To top or not to top during a pheno hunt?

[CelestialNurseries]

Some like to see the natural structure during a pheno hunt. Some want to know how the individual plants will respond and if lower branch development will catch up, lag behind or become dominate. What are some thought's on the subject?

 

[TorturedSoul]

I'm not big on the whole idea of cutting the top off of a plant in the first place just to save a foot of string - so my vote would have been not to top, if you had made this a poll thread.

As it isn't, lol... I'll still suggest against it. Know what you're growing, and that goes quadruple for breeding.

 

[CelestialNurseries]

I'm not big on the whole idea of cutting the top off of a plant in the first place just to save a foot of string - so my vote would have been not to top, if you had made this a poll thread.

As it isn't, lol... I'll still suggest against it. Know what you're growing, and that goes quadruple for breeding.

I don't think I understand. People top to save string? What string? Like twine?

 

[TorturedSoul]

Whatever they would otherwise be using to pull the top of the plant down below the nodes/branches that they want to accelerate the growth of. Instead of cutting the top of and forcing the plant to generate a new batch of the auxin that governs "top behavior" of a part of a plant, simply reposition the top so that the plant merely redistributes that auxin.

It just seems more efficient, to me (and, I assume, to the plant ). Plus, that way, the portion that would have been cut off and discarded remains on the plant, where it can one day become a nice bud.

Er... But all of that is, I suppose, irrelevant to your chosen thread topic. When doing any kind of search for a plant that'll get used beyond that grow, I would want to know how it performs "naturally." I would wish to know how it tolerates the things I'd be inclined to force it to endure, too. But the former would be the most important bit of data (again, "to me"). Because I'm not locked into any one particular method - and knowing what the plant is most likely to do (how it'll grow, etc.) may, in fact, determine the method I'll try next.

<SHRUGS> I'm not arguing that this is the correct thing. And I might end up deciding after I've sampled the bud, that I actually want to keep a particular plant around (so to speak), which is going to mean that I'll already know how it'll respond to training, by that point, but not yet know how it would tend to grow on its own, as it were. So... IDK, lol. I guess, at the end of the day, you do whatever feels like the right thing to do at the time. Which... if you're likely to top all your plants anyway, how it performs when not topped COULD be considered to be information that has no value. I mean... I'm not overly interested in what kind of breeder the rabbit in my backyard might be of I leave it alone - because I'm just going to have it for dinner, yeah? By eating it, I deny myself that information, but I'm not losing by it. I'm interested in dinner. On the other hand, if I was looking to form a caprice breeding colony and torn my backyard into an endless supply of healthy— I'm rambling again, aren't I?

You concentrate on the facets of a thing that interest you the most. Taking and routing a cannabis cutting is approximately as difficult as finding the ground after you've already stepped off the roof, and far less painful. And, once rooted, you can keep a clone alive in a Solo cup, under very minimal (a screw-in LED or CFL) bulb, using almost no nutrients, in a space the size of a shoebox. Therefore, you can do so, and pull it out of "stasis" at some point in the future, if you want to get more data by trying something different. I kept a set of three unrelated strains alive like that on top of the medicine cabinet in a rarely used half bathroom, for over a year. I'd realize that I hadn't watered them in quite a while, so I'd go in, and they'd have dropped leaves all over the sink. I'd water them, and they'd perk up. Rinse/lather/repeat. Three or four months would go by, and I'd "treat" them to the leftover bit of nutrient solution I fed to my other plants, and they'd green up. Again, I was just keeping the things alive (and barely so). In truth, I could have been kinder - but then I'd have had to find a place to put them, because they'd no longer have fit in the tiny little space.

 

[EZCalyx]

Top if growing indoors or outdoor stealth where an even canopy or limited height is beneficial. Do not top if growing outdoor grows with the intention of large colas or intentional cross pollination. You either want an even canopy or you want a singular large cola that can potentially capture pollen easier. Your goals should dictate your motivations and behavior. The choice is up to you and want you want to achieve. This question is like "Wear comfortable shoes or steel toe boots?" The answer will always be "What are you trying to do?"

 

[bluter]

Some like to see the natural structure during a pheno hunt. Some want to know how the individual plants will respond and if lower branch development will catch up, lag behind or become dominate. What are some thought's on the subject?

pull something from everyone and go hard....

makes sure it's all labelled, and if you see 'the one', you can toss or gift the others. ( yeah i know you're bigger than that, but we're talking home grow. )

roll them all to the end on the first run for sure. too many times i've had the dog wind up being the killer plant. and it always seems to be i never took the clone in the first place, or tossed it thinking the hollywood looking plant was gonna be it.

these days i normally like to run a seed grow and a clone run after before changing it up to new genetics.

when we ran the med grow we kept focused strains around for years. we ran a black indica pheno specific that was targeted for adhd. it was developed pretty much for me, but it was available to many. when we lost the grow that one was a gut punch.

 

[CelestialNurseries]

pull something from everyone and go hard....

makes sure it's all labelled, and if you see 'the one', you can toss or gift the others. ( yeah i know you're bigger than that, but we're talking home grow. )

roll them all to the end on the first run for sure. too many times i've had the dog wind up being the killer plant. and it always seems to be i never took the clone in the first place, or tossed it thinking the hollywood looking plant was gonna be it.

these days i normally like to run a seed grow and a clone run after before changing it up to new genetics.

when we ran the med grow we kept focused strains around for years. we ran a black indica pheno specific that was targeted for adhd. it was developed pretty much for me, but it was available to many. when we lost the grow that one was a gut punch.

So I popped 100 beans. I've narrowed that down 26 and I totally gifted a couple to friends. I took 4 cuts from each and will SOG in 2 gal the best of each. they will be flipped in four weeks as soon as my flower tent is ready.

 

[cbdhemp808]

I'm an outdoor greenhouse natural grower, and I typically don't top my plants and don't do any LST, etc. I will top a plant so that it fits in my flower house (~ 8ft ceiling). I will probably start topping some, with the Gelato and Blue Dream clones that I'll be growing, to produce a more bushy growth habit. (They are not pure Gelato and BD... they are crosses.)

I like the idea of letting seedlings grow naturally, so you can see the phenotypic differences. In fact, I just did this with the Gelato and Blue Dream plants I am growing that are now in flower (5 plants total). I noticed the most differences with the 3 Gelatos: one was definitely the tallest, one was the shortest, and there was one in between. I liked the middle one the most (Gilda)... you can see them here.

Happy growing!