Topping vs Training

What's up fellow stoners and cannabis cultivators :smoking: It's been a minute since I've had an active thread and I just so happen to have these 2 beautiful ladies.

Both Forum Stomper bred by Mephisto Genetics. Germinated and moved to soil together about 10 days old now pretty well twins but everything about the one in the air pot is bigger, so why not a vs run. I will be topping the plant in the airpot and only training the one in the fabric pot. The topped plant will see some training as well. I have been seeing alot of questions about topping vs training I hope this thread will help answer some questions out there. I will update on feeding days and any time they receive any training and on topping day which is already close. I am expecting great things from these ladies.

 

[Jpkindbud]

In my grow history, LST seems to yield more than just topping… if possible I do both. I top, then LST and it works for me. But when I do both I only top main and prune lowest branches that only produce Larfy bud. Lowest two sets. Just me…

 

[Simplicio]

It should surprise no one that cutting off the top of a plant would harm yield of that plant.

Topping is best used to reduce height, not to increase yield.
Topping also slows things down, as the plant tries to replace what got cut.

 

[Omegaqueen20]

I prefer lst for autos and both for photos.

 

[Jpkindbud]

It should surprise no one that cutting off the top of a plant would harm yield of that plant.

Topping is best used to reduce height, not to increase yield.
Topping also slows things down, as the plant tries to replace what got cut.

I’m not going to rant but I disagree. I have done two plants, one natural and other topped and LST. The topped and LST plant was almost double naturally grown plant in the yield department…

 

[Humanrob]

No science here, just a one grow observation; I had six different strains going, topped 3 (which has been what I've done for years) and LST'd the other three (bent them at a young age). The combined three LST'd final weights averaged was almost 50% more than the combined average of the topped ones. Completely surprised me, but within this somewhat random group it was fairly consistent.

It might seem obvious which method I would do moving forward based on this experience, but I'm actually a bit on the fence. I find topping easier, and I strongly prefer the shape of the plant for maintenance/leaf management/trimming when they have been topped. That said, the final weight difference is significant.

Side note, if you are choosing a method with the priority being to keep them short, the three LST'd ones all had to be put up on a platform to make my canopy even, they were all consistently shorter than the topped ones.

Lastly, I was surprised that the LST'd primary colas were not that much bigger than the other main colas. Makes me think that when the primary cola gets really big and dense in an untrained plant, it's as much because of proximity to the light as it is a genetic structural predisposition.

It's challenging to get pictures that illustrate what I'm talking about, but these are from the end of week 7 after the second schwazz trimming. Front row is topped, raised back row is LST'd (ignore the one gallon plastic pot...).




One more note... This was my first time schwazzing, and the final weight of the six plants was 25% less than the previous grow, where I did almost no trimming at all and a two-stage harvest -- point being I think schwazzing can have a stress impact. I have no idea if there is any overlap or connection between the on-topic training methods -- for instance, if the combination of schwazzing and topping is too much shock and diminishes final weight while topping without schwazzing might not...

 

[miniclips320]

What's up fellow stoners and cannabis cultivators It's been a minute since I've had an active thread and I just so happen to have these 2 beautiful ladies.View attachment 1026937Both Forum Stomper bred by Mephisto Genetics. Germinated and moved to soil together about 10 days old now pretty well twins but everything about the one in the air pot is bigger, so why not a vs run. I will be topping the plant in the airpot and only training the one in the fabric pot. The topped plant will see some training as well. I have been seeing alot of questions about topping vs training I hope this thread will help answer some questions out there. I will update on feeding days and any time they receive any training and on topping day which is already close. I am expecting great things from these ladies.

I have also done this exact experiment in the past to see rather or not it made the difference and matter in fact it did and of course if u place in trellis it helps but both plants grew nice but the one that got topped and trained had bigger fatter more dense buds

 

[Leakobrandon]

In my experiences i do both methods but when i am topping the branchs that is so i can have more branchs on that aide or area of the plant and when im fimming that is when im nit trying to main line the plant and trying to get as many new topps from that area