How do I do lollipopping

been growing for a while now, just trying to get a few things right. But my lollipopping is still at the beginner level. any tips or hints to the best wat to do this. I’ve topped them and just put them in flower.

Leave 3 to 4 nodes of foliage at the tips.

Don’t take off more than 1/4 of a plant’s foliage all at once.

Give the plant a few days to recover from each haircut you give it.

Work from the bottom up as you progress.

1 Like

Also; lollipopping is supposed to be done in the final days ahead of harvest. There is really no reason to do this earlier as you are removing the plant’s ability to produce sugars from light. Be very leery of removing any leaves unless the health of the plant is at risk.

I ‘lollipop’ a few days before harvest, assuming ambient conditions warrant it.

3 Likes

as a general rule outside you never lollipop because the sun gets the ultimate penetration and it moves around your plants… indoors it depends on your light’s ability to penetrate the top of your plants. Most people take 1/3-1/2 of all growth from the bottom. Here’s the ILGM article on pruning, you can also Google or search YouTube for videos and other articles. I don’t feel comfortable posting links on here from other sites it’s not cool

This is what one of my AK47 looked like when I flipped to 12/12. Removed enough leaves to open it up for now. I will remove more lower ones as new ones grow on top over the next two weeks.
.

2 Likes

Beautiful @beardless I do mine very similar but I let em get a little taller before I switch to 12s leaving alot of naked underneath em


1 Like

Very nice. Eight tops? Do you grow them to 5 or 6 nodes, top at 4 or 5 and remove all lower branches.
Top the primary’s again at 3rd node, keep the fist and remove the 2nd?
How long do you let them veg?
I did a fair amount of LST so I have more horizontal growth. I have to have 28-30" of light clearance so I have to LST to allow for enough veg time which was just over 10 weeks.

@beardless I let em grow to 6 nodes top down to 3rd take off everything except for the two leaves and branches at the 3rd node. Grow those out to 4th node top again at 3rd only keeping the 1st and 3rd. Of course tying it all down obviously I’m not as aggressive tying as I probably should be. Veg time is different from strains. this round I’ve changed to living soil which I was told would slow growth but not sure why because growth is as good if not better. This round I put sprouts in cups on 8/6 then switched to 12s on 9/9 . I normally try to veg 7 or 8 weeks, not sure why but all but 2 of these were 24" high that fast which is what I go by to switch is size my space is limited. Here’s a pic from a guy called nugbuckets I use his and a lady Nebula Haze writing’s as my guide… the other one is one of the short ones I have going now from 10/4 it’s in the pic above too all the way at the bottom can’t really separate them I have 4 under a qb in the middle of 2 blurples with 1 under each of them (furthest from you in pic above you can see the blurple)

2 Likes

Whats up with the watermelon striped stem never seen that before unless the shadows make it look like that pretty cool looking.

I am familiar with nugbuckets and nebula. I have not ventured into the world of mainlining but close depending on what I due with the topped apical. My battle now is how many growth tips to remove as they grow. My original intent with my current grow was to do something similar to yours. But I also have a clone in the tent and its structure was drastically different. So, I changed up and tried to train the AKs so they matched up better with the clone. You can see them at An auto, three photos and a clone
Maybe a little mainlining next time unless I do a SOG with all of the clones I have going.
Your plants look great and they must produce well for you. Thanks for following up. I enjoy learning how others approach their grows and training used. This is a personal thing but it kinda drives me nuts when someone posts complaining about small buds and larf and it is a 4’ bean stalk. Have a good one.

2 Likes

That is a good question. Two out of the 3 AK47s have them to varying degrees. Definitely not shadows. That one is the most pronounced. They are seedless but I don’t think that is it. Possibly from stretching during LST? They do have a lot of purple stems too.

1 Like

@Mark0427 I have been given probably 100 different reasons why the stems do that from phosphorus and magnesium deficiency to lack of UV light in LEDs, but I have been seeing this for over 30 years I personally think it is sometimes deficiencies and stress but I notice that when a plant is in the colder weather it comes out more and some strains have a purple tendency making it more noticeable in them. I know there’s more shit I can’t think of right now (just started 2nd cup of coffee lol) I really don’t know what exactly causes it except that it shows up in alot of different conditions so my best guess is it’s a strain thing and different things cause it to show more and whatever it is is the same reason leaves and buds turn purple

I probably just gave you more questions than answers and moved you further from the actual cause for it happening :crazy_face:

1 Like

Lack of phosphorus is usually the cause from what i read just now. Could be other thi gs maybe try upping the p a little and see if it helps that situation out. Maybe @Covertgrower can point u somewhere better. I see problems i google and then with Google there is usually a million different answers lol.

@Mark0427 it is a mystery but I have pretty much accepted it. It may be my LED (kind xl 600) that I use during veg. However, I add bone meal to my soil mix and also use CalMag regularly. Either as needed or as a preventative. This is the NL clone. You can see it has some striping and purple stems too. As far as I can tell, it is otherwise very healthy in all respects

1 Like

Dont seem like growth is slowed down at all or anything ?? If no issues it probably is just the light. When i had my tent setup and had 6 blurples in there all my plants had deep red stems. Grew real nice but they never had the stripes on the stalks like that just red leaf stems. Thats why i asked

When I go to flower I turn on the 4 pacific light concepts strips with the Cree 660nm diodes. Maybe I should use it on low during veg the next time to see if that changes anything. The combination puts me at 450+ in my 3x3.

1 Like

I have some purpling, and as long as the plant looks good I don’t worry about it.

4 Likes