Uncle Ben's Topping Technique to Get 2 or 4 Main Colas

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muchogood

Active Member
born2killspam said:
A clone carries the genetic age of its mother plant.. A seedling will begin by growing opposing nodes.. When it reaches sexual maturity about a month into its life it will form preflowers and begin the alternating nodes you see..
A clone is as sexually mature as its mother, so they immediately grow with alternating phylotaxy.. Its not about vegitative state or light cycle, its about genetic age..
You can top a clone.. It will shift growth focus to the secondaries, but you won't get quite the same uniformity as with opposing nodes and UB's method.. Remember that alternating nodes really count as 1/2 of an opposing node, so if you want 4 equalish tops you'd need to snip above the 4th node.. And for the record, all nodes on a clone are true nodes so long as they're actively growing and not cannibalized..
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MeJuana said:
Can you do this to plants with alternating nodes? I did it already but someone said it doesn't work right, my plants look awesome but honestly I can't tell what happened til I trim them.
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Here I found it Mewanna! lilbonger
 
S

sdkid

Active Member
Uncle Ben said:
Dave's got you covered. You "use" whatever will maintain the leaves in a healthy condition until harvest, and most "bloom" foods won't guarantee that. In fact, the use of bloom foods during flowering usually works against you. With experience, you're gonna find that if you've doing fine during veg, your troubles begin about the 3rd week into the flowering response. Remember, I told you so. :D



Doing well brickman...... Hope it's going good for you too. Happy Turkey Day!

.
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So just use foilage pro throughout the entire grow, i should be good?
 
Brick Top

Brick Top

New Member
Uncle Ben said:
Dave's got you covered. You "use" whatever will maintain the leaves in a healthy condition until harvest, and most "bloom" foods won't guarantee that. In fact, the use of bloom foods during flowering usually works against you.
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There was a time when I would have disagreed with Uncle Ben on the bloom foods, and I guess to a slight degree I still do. I used to believe in them wholeheartedly. Then I started having a problem here and something odd happen there and I started backing off on them a fair it. I will still use them but sparingly.

After wondering why that was happening I thought about the strains it was happening with and came up with a very rudimentary purely assumptive theory. The strains were basically mutts, Heinz 57 Variety strains, ones that were made up starting with pure landrace strains used to make crosses that then were used to make crosses and triple crosses that then went into other crosses and sometimes more triple crosses until finally they were released as being the latest and the greatest. The landrace strains were from differing parts of the world where they would have evolved under very different conditions to exist in soil that had very different nutritional elements, mainly as in differing amounts but in some cases just different.

It made me wonder if in strains that have such amazingly varied genetics in them, that would bring with them differing needs for optimal health and growth and production, that possibly we are reaching a point where a one size fits all fertilizer for vegetative growth and another for flowering just won't or don't adequately meet the plants needs and that might, at least in part, explain some of the oddities and problems people see now and then and cannot explain because going my what people have been taught and going by instructions everything should be cool and the gang.

Some people have been going all Lady Gaga over Super Lemon Haze. Take a look at it's lineage and think a minute about how with all that variety of genetics in it, or something along those lines, might it not have nutritional needs that will differ from what we can pick from column A or column B?



Maybe I am just high but at times I wonder if some breeders are not getting to the point where they are creating Frankenstein s monsters that could turn out to be real pains in the pains in the butt given what we have to chose from for ferts.


With experience, you're gonna find that if you've doing fine during veg, your troubles begin about the 3rd week into the flowering response. Remember, I told you so. :D
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I have another theory about that one Uncle Ben, one that if correct I used to be guilty of. Sometimes people really pour on the ferts in veg trying to get all the growth they can. I used to use them heavily enough that I would look for the very slightest bit of tip burn and then back off just slightly and figured that I was then giving my plants the maximum they could use.

Like you said three weeks into flower, even though I switched to flowering nutes, I would at times see problems. I think a buildup of vegging nutes occurs and even though someone switches to flowering nutes there is still a fair bit of vegging nutes left to be used up and the combination results in various different problems. I am fairly sure that is why people will see 'the claw' in flower. That's from excess nitrogen and even with lower nitrogen flowering nutes if there is a buildup of vegging nutes left behind the person is unintentionally giving their plants excessive amounts of nitrogen. With the leftover ferts it throws the entire balance off of what plants need while flowering, at least until they are used up or unless someone waters enough to in essence have performed at least a partial flush.

It is just a theory of mine but it seems to fit with problems I have seen in the past and has been enough for me to alter some things I used to do and since then things flow a lot smoother for me.




Doing well brickman...... Hope it's going good for you too. Happy Turkey Day!
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I'm glad to hear you are doing well, and I hope the same goes for Auntie.

With Christmas not all that far away I hope the two of you are planning on spoiling yourselves a bit more than normal now that you have a couple more quarters in your pocket and a few more green pieces of paper with pictures of presidents on them lying around than in the past.

Life is short Unc, so live it up a bit! You can't take it with you and you don't win a prize for leaving the most most behind .. so enjoy!
 
Uncle Ben

Uncle Ben

Well-Known Member
Nice garden wally nutter!

Hi BT! I guess what I'm getting at is based on observation and experience. Observation regarding internet gardens I've observed over many years and to a certain extent my own. Folks pour on the bloom foods starting with the flowering response which usually ends up in an "aw shit" drill starting around the 3rd week. I've done it myself. It's hard to give up paradigms, "popular" thought is a hard driver. As soon as I got heavy with some bloom food (high in P) the trouble started with chlorotic situations, tip/margin burn, premature leaf drop. It's a nutrient antagonism issue plain and simple. Potted plants and those grown in hydro just don't need alot of P, nor do they need alot of K like some of the hydro "grow" foods you see having a wacked out (combined) ratio like 1-4-8. Cannabis is a foliage plant so it requires plenty of N for support. Probably the "perfect" blossom booster for soil is Peters 10-30-20 based on it's design - a good mix of N sources (nitrate/ammonical/urea) a bump of Mg, good Fe content, etc. That's a 1-3-2 ratio which is the standard for bloom foods IMO. Folks can use something along those lines, but they should be switching back to a high N food if experiencing premature leaf drop. Now...... they aint gonna do that in most cases, they just can't think outside of the box nor break the chains of forum hyperbole..... "everyone does it".

If you're flushing the soil like you should, there should be no buildup of N salts. In fact, nitrate N salts flush out readily as they carry the same charge as soil particles.

We're living it up, hope you are too! Just bought a big ass 2010 pickup, 2011 luxury convertible sports car, commericial kegerator and other stuff, improvements to the house and such. Yeah, Christmas is gonna be OK but the wife has serious health problems, etc. Found out that indeed money does not bring you happiness, only good friends and family. My next installation is a large high tunnel greenhouse, this spring, one patio has been expanded out (rebar/concrete) and both patios will be tiled in porcelain with one open-aired section having red cedar 2X8's and lath work overhead.

nuff of the off topic stuff..... Take care and have a great T day.


UB
 
Danielsgb

Danielsgb

Well-Known Member
Very interesting UB and Bricktop. I love reading both your posts when I see them.
BT, I was wondering how the mix of land-race strains can effect the strains needs. I've read how long ago the farmers had to get new seed stock as theirs had evolved. Not sure how long that took, but I think it was several years. I saw a Green House Seeds video Strain Hunters. They were in N. India and there was a clear difference in Sativa/Indica %'s within several hundred Meters in elevation. I didn't expect that.
UB, Good to hear you're up to some cool projects. Have a good Thanksgiving.
Daniels
 
Desr

Desr

Well-Known Member
i had no idea this was called unclebens topping tech, i just knew how to do it.. and i did it...and i have like 6.
 
rfun

rfun

Well-Known Member
I followed the information on this post and just topped all of my girls, 23 of them, 2 nights ago. I used the second node method to try and get 4 colas, but I added alittle twist. Some of them were developing some small weak looking nodes on the bottom first set and even on the second. But my plants by this time were already vegging for a month so they had up to 6 and 8 nodes some 10. So what I did was cut off weak nodes at the bottom if needed and counted up 2 sets of nodes from there and then topped. Do you guys think the 4 cola technique will still work? Plant are looking fine and on one of them in particular that I applied this method to, it looks like it worked like a charm, cause the 4 branches that were left on it came in and shot straight up evenly. So I think it'll work, but I just wanted opinions from some of you guys that have been growin and topping this way for awhile. Thanks.
 
odlaw

odlaw

Active Member
ub aint gunna be happy u chopped off nodes that didnt need chopping u just stole food source from ya babys
 
Brick Top

Brick Top

New Member
Uncle Ben said:
Hi BT! I guess what I'm getting at is based on observation and experience. Observation regarding internet gardens I've observed over many years and to a certain extent my own. Folks pour on the bloom foods starting with the flowering response which usually ends up in an "aw shit" drill starting around the 3rd week. I've done it myself. It's hard to give up paradigms, "popular" thought is a hard driver. As soon as I got heavy with some bloom food (high in P) the trouble started with chlorotic situations, tip/margin burn, premature leaf drop. It's a nutrient antagonism issue plain and simple.

If you're flushing the soil like you should, there should be no buildup of N salts. In fact, nitrate N salts flush out readily as they carry the same charge as soil particles.
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Knowing that many people do not flush between the vegetative growth phase and flowering my assumption, wrong as it might be, was a buildup of vegging ferts then having flowering ferts added resulting in a mix in the soil that no cannabis plant would 'want' or thrive on. Likely you are correct though.



We're living it up, hope you are too! Just bought a big ass 2010 pickup, 2011 luxury convertible sports car, commericial kegerator and other stuff, improvements to the house and such. Yeah, Christmas is gonna be OK but the wife has serious health problems, etc. Found out that indeed money does not bring you happiness, only good friends and family. My next installation is a large high tunnel greenhouse, this spring, one patio has been expanded out (rebar/concrete) and both patios will be tiled in porcelain with one open-aired section having red cedar 2X8's and lath work overhead.

nuff of the off topic stuff..... Take care and have a great T day.


UB
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Until I read about the health issues I was smiling and whooping it up for you. I most sincerely hope that your wife's health issues can be fully and completely dealt with soon and with as little unpleasantness for both of you as is possible.

Best of luck to both of you!

Have a HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
 
Brick Top

Brick Top

New Member
potpimp said:
Hey Uncle Ben, we need your gi-normous brain over here on a thread. :smile: Sorry for posting this here but your inbox was full. Thanks!

https://www.rollitup.org/advanced-marijuana-cultivation/385463-grafting-autoflowers-onto-non-auto.html
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Floyd the barber there just ain't whistling Dixie either. A question, or maybe more of a theory was offered, and when I began to research it I found myself going deeper and deeper down what appeared to be a bottomless hole. I made a reply, basically saying I don't have a clue, and while it seems half-long and fairly detailed I trimmed out about half or more of what I found and was at first going to say. There seems to be so many different things that factor in and that seem like they could override others, at least under some conditions but not under others and various other things to factor in that almost seems contradictory at times, but most likely it is they are just confusing to my weak brain. Possibly if you find some free time you might be able to cut through parts that really do not factor in the way I felt they do or should or might and make heads or tails of it.
 
Brick Top

Brick Top

New Member
Danielsgb said:
Very interesting UB and Bricktop. I love reading both your posts when I see them.
BT, I was wondering how the mix of land-race strains can effect the strains needs. I've read how long ago the farmers had to get new seed stock as theirs had evolved. Not sure how long that took, but I think it was several years. I saw a Green House Seeds video Strain Hunters. They were in N. India and there was a clear difference in Sativa/Indica %'s within several hundred Meters in elevation. I didn't expect that.
UB, Good to hear you're up to some cool projects. Have a good Thanksgiving.
Daniels
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It is only my opinion but based on what I have seen of Green House Seeds Strain Hunters, and what I believe in general to be true, I think few if any actual true pure landraces will be found by them I believe that at best they will locate a phenotype here or there now and then that appears to be close to the original landrace strain.

I have never read how little, or much, elevation change is needed to cause changes in cannabis strains but elevation definitely will cause differences. While I am not a fan of the show I might like to watch that episode and see if they say, as if they would actually know for sure, if the plants had survived at the different elevations for long enough for actual evolutionary changes to occur or if the differences were purely environmental/conditional that any plant of the same strain would exhibit if grown in the same environment and conditions.
 
Brick Top

Brick Top

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xbox37 said:
you made him feel stupid uncle ben lmfao he is not on your level of thinking next time let him think he is right
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If you were referring to me, then you were correct, other than the being made too feel stupid part. But then you would have been correct no matter who on RIU you might have referred to. On RIU Uncle Ben is 'Da Man!'
 
wangyunan

wangyunan

Active Member
Thank u UB, this is a very useful thread!
Does it cost longer to veg 4 colas till they mature enough to flower than just 1 main stem, or all of them can keep the same pace? If the vegging time is longer,
say, 4 weeks is the average time of vegging a 1 stem plant, how many weeks do u think is the average time of vegging a 4 colas plant?
 
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