I have a couple LSD strains 20 days since sprout and am looking into when I should top them. I plan on topping above the second node when there are 5 nodes. But I am wondering how developed should the 5th node be until I top it? I am wondering too if cutting above the 3rd node rather than the 2nd would sstill result in 4 main colas? My bottom 2 leaf sets seem weak so does an extra set of leaves help much? Also, after the top is it necessary to veg longer? and How far behind would the tops be behind the plants if I decided to clone it? any advice/tips are welcome.
Topping Questions
- Thread starter db2
- Start date
caviarshower
Member
Yo man I have the exact same question. Hope some1 replies 2 u soon. Have u read uncle bens guide 2 topping?
Yes, but I have not seen anything regarding my listed questions. Hopefully someone helps us out lol
mr.sessemia
Well-Known Member
S.V.T.
Active Member
when I top, I usually watch the node distance and use this as a reference to make my decision. Most of the time I've seen the plants grow in phases, sometimes stretching a little extra between some nodes. In a situation like this I would let the plant veg until I saw a clear stretch In the space between nodes...so for example; you may have 5 or 6 layers of nodes that are tight together and between the 6th and 7th the plant stretched....etc. I would top below the stretch/above the tight nodes. That's how I do it if I top. Oh, and I usually give my plants at least 10 days, after any trainining/topping, for recovery. It's very important to go into flowering stress free.
yoquierotacobell
Active Member
Youtube has some great videos showing how and when to top, check it out.
Xcon
Active Member
Topping triggers more verticle growth in the lower branches so you want at least 3 nodes below your cut to grow shoots, but you don't want to extend your veg time past 4 or 5. Tying the resulting branches back will trigger more verticle growth as well as open up the center of the plant to more light, giving you a nice bushy plant with lots of buds. It's beneficial to encourage bushyness with LST under a single stationary light source because your branches will be competing with each other for the most light, crowding out lower branches.
I've had 4 main colas and at least 8 minor colas on each plant by doing this. Easy Breezy closet LST: tie a string to a branch, pull it back a little, tape/tie string to lip of pot. Repeat.
Good luck with your plants!
I've had 4 main colas and at least 8 minor colas on each plant by doing this. Easy Breezy closet LST: tie a string to a branch, pull it back a little, tape/tie string to lip of pot. Repeat.
Good luck with your plants!
My420
Active Member
I do not top anymore because I found that there are better ways to increase yield without stunting growth and losing a week's worth or more of growth. Here is a way you can get more production from bending or the LST ( Low Stress Training )
I really hope this helps in your decision or gives you any help at all.
To start, let me explain just what low stress training is. In the thread I will refer to it as (LST). All a training is, is making your plant do something you want.The best part about LST, is the key "Low Stress". It doesn't stress your plant nearly as bad as other training methods exe. Topping. All LST involves doing is the tieing or staking down of a plants top/uppermost growth shoots in order to get more top growths. This bends the plant over and spreads the light to the undermost parts of your plants. When you do this, it makes the undergrowth bush out as well. However, spreading the light isn't what makes your plant bush out.
Auxins
I can not stress enough the importance of this word. Auxins, as defined in the science world are a type of plant growth hormone. In marijuana, they are the most import hormone when it comes to vegetative growth. In an untrained, regular marijuana plant, the auxins are most heavily distributed to the top/uppermost growth. The plant identifies this growth as its top and strives to grow it up towards the light more than the other lower growths. This is where LST comes into play. When you bend a plants top growth over, the plant identifies that it's top growth is no longer growing up, and it works to gain a new top growth. In essence, the auxins spread throughout your whole plant and this creates new growth along your nodes that have the potential to be equal to a "top bud or cola". Here is an example on the growth a plant recieves from the auxins being redistributed via. LST.
View attachment 1171750View attachment 1171753View attachment 1171793View attachment 1171800View attachment 1171819
Please take note at the new growth between the nodes. This is the work of the auxins. Also, take a look in the last picture as to where the original "top growth" is, and where the new top growth is. The plant created new ones. When flowering, this will give you more top buds, but less smaller popcorn buds that formed along the bottom of a regular grown plant. This particular LST grow was done with a smaller plant, but you can do it with large plants like in the video link I will post at the bottom.
Now, let's take a look at the reasons why we LST.
1. Space- Many of times growers do not have the space to allow their plant to grow through the vegetative and flowering phase straight up (PC grows, attic grows, box grows). This is where LST comes into play. By tieing/staking down your plant, instead of growing vertically your plant grows horizontally, allowing your plant to still develop to maturity without growing up against your lights..
2. Light- As a plant grows upward towards the light, you constantly have to move your lighting fixture up to keep from burning your plant. As your light gets higher up, it gets further away from your bottom nodes and leaves. This can cause for more scraggly buds and leaves on the bottom of your plant, and put a dent in your harvest. This is especially true when you have lower powered lights(t5, CFLs, etc.)However, if you LST your plant sort of grows horizontally, allowing all of your budsites that grow up to be more exposed to the light. You will still have upward growth, just not as much depending on how long you let your new growth shoots grow before flowering, or LSTing the new growth down.
3. Stealth- Many of times those outdoor plants you have growing by the fence in the backyard just get too tall. What to do? Instead of growing up, just grow horizontally. This can keep those pesky neighbors from knowing that you have more than tomatoes growing in the yard.
Last but not least, let's learn how to LST. LST can be done in many fashions. I will first explain how to do it the easiest and most inexpensive way that if you make a mistake it does not kill you financially or make you re do hours of work. /SIZE]
Step 1: Cut your closehanger into straight pieces (8-12 inches depending on how tall your plant is). You want the top of the closehanger to be anywhere from 4-6 inches below the top of your plant.
Step 2: Put a Crook or a bend in the end of the closehanger piece. This allows you to put the 2nd node down from the top of your plant under it.
Step 3: This is called the countertie, and is probably one of the most important steps. Take your string or wire and make you a piece long enough to reach from the base of your plant to the edge of your pot. Tie your string or wrap your wire about 3 inches up the base of your plant and run it to the edge of the pot. Don't pull on the plant, just make sure it isn't loose. Tape the other end of the wire/string to your pot. This gives a counter resistance to your LST so that your plant doesn't get uprooted on the stake down.
Step 4: Place your closehanger in the dirt of your pot, with the crooked end up.
Step 5: GENTLY bend your plants top over and place it under the closehanger.
View attachment 1171859
Step 6: As your original top growth, and new top shoots begin to grow up, you can continue to stake them down and get lots of new growth. Repeat the process until you are satisfied with the bushiness and amount of top shoots that are on your plant. At this point you may let your plant grow as tall as you want or just switch to 12/12. I reccomend for indoor growers with limited space, as soon as you have the amount of top shoots you want that you switch to 12/12 as the plant will bush out incredibly if you continue to veg.
That is just the way I do LST. I'm not saying it's the best way, or it's the most effective. It's all a matter of personal preference. There are many other ways to do this including.
1. Screw and string Method- This simply involves screwing screws into the lip of your pot all the way around (8-12 of them). You then tie your plants top down to the screw nearest it with string. As new top growths emerge, keep tieing them down to screws around the pot of course bigger plants require a different setup like mine or similar.
2. Weighting- All you need to do here, is get some sort of a weight (Fishing weights, clips, or anything your plant can't lift). You then tie a string to this weight, and tie it to your top node. It pulls it down, and as new top growths appear tie them down with more weights until you have the desired amount of new upper growths.
3.Object Tieing- For bigger outdoor or indoor plants, you can find some sort of an object that the plant can't move, like PVC pipe or something else that is not easily broken and can support the weight of the colas and being able to handle the string being tied tightly to each end with out bowing inward or breaking.
As you can see, there are tons of ways to LST. When it comes to Low Stress Training, there really is no wrong way. Just tie your plant down, spread the auxins, and watch the new growth.
I really hope this helps people better understand LST and get a better feel of what to do when it comes to training their plant and here is the link to my grow using this technique.
https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/429540-bending-technique-here-example-how.html
I really hope this helps in your decision or gives you any help at all.
To start, let me explain just what low stress training is. In the thread I will refer to it as (LST). All a training is, is making your plant do something you want.The best part about LST, is the key "Low Stress". It doesn't stress your plant nearly as bad as other training methods exe. Topping. All LST involves doing is the tieing or staking down of a plants top/uppermost growth shoots in order to get more top growths. This bends the plant over and spreads the light to the undermost parts of your plants. When you do this, it makes the undergrowth bush out as well. However, spreading the light isn't what makes your plant bush out.
Auxins
I can not stress enough the importance of this word. Auxins, as defined in the science world are a type of plant growth hormone. In marijuana, they are the most import hormone when it comes to vegetative growth. In an untrained, regular marijuana plant, the auxins are most heavily distributed to the top/uppermost growth. The plant identifies this growth as its top and strives to grow it up towards the light more than the other lower growths. This is where LST comes into play. When you bend a plants top growth over, the plant identifies that it's top growth is no longer growing up, and it works to gain a new top growth. In essence, the auxins spread throughout your whole plant and this creates new growth along your nodes that have the potential to be equal to a "top bud or cola". Here is an example on the growth a plant recieves from the auxins being redistributed via. LST.
View attachment 1171750View attachment 1171753View attachment 1171793View attachment 1171800View attachment 1171819
Please take note at the new growth between the nodes. This is the work of the auxins. Also, take a look in the last picture as to where the original "top growth" is, and where the new top growth is. The plant created new ones. When flowering, this will give you more top buds, but less smaller popcorn buds that formed along the bottom of a regular grown plant. This particular LST grow was done with a smaller plant, but you can do it with large plants like in the video link I will post at the bottom.
Now, let's take a look at the reasons why we LST.
1. Space- Many of times growers do not have the space to allow their plant to grow through the vegetative and flowering phase straight up (PC grows, attic grows, box grows). This is where LST comes into play. By tieing/staking down your plant, instead of growing vertically your plant grows horizontally, allowing your plant to still develop to maturity without growing up against your lights..
2. Light- As a plant grows upward towards the light, you constantly have to move your lighting fixture up to keep from burning your plant. As your light gets higher up, it gets further away from your bottom nodes and leaves. This can cause for more scraggly buds and leaves on the bottom of your plant, and put a dent in your harvest. This is especially true when you have lower powered lights(t5, CFLs, etc.)However, if you LST your plant sort of grows horizontally, allowing all of your budsites that grow up to be more exposed to the light. You will still have upward growth, just not as much depending on how long you let your new growth shoots grow before flowering, or LSTing the new growth down.
3. Stealth- Many of times those outdoor plants you have growing by the fence in the backyard just get too tall. What to do? Instead of growing up, just grow horizontally. This can keep those pesky neighbors from knowing that you have more than tomatoes growing in the yard.
Last but not least, let's learn how to LST. LST can be done in many fashions. I will first explain how to do it the easiest and most inexpensive way that if you make a mistake it does not kill you financially or make you re do hours of work. /SIZE]
The Closehanger
For this method, all you need is a closehanger, wirecutters, some string or wire, and a piece of ducttape. This is for younger and smaller plants and very cost effective and easy way to do it. I use only netting string and PVC pipe as I find it is easy to cut the PVC and you can leave the legs in your tray as it will not rot in water and works well when your plants increase in size.Step 1: Cut your closehanger into straight pieces (8-12 inches depending on how tall your plant is). You want the top of the closehanger to be anywhere from 4-6 inches below the top of your plant.
Step 2: Put a Crook or a bend in the end of the closehanger piece. This allows you to put the 2nd node down from the top of your plant under it.
Step 3: This is called the countertie, and is probably one of the most important steps. Take your string or wire and make you a piece long enough to reach from the base of your plant to the edge of your pot. Tie your string or wrap your wire about 3 inches up the base of your plant and run it to the edge of the pot. Don't pull on the plant, just make sure it isn't loose. Tape the other end of the wire/string to your pot. This gives a counter resistance to your LST so that your plant doesn't get uprooted on the stake down.
Step 4: Place your closehanger in the dirt of your pot, with the crooked end up.
Step 5: GENTLY bend your plants top over and place it under the closehanger.
View attachment 1171859
Step 6: As your original top growth, and new top shoots begin to grow up, you can continue to stake them down and get lots of new growth. Repeat the process until you are satisfied with the bushiness and amount of top shoots that are on your plant. At this point you may let your plant grow as tall as you want or just switch to 12/12. I reccomend for indoor growers with limited space, as soon as you have the amount of top shoots you want that you switch to 12/12 as the plant will bush out incredibly if you continue to veg.
That is just the way I do LST. I'm not saying it's the best way, or it's the most effective. It's all a matter of personal preference. There are many other ways to do this including.
1. Screw and string Method- This simply involves screwing screws into the lip of your pot all the way around (8-12 of them). You then tie your plants top down to the screw nearest it with string. As new top growths emerge, keep tieing them down to screws around the pot of course bigger plants require a different setup like mine or similar.
2. Weighting- All you need to do here, is get some sort of a weight (Fishing weights, clips, or anything your plant can't lift). You then tie a string to this weight, and tie it to your top node. It pulls it down, and as new top growths appear tie them down with more weights until you have the desired amount of new upper growths.
3.Object Tieing- For bigger outdoor or indoor plants, you can find some sort of an object that the plant can't move, like PVC pipe or something else that is not easily broken and can support the weight of the colas and being able to handle the string being tied tightly to each end with out bowing inward or breaking.
As you can see, there are tons of ways to LST. When it comes to Low Stress Training, there really is no wrong way. Just tie your plant down, spread the auxins, and watch the new growth.
I really hope this helps people better understand LST and get a better feel of what to do when it comes to training their plant and here is the link to my grow using this technique.
https://www.rollitup.org/indoor-growing/429540-bending-technique-here-example-how.html