Time to top the girls
Why top? In small grow spaces and tents, height is always going to be an issue. Topping will keep your plants shorter. It will also make better use of the light. If you don’t top, you’re growing a xmas tree shape plant, narrow top and wide base. We want to turn that shape upside down, wide top and narrow base so most of the plant mass is at the top, near the lights.
What are we cutting? We cut the top of the plant off, that’s why it’s called “topping”. This is going to cause the side branches to grow much faster and bigger than if the top was not cut. What we are creating is a plant with many tops, not just one. This will increase yield.
Where to top? Depends on how many tops you want on the plant, more tops are going to make a bushier plant and bushier plants take up more room. In a 3x3, I normally go for 4-6 tops per plant, growing 4 plants. If I had a bigger tent, I might go for 8-10 tops. To get 4 main branches, we cut above the 2nd node. for 6 main branches we cut above the 3rd node, for 8 cut above the 4th node and so on.
When to top? I like to wait until after the transplant, about a week or so to give the plant time to spread her roots out and start growing quickly and have at least 6 nodes.
Here we go, this is easy, get your clean trimmers out and cut some heads off. They won’t hate you, for long.
Here’s the girls today, looking nice and healthy, think it’s day 27 (checking my spreadsheet…yep) 36RH 77F already topped the Cherry Ice Cream clone (front right)
Let’s take a closer look at one of the gorillas and decide where to cut
I’m gonna cut where my forefinger is, leaving 3 nodes below the cut, leave a good amount of stem below the cut.
Now make the cut, remember this is for a good cause, to control height and increase yield, gotta do it
Cut made above 3rd node, good amount of stem left below the cut, done. Now do the rest.
A pile of tops
All done
Check out the female pre-flowers (the pair of white hairs) on the clone top, she’s over 3 years old so very sexually mature
The over watered girl is already looking a little better
