? Stress-Induced Trifoliate?

I’ve been routinely removing lower nodes as my plants grow. I bury the plants deeper each time I transplant. This practice seems to speed longitudinal growth and encourage a larger root system. It seems to help production (in the long run). I may be wrong but it’s what I think I’m seeing and I like to experiment.

QUESTION: Might this practice stress a bifoliate plant into becoming a trifoliate?

The photos below are of a plant that morphed into a trifoliate after starting as a bifoliate. There are three or four removed node nubs below the soil so I’ve removed a total of eight or nine sets of nodes. The transformation began at the seventh or eighth set of nodes (the fourth set above the soil) at which point the nodes began to diverge. There is a single node above that point. All six nodes above that are triples. I only photographed five sets of nodes because the top node is too small and difficult to see.

Progression of change…

Lowest set of triple nodes…

Second set up…

Third set up…

Fourth set up…

Fifth set up…

Sixth set (top)… NOT SHOWN

She’s the third plant from the left…

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I found a second plant doing the same thing. It’s just taking it a little longer to transition and it seems to have gone a bit wilder than the other in doing so. I’ll post pics of the second one later today or tomorrow.

…and maybe a third one.

I have photos of the other two plants and will post them if requested.

NAh - it’s just reaching maturity. It’s what they do!
The nodes will start to stagger and growth will explode. I’ve got 3 doing the exact same thing right now and I’ve barely cut a few fan leaves and have only done LST, no topping or FIMming.
It’s just good, vigorous growth as far as I can tell.

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Aren’t cannabis plants normally bifoliate start to finish? I thought trifoliate examples were atypical.

I had a clone like that, every node it set 3 branches. It was just that branch though, every “child” branch was normal. I ended up topping it and only kept the one set of 3, I normally like 4 mains.

I think @Tylersays is right, once they reach maturity they usually start growing alternating single nodes instead of pairs. I think sometimes they decide to keep growing the pairs too and you get 3.

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