Two weeks later

[purpleman]

Some of you that helped me with my initial issues, thanks. It's been two weeks since I re planted my girls, which were 8" tall and leggy. They are thriving under the LEDs, keeping the temp between 70-80 and rh around 60. I've been watering/feeding every 3-4 days. Blue Dream is almost 2' tall now! If you see anything I need to do, let me know. Hoping they branch out more before I switch them.

[SirSmksAlot]

You ever think about topping your girls?

[purpleman]

This is my first grow, so no not really. Tell me about it.

[SirSmksAlot]

I don't have a ton of experience but from my last few grows I've learned that from topping your plants after they have about 5 or 6 nodes, it will make for a larger canopy. The plant starts producing 2 main branches instead of 1. Making your plant bushier. I have repeated the topping process until I have 8 main branches. You would want to be careful how many times you top because you can become over crowded pretty easily. So I've also learnt. Even if you just top once you'll have increased yields imo.

[SirSmksAlot]

Here's an example of how they bush out after being topped. This was about a week before I flipped to flower

[Rwise]

This White Widow (AF) has not been topped, instead I used side lighting from 4 directions from sprout, and a few ties as she grew.
In the second pic , a Himalaya Blue Diesel (AF), you can see the limbs starting to grow out

[purpleman]

ok, great. I'll try it. how far down do you cut? I read on gwe and got the impression that they should have been topped sooner. do you think it will stress them, or worse, if i do it now?

[SirSmksAlot]

How far into veg are you?

[SirSmksAlot]

It will stress your plant a bit but as long as you have at least a few weeks till flower, I believe that your plants should be fine. It's up to you where you top. But to make it a bit less scary you can just top the top node off leaving the 2 new stems to grow. I'd recommend watching a few videos before hand.

[purpleman]

So, I wasted a lot of time with my plants by planting in soil that was too hot and by using those peat cups, which the roots didn't grow through. Upon the advice from some of my friends here, I transplanted back in to different cups with different soil. All that to say, when they were 5 weeks old, they were the size of a 1 week old plant. Technically they are around 7-8 weeks old but in reality, only about 4. I do need to bush them out more, so I think it would be a great plan if it's not too late. I was figuring on switching the to flower within two weeks, according to the size of them. Topping, however, would give me more vertical space and I want to do it. Just don't want to f@#k up after all I've put them through.

[oldjarhead100]

purpleman you will be fine there are several ways to increase yield and topping is one ,when you top a plant it gives all the other growth nodes a little time to catch up , when I top I never top at the highest node I usually pick a node with growth tips at least a half inch when you do this it does not stress the plant out and will not slow down, as long as you can pull the stems out/bend them flat so light gets in your fine ,If you bend them or break them they will survive just dont pull the broken stem off completely and it will recover , If you have a height issue and need to keep you plants low and even it can be done just keep topping as soon as they have good growth tips

[Budler]

Read up on auxins and apical dominance. Then you will know why to top

[SirSmksAlot]

I'd say go for it.

[purpleman]

OK guys. Here we go!

[purpleman]

This is Blue Dream, the largest of my three girls. I topped them all about the same but only took pics of this one. Opinions? Thanks!

[purpleman]

oh. one other question. A friend wanted to try cloning off of my girls. Can you use the tops that have been removed for cloning?