To top or not to top that is the question

W

Weedhuntfish

Member
Hi All,

I was wondering what you guys think I should do. Should I top these plants or let them grow naturally. I’m growing outdoors and I have rain protection so I’m not too concerned about the buds getting wet during flower.

I haven’t topped them yet because I just transplanted to 25 gallon pots and I didn’t want to over stress them.

If I was to top, is it to late? Do I just takeoff the top node or do I reduce the plant to a “certain node”.

Or would you just recommend some LST training? Setting up a net, bending, etc.

attached are some images of the plants and the area I just moved them to this morning. I have the area set up where I can unroll plastic around the perimeter for storms and strong winds

thanks in advance and happy growing
 

Attachments

mudballs

mudballs

Well-Known Member
You didnt mention if they are the same strains or not. If they are, you have enough plants you can experiment. Top one, LST another...or a couple. And then let one grow untouched. If they are different strains i would probably just LST.
 
W

Weedhuntfish

Member
mudballs said:
You didnt mention if they are the same strains or not. If they are, you have enough plants you can experiment. Top one, LST another...or a couple. And then let one grow untouched. If they are different strains i would probably just LST.
Click to expand...
Yes I have 3 different strains growing, but 3 of the 6 are the same. I’ve grown one strain indoors and it was very susceptible to stress so I was planning on little training with that one. The other 2 strains, 5 plants, are fair game lol. The three of the same, Trainwreck, seem to be doing great so far. They have shown no signs of any stress.
 
stealthfader508

stealthfader508

Well-Known Member
I've been growing outdoors for a really long time and have tried every method there is.

LST is the worst way to go with big plants... you end up needing to MacGyver all kinds of support at the end of the season ... In recent years, I was topping and mainlining the plants to 16, 32, or even 64 tops and stripping all shoots below until I hit the desired amount of tops, where I just let them go .... it creates a much better supported plant, however, there's a lot of wasted growth at the bottom 3 or 4 feet ... It's well supported, but it just moves the entire harvest higher up in the air

Last year I experimented with just supercropping a few of my plants, and mainlining a few others .... I learned supercropping is 100% the way to go, I won't top a single plant this year ... I just pinch and bend the limbs in the general direction I want them to go, and watch the magic happen .... the pinch sites heal into a knot that helps support everything above it .... everything below the pinch site explodes with growth creating a much fuller plant ... for yield and support, it's not even close, super-cropping wins every single time....

The picture below shows what I'm talking about pretty well... on the left side (and rear) of the greenhouse you can see the plants that were just primarily mainlined until they reached about 32 tops, then just let go ... on the right front you can see a couple plants that were primarily supercropped ... they're much smaller yes, but believe it or not the shorter plants out-yielded the taller plants by a substantial amount ... the only real difference was the mainlined plants were way up in the air and needed all kinds of rigging to keep the buds upright come september ... hope this helps!

IMG_5083.jpg
 
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W

Weedhuntfish

Member
stealthfader508 said:
I've been growing outdoors for a really long time and have tried every method there is.

LST is the worst way to go with big plants... you end up needing to MacGyver all kinds of support at the end of the season ... In recent years, I was topping and mainlining the plants to 16, 32, or even 64 tops and stripping all shoots below until I hit the desired amount of tops, where I just let them go .... it creates a much better supported plant, however, there's a lot of wasted growth at the bottom 3 or 4 feet ... It's well supported, but it just moves the entire harvest higher up in the air

Last year I experimented with just supercropping a few of my plants, and mainlining a few others .... I learned supercropping is 100% the way to go, I won't top a single plant this year ... I just pinch and bend the limbs in the general direction I want them to go, and watch the magic happen .... the pinch sites heal into a knot that helps support everything above it .... everything below the pinch site explodes with growth creating a much fuller plant ... for yield and support, it's not even close, super-cropping wins every single time....

The picture below shows what I'm talking about pretty well... on the left side (and rear) of the greenhouse you can see the plants that were just primarily mainlined until they reached about 32 tops, then just let go ... on the right front you can see a couple plants that were primarily supercropped ... they're much smaller yes, but believe it or not the shorter plants out-yielded the taller plants by a substantial amount ... the only real difference was the mainlined plants were way up in the air and needed all kinds of rigging to keep the buds upright come september ... hope this helps!

View attachment 4895110
Click to expand...
Thanks for the detailed response! Your set up is awesome! This is my first year growing outdoors, second grow ever so I’m trying to learn as much as possible. When you say pinch and bend do you have a video or something showing this technique?

Also, I really like how you have those plants staked so it’s easy to put up netting. Great idea, I’m going to steal that from you
 
W

Weedhuntfish

Member
stealthfader508 said:
I've been growing outdoors for a really long time and have tried every method there is.

LST is the worst way to go with big plants... you end up needing to MacGyver all kinds of support at the end of the season ... In recent years, I was topping and mainlining the plants to 16, 32, or even 64 tops and stripping all shoots below until I hit the desired amount of tops, where I just let them go .... it creates a much better supported plant, however, there's a lot of wasted growth at the bottom 3 or 4 feet ... It's well supported, but it just moves the entire harvest higher up in the air

Last year I experimented with just supercropping a few of my plants, and mainlining a few others .... I learned supercropping is 100% the way to go, I won't top a single plant this year ... I just pinch and bend the limbs in the general direction I want them to go, and watch the magic happen .... the pinch sites heal into a knot that helps support everything above it .... everything below the pinch site explodes with growth creating a much fuller plant ... for yield and support, it's not even close, super-cropping wins every single time....

The picture below shows what I'm talking about pretty well... on the left side (and rear) of the greenhouse you can see the plants that were just primarily mainlined until they reached about 32 tops, then just let go ... on the right front you can see a couple plants that were primarily supercropped ... they're much smaller yes, but believe it or not the shorter plants out-yielded the taller plants by a substantial amount ... the only real difference was the mainlined plants were way up in the air and needed all kinds of rigging to keep the buds upright come september ... hope this helps!

View attachment 4895110
Click to expand...
Sorry one more question. Should I stake the main stems at this time ?
 
stealthfader508

stealthfader508

Well-Known Member
nah, the main stems won't need any staking at any point ... i stake the four corners of the raised bed and use trellis netting were I need it ... You can also use a heavy duty tomato cage around the plant if you wanted ... it helps to support a lot of the lateral branches down low

for supercropping info check out kyle kushmans youtube video, he explains it well


then just search this site and google, you'll find a shitload of info out there. You can just your fingers to pinch the stems, it's easy enough once you get the hang of it ... but when you're pinching a huge outdoor plant, sometimes hundreds of times each I find it way easier to use this supercropper tool

www.hydro45.com

Easy Super Cropper (All Colors)

Super Cropper Tool (If interested in specific Color please specify at checkout "In Notes") Thank you! What is Super Cropping? Super Cropping is one of the easiest, most effective ways to safely stress your plants for exponentially larger harvests. A form of High-Stress Training (HST), Super...
www.hydro45.com www.hydro45.com

I normally hate gimmicky shit, and this really is just a pair of needle nose pliers with a rubber coating applied to it... but it honestly makes it so much easier, and consistent it's ridiculous.
 
stealthfader508

stealthfader508

Well-Known Member
fyi... if you watch the kyle kushman video, i do things a bit differently but it gives a good idea of what supercropping is all about and the science behind it

I do strip a lot of my lower leaves indoors, but outdoors I never really strip leaves that are still green ... I also don't de-node like he does ... i may pull nodes from down really low, or that I don't like the direction they're heading .... but I typically just let everything go until early flower ... at that point I'll pull a bunch of the small suckers down low and in the middle... and yank any yellowing leaves

I also don't supercrop the same way he does.... I don't pinch every segment at once like him, usually I just concentrate on the top 2 or 3 segments at a time ... the lower pinch I'll just pinch and leave it standing, but the highest pinch I'll pinch and bend it 90 degrees in the direction I want it to go
 
W

Weedhuntfish

Member
Awesome pics that helps a lot!

since everyone is here I have another question. I just transplanted from 2 gallon pots to their final 25 gallon pots. I watered each 25 gallon pot with 2 gallons of water. Definitely didn’t get much water out the bottom. Also I did not water the entire perimeter of the pot, just where I thought the roots would be and a little further. Should I be drenching the whole pot or keep doing what I’m doing?
 
W

Weedhuntfish

Member
I am not adding any nutrients yet since I am growing in fox farms ocean Forrest. I figured there was enough in that soul for now.
 
JimmiP

JimmiP

Well-Known Member
Weedhuntfish said:
Thanks for the detailed response! Your set up is awesome! This is my first year growing outdoors, second grow ever so I’m trying to learn as much as possible. When you say pinch and bend do you have a video or something showing this technique?

Also, I really like how you have those plants staked so it’s easy to put up netting. Great idea, I’m going to steal that from you
Click to expand...
If you decide to grow in a hoop house like Stealthfader508 and I do, I would recommend putting two layers of trellis netting above the plants before you move them in.... I waited until they were huge and it was a giant pain in the butt getting the first net installed with the plants in the way.20200805_142510.jpgthat's my buddy on a six foot step ladder.
Then this is what it looked like when we had to do the second net.20201026_191314.jpg
And that's just five plants. We were covered in resin by the time we were done.
So make it easier on yourself and put the upper netting in first. Even if you don't think you will need it now ,it'll be nice when it's already there.
Good luck friend!
 
warbalig

warbalig

Well-Known Member
stealthfader508 said:
I've been growing outdoors for a really long time and have tried every method there is.

LST is the worst way to go with big plants... you end up needing to MacGyver all kinds of support at the end of the season ... In recent years, I was topping and mainlining the plants to 16, 32, or even 64 tops and stripping all shoots below until I hit the desired amount of tops, where I just let them go .... it creates a much better supported plant, however, there's a lot of wasted growth at the bottom 3 or 4 feet ... It's well supported, but it just moves the entire harvest higher up in the air

Last year I experimented with just supercropping a few of my plants, and mainlining a few others .... I learned supercropping is 100% the way to go, I won't top a single plant this year ... I just pinch and bend the limbs in the general direction I want them to go, and watch the magic happen .... the pinch sites heal into a knot that helps support everything above it .... everything below the pinch site explodes with growth creating a much fuller plant ... for yield and support, it's not even close, super-cropping wins every single time....

The picture below shows what I'm talking about pretty well... on the left side (and rear) of the greenhouse you can see the plants that were just primarily mainlined until they reached about 32 tops, then just let go ... on the right front you can see a couple plants that were primarily supercropped ... they're much smaller yes, but believe it or not the shorter plants out-yielded the taller plants by a substantial amount ... the only real difference was the mainlined plants were way up in the air and needed all kinds of rigging to keep the buds upright come september ... hope this helps!

View attachment 4895110
Click to expand...
suppercroping is way to go i use it all the time here in VA.
 
iriemartin1974

iriemartin1974

Well-Known Member
warbalig said:
suppercroping is way to go i use it all the time here in VA.
Click to expand...
I know its been a long time since you posted this but thanks for the info.. I noticed you're in Virginia, me too. If you're on Facebook im a member of a group called Green Growers VA, we are growing come check us out...
 
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