Heres my Grape God plant, about 3 weeks old from seed. VERY branchy plant as you can see from the pics. Decided to give this ago, chopping of the bottom 1/3 of the plant to provide more energy for the plant to produce mostly one main cola opposed to a main cola and lots of popcorn buds. This is just an experiment so dont hate... Before After
Why would you do that especially that early in the plants life? There have been many reports and tests conducted on many forums over the years that have proven that "lollipop-ing" reduces yield and even when done in the last weeks of flowering when it theoretically is beneficial, the quality of remaining buds are almost exactly the same. Your plants like their leaves, especially when vegging. Leaves = yield. I strongly suggest that if you're going to dabble in training techniques you read up on topping, LST, and scrog.
Lots of people dont agree with specific training methods. Some say topping dosent increase yields. Just instead of one huge cola u get 2 medium sized ones. This is an experiment so relax everyone.. Your supposed to lollipop them before they go into flowering.. Ive seen plants a lot younger than this lollipopped..
The problem with lollipopping is that the most recent hormones and materials are gathered from the bottom of the plant, which is the part that you cut off. This is like giving a kid cake, and then doing liposuction on him. Wouldn't it be better to just prune around the top? That way, light will reach the bottom more easily. Idk though. I'm only two/three weeks into my first grow. My information is definitely not strong enough that I would heavily rely on it.
I prune the leaves during the last few weeks of flowering to make for more light to reach the lower branches too, but this technique is so you only grow one main cola. It uses all the plants energy to produce one cola. People use it when growing SOG because you can fit alot in a smaller spot, less to trim, and no airy weightless buds on lower branches
Cola size is more about hormones than anything else... that's what LST is really all about. Of course, it helps you manage your grow space, but more importantly, it evens out your branches, so no one branch becomes dominate. With no dominate branch, the plant treats them all as dominate, so you get lots of big colas on each branch, instead of one single cola and popcorn buds... -Loki
Actually, many growth hormones are concentrated in the Apical Maristems, or "tops" of the stems, whether they're at the top of the plant or the bottom, it's these outstreching nodes that are primarily responsible for root development and further canopy growth. Lolipopping is not necessarily for yield at all. It's to help facilitate air flow through thick canopies, prevent soil pathogens from (as easily) getting onto the plant. Also, while the leaves do collect radiation to convert sugars, these leaves require nutrients to live. For those not wishing to spend the time and nutrients on the under-canopy nuggletts, lolipopping allows the grower to focus resources (light, and nutrients) on the canopy colas, and lowers nutrient requirements to keep the undercanopy healthy as well. While these nuggletts can be used for hash, some simply do no want to spend the time, energy, and space on these (Growing, Drying, and Curing), especially in non-commercial grows. -- That said, there is no right way to do it. You did it, the way you did it, now take a minute and pay attention, observe, what effects that has on your growth, if any. My opinion, you took off a little too much, for what looks like an I-dom strain. But you haven't topped the plant, so it still has plenty of chance to grow upward, or you can top it, and all of your secondary stems that are left will become primaries, and you'll have a nice canopy goin for LST.
My personal opinion is, that is a bit much. In my grow, I take off only the very bottom branches and use them as clones. Get them out of the way, out of the dirt, for better air flow. It helps with watering, and being able to inspect the dirt for bugs or mildew. I thin out any damaged fan leaves for better light penetration. I've found that a quality bloom enhancer/flower hardener makes those flower sites worth while. If you want to take it one step further, add some side lighting. Then you'll be getting quality results, top to bottom. Side by side experiments with the same strain, during the same grow are the only way to really tell if one way is better than another. Temps vary, problems come and go, techniques and nutrients change. All these things affect the quality in the end.
Too late! Quit hating.. We will see how it turns out. Its only one plant anyways.. Live and learn right?
Looks "Lolli-ed" to me. Feel free to do what you like to your plants. I have had both great success, and not so great success, with trimming, lolli-ing, SCroG, LST, yadda yadda..I like them all and hate them all too. You will learn alot from reading and speaking to others, but it will pale in comparasion to what you learn in the process of doing. If you did take too much of your baby, she still looks healthyGrow on and good luck.
you did it correct to me. I cut the bottom 1/4~1/3 when the light just doesnt penetrate that low. Imo, that is not lollipopping. The plant is gonna stretch in flower, clearing that out now just makes it easier to maintain later. Lolli has to do with penetration issues, control and space. True lollipopping is done on ebb trays. Commercial growers stuff these trays full, usually 4x4 trays under 1ks, 100 girls per. The light doesnt even penetrate the first 3 fans, so basically everything under that, is snipped. The greenhouse I worked for, perferred to run metal halides up to week 3, to control height. They literally get 1 maybe 2 buds per stalk. Each stalk avg about 14g, well into the 3lbs territory per lamp. Handful sized buds.. man I miss back in the day.. So, lollipopping is used to control penetration and airflow ONLY when your plants are crammed to the max. Otherwise, I feel its a huge waste on any other method than on scrog or sog cause you will just get a 14g nug (using 1gal as example). In 1gal pots, I can pull wayyy more than that Heres a reference for ya, my Grape God at 24 days flower
Word. Lolipop for SOG in 4x4 rockwool cubes in e&f trays. I actually do it a little younger than OP did, and take some branches from higher up also, try to grow just one big main stem bud like your pics. I leave only main stem fan leaves and a couple of the smaller upper branches. If you get em good you can easily get a half zip each with some fatter than that. If plant number are no object true SOG is a pretty good yielder at about 1/4 lb per square foot.
Mhmm 2 600's, eye hortilux bulbs, ebb and flo w/ 4x4 rockwool cubes in hydroton bed.SOG, Co2 dialed in.. Mhmm now were talkin'
I've tried lst/sog/lollipopping/scrog/anything that seems plausible at least once. I ran 3 blue widow clones in small half gallon containers(i guess you could say sog style), and ran somewhat of a comparison test. All were fed the same, were in the same room with all the same conditions and flowered for I believe 8 weeks(they could have stood to go a little longer, but hey cut me some slack it was just a side project lol). The first plant was totally left alone with no trimming, the second I trimmed off the bottom half like you did, and the third I trimmed the entire top half off. They all yielded about a quarter a piece, with plant number 3 having a slight edge over plant 2, and plant 1 with no trimming was the lowest. The most important difference I noticed was the bud structure/node spacing and the ease of trimming. Plant 1 was definitely more work to trim, especially when dealing with the smaller popcorn type nugs at the bottom, and the bud sizes/structures varied from top to bottom like usual. Plant 2 had a decent cola followed by 3-4 smaller buds around that didn't grow into the cola and was really easy to trim. Plant 3, as far as trimming was concerned was a little more difficult than plant 2, but still easier than plant 1. The best part about plant 3 was the structure/node spacing was a lot tighter than the other 2, and the consistency of all the branches being the same basic size with uniform bud production from tip to main instead of the spotty bud formation on the untouched plant. Plant 3 would have also been an awesome candidate for lst, which would have probably allowed it to leave the other 2 far behind in yield, but I was strictly testing the effects of trimming on that run. For a proper top/lst/trim job, I prefer to top at nodes 7/8, and trim the bottom 3 branches off, and tie the remaining branches down to open up the middle and allow all the brances to grow upwards themselves. But in the less perfect world of reality, i've even chopped the top half of a plant off(i mean literally chopped a full grown plant in half) and let it bush out from the bottom and go to flower. You will always hear differing opinions on trimming/not trimming, but realistically the mj plant can take almost anything you throw at it, it's pretty resilient. The only real rule I follow for trimming: no trimming after day 21 of 12/12, that's when you can take some flowering clones for some monster bushes lol.
