Tipping, Pruning I JUST DON'T GET IT

[WhiteWiDoW]

OK, I've read that if u cut off the very tip of the plant it branches into 2 more or somethin like that . Now correct me if I'm wrong cuz I've read alot of pruning and tipping but I still have no clue how the fuck to do it right. Well I cut off the top of my plant it's about a foot tall and I guess it's supposed to heal or somethin and keep growing. It's been like 2 weeks and nothin happened...It's still blank and the part that I cut is just brown on the inside and my plant hasn't grown an inch. ALL info/pics would be greatly appreciated on how the hell to tip/prune and all that shit. I'm clueless

[Guest BudWaver]

Sounds odd...

 

The idea behind pruning at lets say one foot tall is to turn your acolumar plant into a multi branched plant which will increase your yield via more budding sites....

 

You can do it two ways...one is to pinch out the middle which will force the top to have two shoots coming out and promote side growth or the way I like to do it is to cut with scissors the top which bascially stops growth from that point but everything below will grow out...

 

I dont know why your plant isnt doing anything...are you giving it regular nutes? When you do cut or tip it you are causing it stress and it needs more nutes (my opinion) during this time of healing...much like when you injure yourself you need more vitamin c to help yourself heal

[wade ounce]

man, even with stress the plant should still be growing even if it's just a little.

have you got the plant indoors or out?

last year i had a plant in a pot outdoors. it appeared to stop growing. i got the shits with it and pulled.in the bttom of the pot were 2 fat witchedy grubs. i can only assume the grubs were hookin into the roots.

[WhiteWiDoW]

I'm giving it nutes and water and all. I measured it today and it seems it's grown about 2 inches in the past week. The top hasn't done a thing though..It's not bushy at all that's why I pruned it but it just isn't healing...btw it's an indoor plant. My first 4 plants have all been males. This one is taking a little longer to show it's sex than my other plants..Been flowering for almost 2 weeks and still no sign of which sex it is...Hopefully I'll get my first female Too bad it'll be a little tiny skimpy thing with hardly any bud sites So I did it right but for some reason it's not regenerating? I'll try to borrow my friend's digi cam and show u a pic of the little bastard Edited December 23, 2003 by WhiteWiDoW

[Gaytimegrower]

On the subject of topping, at what height or age can this be done? Some of my 10 day old plants are 5" tall and very bushy. Also, I want to sex them as soon as possible. I realise that I am going to lose 2 weeks by doing it and then returning to veg but I think it would be easier than waiting till they are about 1 foot high as i have 15 in a small area.

[Luke Skywalker]

Topping the plants can be done at any age, but it does cause some stress to the plants. Usually it's best to wait until there are at least 4 sets of true leaves out on the seedling, and then remove only the smallest tip you can get from the top. This will make for a squat, bushy plant with a few main branches rather than one.

 

Yeah, sexing plants young is okay, it depends on the strain tho, it may take a lot less than 2 weeks for them to show sex, but it may take longer too, and then you'll have to revert them. The real advantage in the early inducement of sex is in deciding mother plants IMO. You can discard the males and choose the quickest flowering and largest females for future stock. These clones are then grown on to be the main crop. You can take one or 50 mothers, but the more mothers from different stock you take, the harder it will be to maintain optimum conditions for all of them. Once you go past 3 or 4 strains in a growroom with each other you're starting to make things hard on yourself vis-a-vis maintenance... Still, it can be done, just takes a bit of effort.....

 

*ramble, ramble* Hope that helps.

 

Oh, and for White Widow, the topping doesn't usually leave any tissue at the wound point for future growing, that point is removed. The bushiness comes from the redistribution of hormones which stimulate growth to the next set of lower branches below the top you removed. These will get less hormone each, but as there are more branches being stimulated to grow as crowns, you end up with a larger yeild. You can FIM, which leaves a portion of the growing tip behind, (1/3 or so) and this, whilst stunted briefly, will then shoot out with more than one branch from that point once recovered. So instead of topping the plant and thus getting more bushiness from the remaining branches below it, you're also getting an explosion of new tip growth at the topping point too.... Fimming is something that you'd have to practice tho, have a look on the boards here and you should find some threads on the subject....

 

Hope that helps ya WW, let me know if I don't make sense and I'll try and clear it up for ya.

[WhiteWiDoW]

Well I still haven't got a digicam. I might get one tomorrow for christmas I just realized somethin today...I was depriving my plants of alot of magnesium and sulfur. I misread the directions on epsom salts this whole time (it said put 1/2 cup per gallon and I've been putting 1/2 tsp :: ) So I added alot more nutes to my water and hopefully this will help. I've already noticed it start to heal a bit

 

Luke I get most of what you said except this sentence-

the topping doesn't usually leave any tissue at the wound point for future growing, that point is removed.

Could u explain that plz

[Luke Skywalker]

Uh, okay, well, a plant grows by forming nodes behind the growing tip, or meristem.... If you pull apart a tip from a plant you'll see all the tiny leaves which are forming, these are developing here, and will become the future leaves and branches of the nodes. If you remove the tip then no new nodes will be formed from that particular point... the next two branches which are below the point you've removed are stimulated to grow. This is what makes a bushy plant. The topped growing point doesn't grow, it has been removed, but the branches below this are now the tallest branches on the plant, and thus the most amount of growth will be dedicated to them. These then makes two branches where there was one, as the lower branches grow out to form a kind of Y shape. You can tip several times, and get more branches.... Bending the plant has a similar effect to some degree, but that's a discussion for another thread.

 

Did that make sense?