anyone know ?

[Guest Wilderbud]

I am growing without tipping/fimming for the first time although only one will receive this special treatment. I have tipped about 20 plants and fimmed 3 and you do get more heads using fim but you also get a nicer stem and you still get a main cola if you cut it right.

 

The best time is when you have enough stem and leaf for your branches to grow well. I have fimmed [actually I think I tipped them - doh] two plants this time and will see results in about 2 weeks (give them 1 week for the wound to recover as its stressful but the plant should grow bushy by this time).

 

To tip: spread the smallest set of leaves you can see at the tip of the stem and snip everything above it off with surgical scissors or something similar. 10 nodes is good.

 

To fim: bunch the smallest set of leaves you can see at the tip of the stem/branch and snip just above where the stem/branch ends [dont cut the stem/branch]. Every 5 nodes is good.

 

I wanted to try training this time as its low stress but my plants were too stubborn [ill probably get crap branches from the tied parts now too].

[Guest Wilderbud]

Give it a flat-top instead of chopping its head off if youre going to snip.

[white_cluster]

pipeman, you have found it to produce more by experiance??

 

Im pretty new but read alot about tipping and not from experiance,

so the bushier the plant the more bud it will produce? hows this work?

 

Do you think straight tipping or FIM is the key??

A while back i did a crop testing this.

 

with 3 groups of plants, the strain was Flo. anyways cant remember the yields but I remember the results.

 

the highest yield came from plants pruned once at about 10" or so.

 

Each plant had 40 x 40cm to spread out. The plants that we're pruned once tended to make 3 or 4 big chunky colas and a few smaller ones.

 

Unpruned plants we're only slightly less yield, But it looked much less, finished a bit taller than the other two. Generally one big cola with a couple of medium ones.

 

The third group yielded miserably, they had been tipped once at the same time as the other group, but then had its main braches pruned again a week or so later. It had many small buds. much shorter than either of the other two groups who were around even in height.

 

I think the main reason they yielded less is beacause they we're pruned closer to flowering and the stems were much thinner and shorter. If your braches have thick stems they will more than likely grow thick buds.

 

Saying that, its all strain, and grow dependant, the plant branches out when pruned because of a chemical reactioin in the plant, the same reaction can be made by bending over or snapping the central stalk of your plant.

 

Plants in Bubblers tend to bush out more than most other grow styles. and many strains bush out alot naturally. Alot of strains dont grow a central cola and many times other branches will end up taller than the central stalk.

 

I probably only prune about a 1/3 of the time, depends how my plants look. Most strains I grow do not require pruning to bush out enough.

 

Outdoors I think pretty much everything should be pruned, esp sativas. I've heard people say that you will get highest yields off sativas by not pruning them, that may be true, but its pretty awkward to have a plant you need a ladder to check the buds.

 

FIMing is a load of bullshit made up by overgrow. Why do you need 4 or 8 branches growing from one nodal point?? If you tip your plant it will grow 2 branches from every nodal point. I have done some freaky accidental prunings in my time. once I pruned this plant taking off almost all the top except one leaf, the growth point were the new braches would come off was chopped off. What happened was this plant developed this big leaf on top, that pointed straight up into the air. The leaf was almost double the size of any of the other leaves on the plant.

[dazza]

I have "split" a few plants before(outdoors) by cutting the larger stems down the centre with a razorblade. It does the same thing as picking the top shoot, makes one into two. I found it just made the plant bushier as well. We split them and grew them along the ground like creepers so they didnt stick out like sore thumbs. We did this when plants were young so i am not sure how older plants would fare, so dont try it on your best mother plant!

[WhiteSkunk]

hey all,

there is a big differance between tip/pinching and fimming

one gives 2 heads the other can give as many as 8 tips bepending on strains i have been tipping for the last 5 years and the last 9mths fimming

and ill neva go back to tipping agian.

as far as yeild goes from the same strain i have tied down but not tipped tipped one every week uptill 12/12 and fimmed another every week untill 12/12 and there is a big diferance in yeild from one to the other.

eg. un tiped but tied 8-19ozave

tipped25-40 oz ave

fimmed ave 45-55oz dreid

 

tipping slows the plants growth by stressing her but fimming ,because u stikll leave 10% there it doesnt slow her or srtess her as much.

but you have to remeber differnt results for differnt strains/setup/hight

and most of all light and experiance cheersWS

[OldmanMozz]

light

 

If ya tip your canopy is gonna get thicker, hence your gonna need more light to penetrate, (or else your gonna get stringy bits underneath)

I tip a little bit later, an go 1 node or two an use that as a cutting for next time.

 

 

cheers an cones Mozz

[bush billy]

Dr Greenthumb

There are so many different opions on pruning(tipping, fimming,hacking back,topping and all the other fancy names ya want to call it). I know i have spent many hours not being able to sleep because i am thinking about my babies. In the end your gonna do what's best for you. This is how I do it and it seems to work alright for me.

When it gets to about 4 inches or so, I take the whole top tip out. This not onlymakes 2 at the top, but bushes the plant. when it gets to about 12 inches , i take the full tip out off the end of each branch.By this time you should be able to tell the sex of your plant. I then give it a few weeks(every plant is different) to recover. by this time there should be a few tiny little buds.(This is where a lot of others will dissagree)I then completely remove these tiny buds.(I got this idea from working on tomato farms).

A few weeks later I get the green sea of tiny little buds. I then fimm,as previously mention.I then let them to do their thing

Of course all plants and growers are different . It doesn't hurt to experement a little. after a while you'll work out whats the go for you.

I hope this has been some help.

[FlameBoy]

you know how you are all talking about tipping and stuff to get 3 or 4 in stead of jus 2? well, i was just thinking, would having 4 take the potency out of it? like if u had 4 instead of two, would the four have half as much, ummmm, effectivness?

are you sharing up the effectivness in the plant, or will each of the 4 tips have as much potency as if you only had 2?

just a question

[wade ounce]

nah man, they'll all be as equally potent as if there was one big head

[Luke Skywalker]

Yup, potency isn't affected, although size is. The single bud at the top of a plant of a given strain if left untipped will always be larger than the many buds at the tops of the plant which has been tipped or trained. The thing is, the yeild overall is larger on the tipped plant.