Can 2 replace 18?

The system- 2 3ftx3ft flood and drain tables (holds 9 plants each)... Im wondering instead of topping to 3 or 4 tops each on 18 plants 54-72 topps, how long of a veggative period would one suggest to produce 36 tops per plant with 2 plants to fill a 3x6 trellis up enough to have a comparable harvest? Would those plants need a different media to grow into like soil or a dwc bucket in order to get that big, i know that they need to have enough roots to facilitate the fruits, but the tables are a true ID 3x3 and 6 inches deep so 9ft2(area) or 4.5ft3 (volume), is that enough root mass to obtain my goal of making 2 plants produce and fill out a 3x6 f and d set up or should i have these puppies in 2 industrial trash cans set up for dwc? Tables are side by side and have a 1000w hps over each.

I’m doing both rdwc and flood table inone system. So I have my flower room in half a dwc one side tray the other.dwc side is a scrogged hugh plant. The other is a table tray top feed. Plants in buckets sog kinda.
Seems to work ok. Had to go top feed as the level in dwc bucket would go up down too much if I flooded.

If your just gonna grow two then buckets would be my choice

More tops does not always equal more yield. I would be careful about topping a plant too many times... the stress will likely reduce yield and opens the plant to more health issues. In order to get 36 colas per plant, you will have to top it a little more than five times. What about a medium of four plants topped four times each? That would yield 64 colas total. I would be super hesitant to top more than four times. At a certain point you see diminishing returns until it starts negatively impacting yield and significantly increasing time from sprout to harvest.

(For anyone questioning the math, it's exponential counting... 1 time topping = 2 colas, 2 times topping = 4 colas, 3 times topping = 8 colas, 4 times topping = 16 colas, 5 times topping = 32 colas)

Check out my grow, you may find some ideas there. Basically as they grow in veg, train them with trellis to grow sideways until they fill the trellis area, then let them stretch upward from the nodes a little bit and flip. Have another trellis (at least 1) above that to hold the weight.

DesertPlants said:

More tops does not always equal more yield. I would be careful about topping a plant too many times... the stress will likely reduce yield and opens the plant to more health issues. In order to get 36 colas per plant, you will have to top it a little more than five times. What about a medium of four plants topped four times each? That would yield 64 colas total. I would be super hesitant to top more than four times. At a certain point you see diminishing returns until it starts negatively impacting yield and significantly increasing time from sprout to harvest.

(For anyone questioning the math, it's exponential counting... 1 time topping = 2 colas, 2 times topping = 4 colas, 3 times topping = 8 colas, 4 times topping = 16 colas, 5 times topping = 32 colas)

Click to expand...

My personal experience is that topping more than 3 times requires a much longer veg to get decent SIZED buds.

I would also consider F.I.M. Instead of topping. A single FIM can produce significantly more colas than straight topping.