Should I cut my plant?

Hey all! Got a question I hope someone can answer for me...

I have 3 plants growing (unfortunately the majority turned out male) but anyway.. 2 of the plants started to flower before the other and are flowering nicely, and the other plant that's only about a week into flowering just stopped growing so it is about a foot taller than the other plants, see below.



My question is.. should I cut the top off the tall plant so I can evenly distribute light to the other plants? I can't get the light as close to them as I would like and the others are already flowering better.

If it interests anyone, these are 3 plants grown from reggo bag seed. They are under a 400W HPS and have been planted in gardener's gold organic soil and I use flora nova grow/bloom for nutes. I'm open for suggestions if anyone wants to give any EXTRA advice just by glancing at the picture as this is only my 2nd grow (taken much more seriously)

Thanks!!

I wouldn't top during flowering at all. A good option might be to LST it.

LST? Excuse my ignorance. Also, the 2 plants are already raised 6 inches, so it's probably about a foot and a half taller than the others. And I don't have the option to move it.

LST - Acronym for Low-Stress Training, the technique of manipulating the branches in order to reduce plant height, expose certain branches to light, and/or distribute hormones to lower branches of the plant to encourage larger buds.

Check out this thread. I'm on my first grow and still learning as well. This thread helped me a lot!
https://www.rollitup.org/newbie-central/3423-vocabulary-growing-terms-slang.html

Awesome, thanks for the reply! My only problem with trying to manipulate the branches is that it's so vertical and not really bushy. It's about 42" tall and is only about 3 feet wide at the lower branches. Would you recommend tying it back a little near the top and bending the main stem slightly? I do have some string...

i have had the same thing happen to me. i just positioned the plants so that the tallest one is furthest from the bulb. remember, the light radiates from the bulb in a curved shape.

Gotcha, so possibly the top of my plant might not be getting much light at all, but at least the mid-section would be getting adequate light. I'll mess with the positions. Thanks!

when measuring distance from plant to light measure from the top of the plant or bud site to the bulb. moving horizontally can give you added distance with out raising the light.

I think it's arranged a little better now. Thanks for the advice, I didn't really wanna hack the ol' girl if I didn't have to ... not yet at least.

Ok, I'm bringing this up again with another suggestion. It's still stretching, about 54" now, and the other plants are about 32". The 32" plants are flowering much better. Would anyone consider chopping it down and turning the whole thing into cannabutter? It's about 2 weeks into flowering and it juuuuuuuust started showing some orange hairs on the lower branches. Should I let it grow, or should I butter it up and make some space cakes?

FYI. I've got 8 more plants about to go into medium vegging, so even 2 plants worth of bud should last me until the grand harvest. Any advice would be appreciated