I've been removing the first nodes and topping between the 5th and 6th and I'm having pretty good success with that. I've found that topping right around the the time that they start showing hairs seems to delay flowering a little bit, which lets the plant veg a tiny bit more. But I think the plants growth and health before topping and the strains tendency to stretch probably play into it just as much.
When I started topping above the 6th it stopped happening. Idk there maybe was other factors they were my first couple of autos.
I'm going to try that too.
Main thing is making sure the 2 branches left at the 6th are at least an inch long. By then they’re usually starting to flower. I agree with @Suki813 i feel like it slows down the onset of full flowers. I’ve had good luck doing it this way. Not so much the other way.
Tbh I've topped as early as between the second and third node when the third was just big enough to snap off and still had good results lol, I think the girl I have in the 2x2 now was like 8-10 days when I topped her
but ya never figure out what works for you if ya don't try stuff.
The first plant I topped was at the 1st node. Basically super cropped it, laid it out flat. I ended up getting 10 grams of really nice bud off of it. 10 grams doesn’t even cover the nutes I used lol. It was also in a 1 liter pot. Last 1 liter plant was 17 grams. I have one more 1 liter plant going and I’m hoping for at least an ounce. This one didn’t get stunted like the first 2 so the odds are pretty good. She’s doing great. Not very frosty but really starting to swell.Tbh I've topped as early as between the second and third node when the third was just big enough to snap off and still had good results lol, I think the girl I have in the 2x2 now was like 8-10 days when I topped her
Dang what a beautiful plant. Idk but when I’ve topped early like that the plants basically stopped growing. I threw away 2 plants on my last run because they literally didn’t grow for a month after I topped them while the 2 I topped later had grown a foot taller.
Tbh your best bet is gonna be running 2 of the same strain, preferably one that is uniform with very little pheno difference, and do one one way and one the other. Cause tbh it totally could be the genetics, or it may be that you've just got things better dialed in now which is why they're doing better. Keeping things as constant as possible and only changing one variable at a time (when possible) is going to give you a much truer comparison.
I think you probably hit the nail on the head. I’ve definitely learned a lot since those first autos. Starting when I was a teenager we’d grow plants on our farm in BFE Idaho and we’d get great harvests, just not great product. They love that sandy soil there. This experience with indoor autos has taught me a lot. We just fed outdoor plants whatever we had around at the time which never amounted to much now I’m ph’ing water and using beakers to measure out nutes. Definitely been a learning curve.
