Topping at node 3

[JKB1989]

My son has done two really bad moves on my white widow grow. First when the first seed sprouted out of the dirt he was so excited. Waited four hours and then decided that the other seeds should be sprouted so he dug them up to look at them. I stopped him before he dug up the last seed. The three he dug up are all stunted and barely a half inch tall. Down to two good plants undamaged by him. I found out yesterday that he stopped those two plants at the third node and they were ten days old. Now there 13 days old and the two shoots per plant seem to be growing out ok.
This is my question. What long term damage has been done? What problems will this cause? As I'm just learning to grow myself and I lurk behind the scenes of this site.

 

[Pbass]

Hiya JKB1989 They'll be fine, he did a good thing this time. The digging up I get because at 51 I'm still impatient! I pinch tops to start, maybe twice then supercrop. It seems like you can beat the crap out of them and they are pretty resilient. You might try adding some silica to your grow if your son likes to bend and play, I'm gonna add some to mine because I have tendancy to really be really mean to them myself. If you pop one node down you get 2 new full on shoots that will become kolas. If you go like on the 2nd node after letting it grow to 5 nodes tall, you get 4 shoots. Pretty interesting stuff. Just keep up with good PH of your soil, don't overdo the nutes to start bud work your way up to 100, get good watering habits (read The Proper Way To Water A Potted Plant ), hang out here of course and you will do great. Maybe start a journal, it'd be fun to follow the father/son interaction! CHeers mate, gl to your grow!

 

[JKB1989]

Thanks pbass glad to hear that they will be alright. Maybe I can get a second topping before day 21. What exactly does silica do for the plants. Would love to start a journal but I'm so busy that I'm afraid many days would pass without any input from my end...

 

[Pbass]

Np mate, silica helps make the stems stronger and resilient is my understanding. Supercropping invloves rolling a stem between your fingers and smashing it a bit so you can bend it on a serious angle and it won't crack. It causes the shoots below on that stem to shoot up like main stems. That's one way people get a bunch of tops, I find it very effective, except the stems don't always cooperate! Silica is supposed to help strengthen the stems and make them more resilient to my overdoing it! If you feel like it there's a fair amount of examples of that and LST (low stress training) in my journal. I've gone a bit pot growing crazy since it went legal in MI!

 

[Pbass]

And as far as the journal goes, I find it's more for me than my audience. I kinda keep track of things there as far as the history of it. Plus its fun to show off and people definately learn from our successes and mistakes! You only have to keep it up as much as you want. Wherever we see you though we'll see you! Everyone here loves to help and get involved.

 

[safeman]

I know what you mean a bout weighting - have a hard time topping at node 5 --- (I can't)

 

[Bud]

No long term damage that I ever encountered.
Silica strengthens cell walls and helps with stress. Lol

 

[JKB1989]

Help they are worse today than yesterday. I have more pictures. All fan leaves are looking really bad. Dark on edges and ends, curling down and brittle.

 

[HydroponicFireman]

Tough to say for sure, ride it out...the very new tips look OK for now. Maybe root damage, I had a plant with lower leaves that did that then dropped off after accidentally pruning the roots.....eventually recovered.

 

[Woblaaaah]

Sort off looks like over watering

 

[JKB1989]

Thanks for all of your suggestions and input. I have bought into the suggestion that my light is to strong to run a 24/7 schedule. I'm going to start running an 18/6 schedule. I love this site. I have so so much to learn. I'm going to start a journal on my next grow. I've already got the seeds ( crown royale). Could be as soon as next week or it will be in a few months..

 

[HydroponicFireman]

No offense, but I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion about the light...the top of your plant looks just fine. Too strong of a light wouldnt burn the lower leaves and leave the ones closer to the light just fine...it would be opposite. And the entire plant would show heat stress. If the light was too strong and the heat wasnt an issue the plant would bleach from the top down...but your electricity bill would be the giveaway.

I would highly suggest you: gently check the roots and if thats not it look into nutrient deficiencies. Im willing to bet its a micronutrient deficiency.
It doesnt look like a fungus/mold/pest problem to me. Overwatering would make pretty much all the leaves droop but there wouldnt be huge issues with the color of them...unless its been weeks...which would essentially be root rot and nute deficiencies at that point.