topping seems easest to do but people still use the LST method for a reason and that reason is what i would like to figure out,
i have practiced LST on my first 2 practice plants and have 7 tops on one plant and 8 tops on the other plant, the only difference is i did not smash the stem before bending it, i just gently bent them over and tied them down with bread ties,
with the topping method how many times can you top a plant?
and how many times can you do the LST
since both methods produce more tops what makes LST better (or worse) than just topping
is there any recommendations to do or not to do any topping or LST on auto flower plants? @Covertgrower@Nicky@Bulldognuts@Bubblehead
FYI i hope you 4 dont mind when i tag you in a new topic, i do it because i value your opinions
One of the biggest factors is timing and experience, when it comes to timing as @Covertgrower mentioned it would be different for autos or photos.
That being said I think @PharmerBob explained and showed quite well what the difference is.
LST allows you to shape your plant the way you want so it’s always useful to growers, maybe not in every grow or plant but it’s always a tool in the tool box that people come back to. It’s easy, it’s lower stress of course and thus less damaging and it provides more customization.
Often the methods are both used in combination, let is really SCOG if you think about it to.
Toping is a HST or high stress training method, it’s not normally recommended for autos but can be done, but this method works great on photos that can be done over and over again.
One method that’s very similar that you didn’t mention is FIM’ing, works great on autos and is another HST
Give you 4 colas vs to ping gives 2 and its less stress they say
i seen the term fim’ing for the first time today i have not had time to look it up yet but as far as i can tell its just trimming off just the new leaves growing from the very top node, so how does this work?
i have only actually only done hands on growing 2 times in my life once around 30 years ago and these two plants i have going on my practice run, both times i did the LST (bending of the tops over) and both times i just did it twice on each plant during the very beginning of the veg stage and i did it just to create more tops,
now that i have spoke with y’all and then thought of all the answers you all have provided and looking at these pic i am realizing another advantage to do it is your using it to grow square hedges instead of round Plants like i have been doing,
i read the actual of most effective way to do it is to smash the stem just enough to break down the inner structure but not the outer skin where you want it to bend and i am a bit worried about that part,
am i correct that to get the plant to grow towards the corner i would try bending a large branch over and making my bend way down low on the branch and laying it over towards the corner i want it to grow towards?
FYI,
i call the current grow a practice run to work out the bugs before a grow the seeds i have began ordering from ILGM, today i got my first three sprouts, today from the strains i ordered, these first 3 are White widow autos, i plan on doing a couple of them in a DWC system with bubbles and top feeders and couple of them in soil,
i have 5 blue dreams seeds soaking right now i want to do to them 2 in DWC and and 2 in soil, so i can compare the two methods, write now my practice run in the DWC are clones and they are growing so fast i swear its seems like this first week they almost doubling in size daily and the same clones i put in soil 3 days before i built the DWC have not grown any that i can tell, if this system isn’t a hassle to take a plant to full term i may switch over to all hydroponics with all my grows
I have a pair of tweezers I use in the garden for just that purpose. I used to pinch but tweezers gave me the ability to only get the center most leaves
@frankiefingers this is really easy, and I have done this a few times. Super cropping stays if you do it correctly, and the growth just changes directions. The shoot that you bent over, now changes the amount of light exposed to the sides. That causes new shoots to come out of the stem and start growing upwards. You get more tops this way too.
I was pretty skeptical of abusing a plant this way (supercropping,) so I tried it on one of my suspected males before I threw it out. It works like a champ. I know it has to be rough on the plant for a day or 2, and I expected so, but even the branch that I supercropped never complained in any visible way. It just looked right back up at the light within a few hours and kept right on growing like nothing has happened.
