodes the more bud the closer together the bigger the bud .

best advice i can give is don't defoliate or lollipop

blackrecluse said:

Cutting plants does affect yield. My best plant currently is my experiment of not cutting a single leaf or stem. Not only is it tall, but it is wide. And bushy. It grows faster and better then anything. Water more often and feed stronger. How hard is it to not cut your plants. I guess I only did it for all those years cause everyone else was. It is not necessary and reduces yield over the equal time frames. Nobody every mentions how long it takes to veg a super crop n top beast.

4 weeks is all it takes to get 3 feet tall and two feet wide, if you dont cut them. If you do, you can enjoy the benefit of permanently short plants.

I must note that each strain will act differently.

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Biggest load of horse shit I have ever read. My biggest yielders are the ones I cut and train the most. I cut tons of stems from them. For vertical a little different approach but if you have horizontal indoor set up, your missing the boat on yield. Besides, who in the fuck wants a bunch of popcorn? I certainly don't have time for that shit.

Nizza said:

best advice i can give is don't defoliate or lollipop

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Again. Horrible advice. I'll go gram for gram with you folks that subscribe to the BS "don't cut off the solar panels man" line of horse shit.

In the end it depends on your setup and blanket advice like this actually serves no purpose at all other than to demonstrate to the world that you think your way is the best way and there are no other ways to do it. I grow in scrog, and I don't mean a couple plants, I currently have 19k watts in two scrog rooms. Everything under the screen, that larfy ass lime green shit that you thought may make decent herb...if you had cut that away then your top buds would have been that much bigger.

This ^, I wanted to say something like that but everything i tried saying came out too rash and abrasive

timing > defoliating the way i look at it

you should have ample lighting/side lighting to support the early growth of your plant
now you chop it off, i just see it as time lost, when really you should have planned ahead and not over -vegged

go on an tell me your gpw, or whatever, but also realize you should account for time in veg.

again i understand why people defoliate, it's just my goal to never defoliate or lollipop, because i see it as a mistake

Vincent VonBlown said:

Some strains, are more inclined to stagger then others...

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Lmao this is completely false..the staggering will only happen around the time preflowers set in, usually a bit after, and it will happen to every single plant..you should really wait for this before flowering it is the final sign of maturity and the plants way of expressing it is ready to flower

legallyflying said:

blanket advice like this actually serves no purpose at all other than to demonstrate to the world that you think your way is the best way and there are no other ways to do it. I grow in scrog, and I don't mean a couple plants, I currently have 19k watts in two scrog rooms

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Lol your simultaneously complaining about what others do while you do that very thing..your just saying your way is best with general statements and no clear cut reason why your way is better other than, your just right...lmao
I have never defoliated aside from low branches but I never take a leaf unless I have to, a couple grows ago I was training a buddy and he is one of those guys that breaks everything so halfway through flower I notice alot of leaves are missing and it turns out he accidentally broke alot of them training and moving plants..was hands down worst yield I've gotten doing everything else the same even strain...I know for a fact that regulating leaves without taking the nodes they are to supply will kill your yield

yeah it's nice to see someone who has tried each method with the same strain, because thats a good way of experimenting, by controlling as many variables as you can and keeping them constant.

kermit, so i gather you saw that when your friend was doing this it impacted his yield in the timeframe that you got yours, he had just as much time and got less amount from his (because of defoliating)
sure, he may have been able to get bigger top colas if he had cut off the bottom stuff and waited longer, but at that point you would be 2-3 weeks ahead.
this is the point i try to make with this argument

i understand defoliation is sometimes necessary when things are out of hand and you didn't plan ahead, i'm just saying its also nice to have anticipated your growth cycles and not waste time ripping off what your plant has already had taken a lot of time to make
it just doesn't make sense to me, except for if you aren't able to add the required light or train your plants to allow light down, regardless of horizontal/vertical setups.
with one guy it may be the easiest method though, to overgrow a bunch of screens and then cut them back to make things more managable~ not saying I'm hating on how you have to do things i just kinda believe less is more

I would veg for a year if it meant a banger flower cycle

People act like veg time is a big deal. What? $600 in power bills? Big fucking deal. Every 2 weeks more I veg 18 plants equals about # more in dried buds. Your free to do the math.

I suppose I am actually saying..no my way is right. But believe me it's based on experience and botanical and physics knowledge. Why don't I take the time to go through a long winded post and explain all the physical and chemical reasons for defoliating? I'll tell you why, because I'll do just that and some dumb shit stoner who has no actual knowledge of cannabis growing other than what he has heard from friends will say "nu uh". Click my profile and read some threads I started, there is a 1,000 examples of just that.

Just trust me. If your growing indoors training and defoliating is key to high yields and little popcorn

I dont know why everyone doesnt grow vert?! Why only use half ur light? Reflectors are like putting a weaker light above ur main light...

Sent from my XT555C using Rollitup mobile app

legallyflying said:

I grow in scrog,....

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Stupid is as stupid does.

...if you had cut that away then your top buds would have been that much bigger.

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Now that IS bullshit. Fess up, you're a lollipoppin' mofo, snake oil sucker bet that deprives his plants of N about the time they need it the most who doesn't understand certain plant concepts and processes. Popcorn is gonna happen whether you like or not, it's just what pot does thanks to the natural process of apical dominance. You can beat your chest all you want, but there's not a damn thing you can do about it especially in SCROG.

What in the hell is this crap?

5-6 ml cal mag
5-6 ml liquid karma
5 ml ginormous
12? Pure blend bloom for hydro

Oh great. Captain old outdoor grower showed up.

Vert is the shit if you have the space. We just finished out first grow in a big bare bulb vert room. There was almost no popcorn at all.

People grow horizontal because of space requirements...and often because of cooling needs. I'm a medical grower so my number of plants is limited. I have found through trial and error and research that the following training works best in a scrog...

I too my plants shortly after the branches grow opposite to each other..not alternate. This creates four main leaders.
I lst or super crop or whatever those four main leaders to prevent any of them from becoming the dominant (apical) tip. This reps them even. For the first month? I cut off all the branches that start to grow from each of those 4 main trucks (they are too low on the plant and will become these long thin branches that are always trying to get to the screen. There is a lot of carbo assimilation that goes into growing those thin stems..and it happens at the cost of the main leader growth. About two-3 weeks before I am going to flip I let the new branches form on the main stems. If I have room I bend the four main steams down to distribute growth auxins so that the newly forming side branches are not suppressed from apical growing tips..and thus they grow faster and thicker.

So when they are taken into flower the have four thick main branches..each heading in one direction ( which go to the far corners of the scrog screen) and about 4 side breaches per main branch that full in the rest of the screen.

Flip the lights. Wait till the tips are about 12" above the screen, hit them with paclobuytrozol and diaminizode to stop stretch induce rapid flowering. Then a week later chop and smaller buds forming under the screen. Fan leaf pruning occurs about week 4-5. I don't like to have more than three layers of leaves (top to bottom) as the par radiation from the bulbs will not penetrate that far. (600 watt bulbs). I'm not robbing my plant of any ability to produce RBA or assimilate starches as the lower leaves that are not receiving enough light energy to photosynthesis and break carbon bonds are actually a net loss of energy to the plant. They do provide cooling benefits through evapotranspiration but my rooms climate is pretty tightly controlled so it's not a problem.

Don't take my word for it, google it.

Oh yeah..I actually load the plants with N before flower and don't switch to lower N nutrients till about week 3. I am adding N from cal mag through the whole grow until about week 7. My strains are mag eaters for sure. For the last 10 or so cycles I don't think I ever went lower than 5ml/gallon cal mag. (Dutch master, botanicare, heavy 16)

Take it for what it's worth

legallyflying said:

Oh yeah..I actually load the plants with N before flower

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And what would that snake oil be?

legallyflying said:

Oh great. Captain old outdoor grower showed up.

Vert is the shit if you have the space. We just finished out first grow in a big bare bulb vert room. There was almost no popcorn at all.

People grow horizontal because of space requirements...and often because of cooling needs. I'm a medical grower so my number of plants is limited. I have found through trial and error and research that the following training works best in a scrog...

I too my plants shortly after the branches grow opposite to each other..not alternate. This creates four main leaders.
I lst or super crop or whatever those four main leaders to prevent any of them from becoming the dominant (apical) tip. This reps them even. For the first month? I cut off all the branches that start to grow from each of those 4 main trucks (they are too low on the plant and will become these long thin branches that are always trying to get to the screen. There is a lot of carbo assimilation that goes into growing those thin stems..and it happens at the cost of the main leader growth. About two-3 weeks before I am going to flip I let the new branches form on the main stems. If I have room I bend the four main steams down to distribute growth auxins so that the newly forming side branches are not suppressed from apical growing tips..and thus they grow faster and thicker.

So when they are taken into flower the have four thick main branches..each heading in one direction ( which go to the far corners of the scrog screen) and about 4 side breaches per main branch that full in the rest of the screen.

Flip the lights. Wait till the tips are about 12" above the screen, hit them with paclobuytrozol and diaminizode to stop stretch induce rapid flowering. Then a week later chop and smaller buds forming under the screen. Fan leaf pruning occurs about week 4-5. I don't like to have more than three layers of leaves (top to bottom) as the par radiation from the bulbs will not penetrate that far. (600 watt bulbs). I'm not robbing my plant of any ability to produce RBA or assimilate starches as the lower leaves that are not receiving enough light energy to photosynthesis and break carbon bonds are actually a net loss of energy to the plant. They do provide cooling benefits through evapotranspiration but my rooms climate is pretty tightly controlled so it's not a problem.

Don't take my word for it, google it.

Oh yeah..I actually load the plants with N before flower and don't switch to lower N nutrients till about week 3. I am adding N from cal mag through the whole grow until about week 7. My strains are mag eaters for sure. For the last 10 or so cycles I don't think I ever went lower than 5ml/gallon cal mag. (Dutch master, botanicare, heavy 16)

Take it for what it's worth

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Yeah you keep on hitting them with that shit. Horrible advice. Before some of you start throwing all kinds of horseshit read up on pacolbuytrozol and diaminizode.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J8q2vDGz5k#t=48

http://www.manicbotanix.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=27&Itemid=14

Use that shit on your fucking rosebushes, which it was INTENDED for. (ornamentals, NON BEARING FRUIT trees.....)

I watched the first YouTube and the only solid truisms I came away with is that the cannabis specific foods/supplements/additives industry is not regulated, so like I've said a million times, you really don't know what you're getting because they are not required by any regulatory agency to list ALL of their ingredients. Nor do you have any clue as to the ppm's in your mix when you mix Product X at a rate of 5 ml/gallon. Another thing I came away with was a lot of empty jargon, conjecture, and the use of FUD by a pro organic lab that was happy to sling around the feared buzzwords - POISON, chemicals. FUD being Fear, Uncertainity, Doubt. "Probable carcinogenic". What in the hell does that mean? Are they in the business of what iffing?

Just because a product has not been labeled safe for food crops by the FDA doesn't mean it isn't safe. There could be a legal, economic or risk technicality or something as simple as no one ever requesting approval for use on foods crops. Case in point, there is a empirical field test I witnessed at a vineyard using a fungicide applied as a soil drench at 4 different rates to different vines to see what beneficial effect it may have on a soil borne disease that kills grape rootstock - Cotton Root Rot. After a couple of years of observation and if this fungicide is effective, TX A&M along with the vineyard will apply to the FDA for sanctions approving the use of this fungicide on food crops. Right now they're doing soil drenches with no intent on processing the crops. The test plot is hot for Cotton Root Rot.

I need the science between what real link there is between the cell interaction affects of this PGR and personal health issues. The GMO histeria comes to mind....all hype and no real link to personal health issues have been found based on hundreds of studies by peer (non partisan) groups.

Having said that, I use Bonzi on food crops at a miniscule rate of 3 ppm as a soil drench and have used it on O. Haze to cut down on the stretch. Over the years I have known a few folks that also have used it. There have been no stated health issues from the consumption of cannabis treated with paclo that I know of.

There is no black and white here, only caveats.

This is another reason why I have and will always stay from any touted product sold by the cannabis industry. I simply don't trust these people. When I use something on my plants I know exactly what I'm applying.

It's not the poison, it's the amount,
Uncle Ben

Plaguedog. I suggest you do your do diligence before spouting off about how poisonous paclo is. Do the math dude. The D50 for liver damage in rats is 1300 mg per kilogram of body weight! And the EPA dosed those poor rats every day!!!

I use 1ml/ gallon for one day! So how much paclo is in my buds? Well, let's see

I added about 300mg of paclo into the water of 18 large plants for 24 hours. Let's just say the took up half of it. Although that is nowhere near correct as I'm in hydro, they have 24 hours to drink it up then it's gone.

Ok..so now we had 150mg of paclo in 18 plants. Those plants will yield about 10lbs of buds and around 25lbs of branches, twigs, etc That's about 16 kilograms of plant material. So now you have roughly 10mg in each kilo of plant product.

So...if you smoked 2.2 POUNDS of bud..you would be conceivably exposed to a total of 10 mg of paclobuytrozol. That's TOTAL not per kilogram of body weight.

So let's say you weigh 200 pounds...90 kilograms. 10/90 = a whopping .11 mg per kilo of body weight.

Soooo rats get lover damage half the time when fed 1,300 mg and your ingesting...and this is assuming you smoked 2.2 pounds of weed BTW.... .11mg

Trust me you are exposed to more toxins just walking around outside near traffic.

Not saying it isn't toxic, it is. But all you stoners that read one simple thing and then freak out and make up your mind need to google some shit.


Whatever.

legallyflying said:

I use 1ml/ gallon for one day! So how much paclo is in my buds? Well, let's see

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Curious, what product do you use and what's the % of paclo? I'm looking at the Bonzi label front page and paclo is 0.4%. Bonzi contains 0.12 grams of paclo per ounce. A 3ppm rate that I use is 2.8ml/gallon. 1 gal. of the solution will treat (32) 6" pots. You need not apply the whole gallon, only to the point of runoff.

Kicker is what happens chemically to this stuff within the plant tissue. What does it break down to?

I asked a entomologist about what happens to di-syston when applied to labeled food crops. It's a systemic and usually applied in granular form as a soil application. He replied that it eventually breaks down into a harmless phosphate just like malathion or any other organo-phosphate pesticide.

Point, when using any kind of pesticide you really have to know what you're doing and follow the label instructions. The company and EPA took a lot of time experimenting with rates, timing and then carefully scripting label instructions.

Uncle Ben said:

I watched the first YouTube and the only solid truisms I came away with is that the cannabis specific foods/supplements/additives industry is not regulated, so like I've said a million times, you really don't know what you're getting because they are not required by any regulatory agency to list ALL of their ingredients. Nor do you have any clue as to the ppm's in your mix when you mix Product X at a rate of 5 ml/gallon. Another thing I came away with was a lot of empty jargon, conjecture, and the use of FUD by a pro organic lab that was happy to sling around the feared buzzwords - POISON, chemicals. FUD being Fear, Uncertainity, Doubt. "Probable carcinogenic". What in the hell does that mean? Are they in the business of what iffing?

Just because a product has not been labeled safe for food crops by the FDA doesn't mean it isn't safe. There could be a legal, economic or risk technicality or something as simple as no one ever requesting approval for use on foods crops. Case in point, there is a empirical field test I witnessed at a vineyard using a fungicide applied as a soil drench at 4 different rates to different vines to see what beneficial effect it may have on a soil borne disease that kills grape rootstock - Cotton Root Rot. After a couple of years of observation and if this fungicide is effective, TX A&M along with the vineyard will apply to the FDA for sanctions approving the use of this fungicide on food crops. Right now they're doing soil drenches with no intent on processing the crops. The test plot is hot for Cotton Root Rot.

I need the science between what real link there is between the cell interaction affects of this PGR and personal health issues. The GMO histeria comes to mind....all hype and no real link to personal health issues have been found based on hundreds of studies by peer (non partisan) groups.

Having said that, I use Bonzi on food crops at a miniscule rate of 3 ppm as a soil drench and have used it on O. Haze to cut down on the stretch. Over the years I have known a few folks that also have used it. There have been no stated health issues from the consumption of cannabis treated with paclo that I know of.

There is no black and white here, only caveats.

This is another reason why I have and will always stay from any touted product sold by the cannabis industry. I simply don't trust these people. When I use something on my plants I know exactly what I'm applying.

It's not the poison, it's the amount,
Uncle Ben

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UB you got their heads rolling....

More like eyes rolling.