so who has tried this, auto topping and training
- Thread starter imnicer
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GroBud
Well-Known Member
Alot of people top autos, normally I dont but this run I topped and trained my outdoor autos to try and see or show the benefits. They are only 8 wks in but so far I'm not that impressed maybe I topped too late idk topped before week 3, besides one of them that I topped everything I could that went into week 3. But comparing to my normal let grow grows size is different. I grew 2 last winter just to see if they could grow bringing them in at 36°F they only got 8 to 10hrs of light a day those even preformed better. Again I'm just 8 wks in I'll run autos a 110 to 115 days normally so we'll see
I have seen very nicely maintained and large topped autos could be strain or my technique, treated it like a photo just topped earlier than I would a photo. Or that I start everything indoors in small pots. My photos run 6 1/2months so they aren't effected, then run so many autos size has really never mattered they normally pull 4 to 6oz these I've topped look like half that so far.
I have seen very nicely maintained and large topped autos could be strain or my technique, treated it like a photo just topped earlier than I would a photo. Or that I start everything indoors in small pots. My photos run 6 1/2months so they aren't effected, then run so many autos size has really never mattered they normally pull 4 to 6oz these I've topped look like half that so far.
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blueberrymilkshake
Well-Known Member
Too advanced for me
blueberrymilkshake
Well-Known Member
Be the change you want to see
Sofa King Smoooth
Well-Known Member
Read that on a lighter once
blueberrymilkshake
Well-Known Member
You were the one who gave it to me...
Budzbuddha
Well-Known Member
Harsh language works
Topping is a common method of high stress training for autos. I top above the fourth node, usually at 21 days±, and then LST. I have a 35 gallon res that I don't want to drill into so I use "S" hooks to hang 1 and 2 oz fishing weights on the branches. The attached picture is an 80-day old Gorilla Glue auto. When I topped it, I cut it a little too short and the stem split.
The plant is about 4' tall and leaning forward. The cardboard boxes wedged under a branch to hold the plant upright.
The plant is about 4' tall and leaning forward. The cardboard boxes wedged under a branch to hold the plant upright.
blueberrymilkshake
Well-Known Member
How do I get my plants to stop calling insulting me
tuksu6000
Well-Known Member
That is a wild looking auto!
XmasEditionXXL
Active Member
Wow. How does the upper part look like? It has to be massive! Weight?
GroBud
Well-Known Member
Imo it has ALOT of secondary growth to be a auto. Secondary's generally stretch after mains after plant transitions into flower. Imo I could be wrong it looks as if that auto had a photoperiod veg time. Hard to acquire that much growth with flower initiating around day 30, we all know plants stop growing up after the stretch, and start forming buds. If I'm wrong apologies to the poster and job well done. Seeing the plant entirely may have swayed that comment from its base that doesn't look like a auto
Also if I'm wrong where did you get those seeds lol
Also if I'm wrong where did you get those seeds lol
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The tent has 2 Gorilla Glue autos - Wilma (Rudolph) and Chris (Evert) in day 85.
The light in the from is a Viper Spectra XS-1500 that I bought for the last grow when I had one Gelato auto that was about 2' tall and another Gelato ("Jeff") that was > 4'. I tried lighting both with my main light but gave up and bought the 1500. I referred to those plants as "Twins", after the movie with DeVito and Schwarzeneger. The 1500 is the "sidecar" light that I need because the branches (that's two branches from Chris) could not fit in the tent.
Wilma got off to a slow start - her seed pod would not detach. She's smaller than Chris but, interestingly, she flowered a few days before Chris. My journal reads "First flowers" on day 48 so Chris flowered ≈ day 50.
Don't know what the weight will be but I'm thinking it will be "sufficient".
I'm growing in a SuperPonics 12 XL - yeh, I tithed to the SuperCloset God when I did a grow in 2017. That grow got wiped out by a power outage - thank you Southern California Edison - so I archived my grow tent until early last year. It was neat to fire up a Kind blurple (that went in the trash can about 5 minutes after I got the PAR map from Kind).
There are about 20 colas between the two plants. Chris is ≈ 50% larger than Wilma.
This thread has been really helpful to me, BTW. It forced me to go back and re-read some documentation and I rewatched a couple of De Bacco University videos on lighting. I've been hesitant to go over 50 mols and that's not easy because the "front row" of colas is right under the front bar on the X3. I've used a piece of parachute cord to move them forward and backward, in and out of the light cast. When it's under the light, PPFD is 900+; loosen the cord and the fall forward and PPFD drops to 600's.
I measure light using my Apogee. I sample 20± colas and then drop it into my Excel journal.
256 - wattage (a Growcraft X3 at about 14")
18 - lights on hours
# - sequence number
Numbers at the bottom - standard deviation of PPFD, average PPFD of plants > = 35 mols, average DLI of plants > = 35 mols, standard deviation of PPFD. These values include only readings of >= 35 mols.
The % numbers are the percentage of colas in a given light band.
This looks a little OC, no arguing that, but it does let me know what's going on with light in the tent. The biggest issue that I'm not giving them enough light. That's what I concluded after watching DeBacco last night. Per his video - and he's on track with Bugbee and others - is that cannabis, non-CO2, should get up to 65 mols using 24/0 and 58 mols using 18/6 (just noticed that he spelled "mols" wrong - interesting…)
Per above, the first flowers were at about day 50 and they stopped stretching a couple of weeks ago - that's a guess. That means that they're on day 39 of flower.
One of the Gelatos in my last grow (in the picture below) was about 2' tall. I had three plants that size but, because one of them, Jeff, was so big he dominated that others and I kept only one of the little ones. The plants in the picture are from the same seed packet. Of all of that foliage, there were zero nugs - it was all fox tailed. Seeing that it fox tailed and was monstrous, I'm thinking that it was just bad genetics. All of the plants in that grow were topped so why would one take off for the stars vs the other three being 2'?
The plants below and the plants in my current grow were vegged with a Mars SP 3000 and a Chilled Growcraft X3 in flower. Nothing special for nutes. The previous grow was Botanicare Kind but I've stopped using bottled nutes in favor of Jack's 3-2-0 since there's no need for the Epsom salts, as I see it.
The GG seeds? They're from a company that loves growing marijuana (I don't want to post the URL since the company is not a sponsor).
Goofy damned plant… When I chopped it, I estimated that it yielded > 100' of branches
Jeff's trunk
And not a cola in sight!
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