Hello everyone, I am new member, I have grown outside many seasons and have had great success. One major problem, I would like to Top my new grow this season and try this method to make my plants bush more. I do not know exactly how to accomplish this. Basically I need to know when to top/crop my plants, where exactly to top/crop them, and finally what I should look for to know if I succeeded. Please help me out, visuals and in-depth explanations are very welcome. Also, I looked through the forums and could locate an existing type thread as this one, if someone knows of one, please link. Thanks!!!
Welcome to the forums. All that you need to understand about topping involves how shoots of new growth grow from the plant. A typical untopped plant has one primary growing shoot; the top of the main stem. Most of its growth begins there and the main stem just grows taller as the plant gets older, sprouting nodes along the way, each with a pair of leaves. In addition to this primary growing shoot, basically every node on the plant has two shoots growing from it. They pop up in the corners formed where each leaf meets the main stem. How much these side shoots grow without training depends mostly on how much light gets to them and how much your strain branches naturally. Now, if you decide to top the plant & cut off its primary growing shoot, it is then forced to only grow its side shoots. The two shoots on the uppermost node left on the plant after topping will grow the fastest since they're closest to the light. After topping once, most types of pot will then grow primarily into a big "V" with two major colas. Personally, I always top plants during veg, leaving two nodes on each. Once the two shoots from the top node each have a node on them, they are also topped and one node is left on each. There are now four shoots growing from these two nodes at the top of the plant. By the time those four shoots get growing, the two shoots growing from the very bottom node of the plant reach canopy level, provided they received enough light. Each plant goes into flowering with six stalks, all at roughly the same height. Always make cuts with sharp, sterile scissors. To top a plant, the main stem is cut just above the highest (youngest) node you want to leave on the plant, never bisecting a node. Immediately after topping, the new top of the plant should look similar to the first pic, just a Google image. In the second pic are clones of mine that were first topped, I believe, a few days earlier; along with their mother.