When is it too late to top?

[golfnrl]

The attached pics are of four plants inside a 4x4x7'11" tent. All 100% sativa from Ace seeds. The grow details are in the signature. These girls will get real tall. My last experience with these plants was they tripled in size during the stretch and I lost control of them. They're 8 days from the switch to 12/12. So far I've spread them out and have been tying them down. I'm considering topping them again but I've never done it this late in a grow. I've been reading about topping to control height but I either can't remember or have not read about when it may be too late to do it. My gut tells me it's already too late but IDK. I prolly have about two more feet of growing space and these girls will want all of it. I'm also considering a 11/13 or a 10/14 light schedule. I can super crop as a last resort but last time they grew another 18" after and it didn't work out that well for me. Any guidance is appreciated.

[Smallgrow]

I don’t have a good answer for you , but I feel your pain. My instinct says the same as yours, it may be too late to top, I suppose you could top everything and let it veg another few weeks??
I grow mostly “sativas” and struggle with hight. To make it worse my light seems to require a pretty high hanging hight or it causes light stress. I just keep trying to train harder and flip earlier.

[bboyfromwayback]

You’re growing in cloth pots. I’d spend $20 on LST tools, attach the safety pins to the perimeter of your pot for anchors and use the soft ties to gently pull the plants down as much as possible. They look pretty hard and woody so you’ll definitely have to supercrop them. I’d pull them down as much as possible then cut some tops off

[changeofpace2014]

might want some tape...for damage repair when you bend them down...the node spacing looks goods...must have lights close... -

[golfnrl]

I hadn’t thought of safety pins. I have not come up with an easy way to tie down to the cloth pot. The pins are a good idea. I have the soft tie material. I use that to make an eye hook. Then attach some twist tie material to that. The thinner twist tie weaves through the plant a little easier than the soft ties. At least for me.

I didn't have safety pins handy, but do have large paper clips. They work great. Thx again for the tip.

[golfnrl]

I've read everything I can reference about topping in the GWE library. Also, ran across a piece at Royal Queen Seeds (I think). I couldn't find anything specific about limits on when to top the plant, only that topping too late into flower (2-3 weeks?) will damage the plant's yield and stunt further development. I take that to mean that since a cannabis plant goes through a recovery period after it's topped that it can be done at any point in the vegetative state, key point being vegetative state. I really do not want to supercrop these plants. As someone has mentioned the branches are woody. I'm not good at it and did I mention I don't want to do it? I'll add some update pics in the next day or so.

[Smallgrow]

I’ve been jealous of that 7’11” tent for a while , but I guess you can still get in trouble.
Those “sativas” do like to grow.
I guess your only option is super cropping , but I think you might have mentioned you don’t want to do that 😜

[golfnrl]

Update: Pics today about 45 mins after lights on. 9th day of flower 16 days from the flip. I've been taking leaves and stems as we go along. I've left some fans at the bottom of the plants just to see when/what happens to them.

I started flower nutrients (CX Bloom Enhancer & Head Masta) on 10/16. For the next 10 days they'll continue to get base and growth enhancer, after that only bloom nutrients until harvest. I'll update with some pics.

I still have my fingers crossed that we won't run out of grow space. Right now I'm raising the light an inch a day with about 12" of rope left on the ratchet adjusters. After that I can gain a few more inches by removing the ratchets and chaining the light to the tent frame. I've done it before, major PIA. I have the light set at 1 click past halfway on a 10 click scale 18" (or thereabouts) above the canopy. I'll get that intensity up to 8. I can close that gap if I have to and lower the light intensity to reduce light burn.

This grow is more work than normal but I'm having fun. I've looked at a lot of pictures. I'm trying to improve at training/controlling and realize that I still have a ways to go.

[bboyfromwayback]

Nice, even canopy

[Smallgrow]

Looking good!
Ya I’m the same. I learn and get better . Then I learn I still need to get better, lol

[golfnrl]

We're about 2 weeks into the stretch. I attached some plant clips yesterday and today. I've taken more stems and leaves trying to shape the plants. I increased the light intensity to 7 on a 10 click scale. I have about 6" of ratchet rope left. Lamp is about 18" above the canopy. Flowers are taking shape.

[Bluey]

Give them the most light they will take without burning them if you can keep the temp down. This will slow their growth upwards right down and put that energy into bud growth.

Expect unexpected nute deficiency symptoms showing up in the top fans but don't worry too much about it. Increase EC to help cope but not too dramatic.

That's the approach I take with my sativas that triple in size and it works pretty well.

[golfnrl]

Thx Bluey. The light is at 70% I can get it up to 80% w/o too much burn. I'm headed that way. Fingers crossed the stretch is about over. Flowers are forming.

[Smallgrow]

Argh! I’m officiall in the same boat as golfnrl



about 3 weeks of flower my Acapulco Gold and Mango CBD are out of control. I’m praying the stretch is over but I'm already out of room.

Stupid work kept me distracted and without time to garden. I’ve never super cropped before , and it wouldnt be my choice at this point but not sure what else I can do?
I will pull the girls out tonight for their week 3 defoliation and lollipop and reflect on my options

[golfnrl]

I feel your pain. The plant clips seem to be working for me a little bit. They're just about like a super crop w/o damaging the stem.

[Smallgrow]

Well I did it
I super cropped everything week 3 flower (roughly)
fingers cross , we’ll see

sorry if I highjacked your thread golfnrl I figured it was the same problem and people might benefit from my solution/disaster

[golfnrl]

No Worries. I feel your pain. I see you've deployed some plant clips. As long as you don't break the outer skin on the stem you'll be fine. You'll be fine even if you do break the skin. A little duct tape band-aid will suffice and works well if you haven't had that experience. I see a few clips where the round part is facing away from the stem. Mine didn't come with any instructions so I thought the stem is to be bent over the rounded part of the clip. Even doing that I broke the skin of a stem and didn't see it for a about 24 hours. Did not phase the plant or that stem.

[Bluey]

My experience supercropping an entire plant was the thicker the stem the less viable to supercrop. Some of my stems were up to an inch thick and I lost one of those so I tended to top them and supercrop the branches below the top..

It was over 6ft high and I cropped it around half way. She produced 14oz of top quality bud. Would have been much more if I didn't have to do that.

[Smallgrow]

Yes usually the round goes to the stem side. I reversed a few that I thought provided more support backward based on the shape of the crushed stem

[golfnrl]

Added some pics from today about 45 minutes after lights on. I've got about another 1" left on the rope ratchets. The light is about 16-18" above the canopy depending on where the measurement is taken. We're about 21 days into the stretch. It appears the girls are slowing down the upward growth. I hope so, I do not want to attach my light to the tent frame. But I will. The plant clips have helped. I'll deploy a bit earlier if/when I need to use them again.

[Bluey]

And you've got one of the tallest tents around too. Two of them.

It's hard to stretch them out in a 2x4 though hey, and 4 in a 4x4 is tight for photos if given a decent veg time. I like to give mine about 9 weeks veg which means one will pretty much fill a 4x4.

When I swapped out a quantum board and put in a bar light that gave me another 18" of headroom and a much bigger sweet spot too. Not so critical on heights re PPFD as the quantum board either.

[golfnrl]

I must not be doing something right. The veg time for these plants was 26 days. 3 of them were topped at the 5th node and one was fimmed. I really did ufcking miss . I can't imagine 9 weeks of veg time for these girls in my tent.

HLG recommends a 15" space between the light and the top of the tent. I suppose it's for potential heat and/or fire issues. The driver doesn't put off that much heat. 4" works just fine. That's about as close as I can get the lamp to the tent ceiling and still be able to attach it.

I have a commercial grade bar light for the 4x4 tent. I can't use it because the light is exactly 48" x 48". It bumps the tent sides which makes it almost impossible to raise and lower. It was made for a rack I think. It was an expensive lesson.

[Smallgrow]

I’ve got my light pressed against the metal frame of my tent now, about 2” from the tent, but I know it’s okay that close , no where near hot enough to damage the tent.

My light is “3x3” and too big to fit in a 36x36 inch space, ugh why do light makers do that

[golfnrl]

These pics were taken at lights on yesterday. These girls are tall. They slowed down the stretch after about three weeks. But when pistils started showing up they also started growing taller again. I switched out the rope ratchets (PIA) and have the light hanging from hooks attached to the tent frame. That puts the lamp about 14"-18" above the canopy depending on where the measurement is taken. 18" is the goal for flower. I can maybe get a couple more inches but not sure. The canopy isn't as even as I was trying for. I increased the light intensity but will prolly lower it because the PPFD is higher than I prefer or the tallest buds. The PPFD range across the canopy runs from about 580 - 1105. Imma watch and see how the girls like it first though.

[Bluey]

Those HLG R's have a lot of red which promotes stretch and growth upwards.

The reason those HLG' s top the efficiency scale is because of the reds, they produce more PAR per watt than the rest of the soectrum

[golfnrl]

Yes sir, that's exactly why I bought it. I've not bothered with the light distribution across the board, but considering the orientation of the lamp as it hangs in the tent looking from the front, the plants in the front left and back right grow slower in veg but wind up taller in flower. My guess is that's intended by the spectrum distribution across the board but I haven't looked at that. I've thought about rotating the lamp 1/4 turn to test my theory but haven't done it yet. Or I could probably just read the specs. But I haven't done it yet. Hmmm, I see a pattern here...

I've been reading the mainlining grow guides by Nebula and Nugbucket. I've also watched some vids at YTU. I think imma try it my next photo grow. I've read that tall sativas don't do well with mainlining but I've read it the other way as well. The veg time to get the manifold established makes me wonder though. You're a sativa guy, if you have any mainlining experience, what say you if I might ask?

[Bluey]

No issues mainlining manifolding LST tall sativas. None.

They break and split like all others.

They can still triple in height during the stretch, you just need to be careful you don't split or break them otherwise you can't train them any more and they will get away from you height wise.

[Smallgrow]

My plants are defiantly through the stretch but they are out of control despite my super cropping. Probably about 12” from the light and not that even a canopy. Unfortunately I didn’t have time to secure them down thoroughly after I snapped them over. The next day they had turned back up to the light like it never happened, really amazing actually how much abuse they can take.
I did this about 3-4 weeks into flower. Some of the pics show just how brutal the super crop spots were, so for those of you worried about recovery it wasn’t a problem what so ever, my plants were otherwise healthy mind you.

[Smallgrow]

Thanks!
Ya I was really trying to keep them short right from the start, I did some LST in veg as (I normally do), and thought I flipped them early, however it seemed to backfire this time as they are the tallest plant I’ve ever had.
I’ve been battling what I thought was light stress for a while and I think lowering my light levels and raising my light must have made the plants stretch more. Now they are closer to the light then ever and the symptoms I thought were light stress aren’t much worse so I’m starting to think I was chasing the wrong problem. Perhaps these tall plants may lead me to a break through on that….

[Bluey]

Smallgrow too hot soil?

[Smallgrow]

It really seems like the tip burn is always together with some tacoing and mis shaped leaves like you see with light stress, but maybe you’re right.
I’m in bagged living soil but I am reamending myself, not adding Much of anything else, but it’s not impossible