whats a reasonable number of times to top a plant before you over-do it? is this where all of the branches you focus on come from?
no set number, once can be enough with training. I cut 20+ clones from a mother and have unknown number of branches. She goes to flower next week. I'm a big fan of LST, I still get a big main cola but the lower branches have a chance to kick ass.
So do you look at it as you either LST or top? I just flipped my plants because they were bumping into each other but I only topped a couple times so theres not a whole lot of branching.. I should get a lot more branches during flowering stage? my last grow I didnt top but I vegged for a long time under a SCROG screen so this wasn't really an issue because they grew a lot of branches before flip
What i did to the mama plant was topping the hell out of it. No LST. It was a clone too. I think I want to LST more when I have a seedling and see less of a need with a clone. Clones are bushy devils anyway.
I wish I had the room for that... All i have is one closet I can barely fit a 4X2 tent in so I have no where to keep a mother.. I don't even have space to root clones while I flower so each seed is one and done I LST'd my seedlings while they were really small to get a few even branches and then topped them so they came out nice and bushy
A single grow room like yours is maximized by training and topping. Another option is fem autos sea of green, jam about 8 pots ,24 plants in your space and get a heck of a harvest in a short time frame. Growing sea of green I have learned to push the limits.
honestly you should just think about recovery. if you top it very aggressivly it will have a longer recovery, but you will be shaping the plant the way you want it to be. id say just balance the toppings, do it once then LST.