What is last date on outdoor grow that you would fim a plant

Hello, I need a little help here, I have WW and SS plants that I have fim’d twice, the last time was on the 4th of July, Now they are really starting to grow taller. I would like to fim or top them to decrease the end height of the plants. Can somebody tell me when the last time to fim. I am growing outdoors and am in California. Can anyone help me with this? Thanks…

Check for the Autumnal(fall/winter) equinox in your area. The last FIM or topping is done about a week or two before initiating flowering with 12 hours or more of darkness which will be around Sept. 25th for most of the nation outdoors.

Thank you for your help, it really looks like you guys have your hands full with this forum! Keep up the great work… you are a great and patient person… thank you

Please let us know how your grow turns out. this will help future growers decide how to manage their grows. Peace

I know my response is a little late, but I concur with @latewood that you definitely want to do it a couple of weeks before the 12/12 period begins. Doing anytime after that you run the risk of developing hermies from the stress.

Because of how far Northeast I am and my treeline, I have to factor that some of my grow doesn’t have exposure to 100% full sun through the autumnal equinox so the 12/12 trigger can occur as early as August for some of them.

I just FIM’d the seedlings I started on 2/5/17 this morning. IN a couple of weeks they’ll recover and I’ll transplant them into 1 gallons. I repeat again when those have developed their 3rd set and FIM the 3-4 leaves. That should create about 64 nodes per plant. That’s as much as I ever FIM mine.

Once I get them outside I will begin to super-crop them all as gently symmetrically as possible. Doing anytime after flowering begins you also run the risk of developing hermies from the stress. I go to low stress training to maintain even exposure throughout flowering. When they stat to ripen I start the defoliation process. Plants push everything to hormone release (resinous tricomes) in a last ditch attempt to attract and capture male pollen.
I do use a couple of store bought nutes to boost flower production at onset and then ripening toward the last couple of weeks until I start seeing milky trics. Then I stop and wait until my trics have a touch of amber. That allows me to harvest slowly while it ripens to varying degrees of clear to amber.

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Check your local season time frame. You want to flower them approx. 12 weeks before it starts getting too cold in your area.

Willd, Love the low stress statements.

One thing about Super crop; And, I only do this to the main stem below the top kola. You can bend, and break over the top in flower during the stretching cycle, with little chance of hermies.

However; I totally agree with the idea of not stressing your gals during the flower period.

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Cool. My experience with the girls turning hermies was with a couple of clones that had thin stalk walls which I got a little overzealous with. Part of my defoliation involves stripping any skimpy lower branches (flowering or not) too. Being able to really push all those yield boosting techniques to their limits growing outdoors affords us the luxury of having plenty of ripe “popcorn” to play without having to hang onto the scraggly lower growth that saps the energy away from all the more significant kolas.

I have left some on to continue to mature and try to harvest it as it ripens further just for something to do outside before frost really sets in and squeeze a little more value into the final numbers.