Horizontal Growth Problem

[elunex]

My plants are now 40 days from seed, and initially they had a rough time while I learned a lot. They're now much happier than they were. But still having some issues.

My plants stretched quite a lot in the beginning while I learned about light distance. This meant that when I topped at node 5, it was already quite tall.

The plants aren't very big by any means but I'm struggling to get horizontal growth from the sides of the plant.

My two main tops are going nicely, but there isn't much growth from the other areas of the plant in terms of giving me a chance at more tops.

I've pruned her a bit this week to focus more growth on the important parts.

Any advice on the best thing to do at this point? I feel like the plants are a good month behind where they should be at this age in terms of size. She's already showing pistils but far too small to consider flowering in the near future.

 

[elunex]

Apologies for the double-post. Kept getting site errors when uploading the image on my mobile.

 

[Troy01]

At this point about the only way you are going to get any branching is to try some lollypopping or some slow LST. For LST you want to gently pull the branches above where you topped to the side so you open up the center to produce additional bud sites. I would suspect it is going to be difficult to LST wit the plant as tall as it is.

 

[Jackalope]

Lower branches may not develop much growth in some strains. Best to trim lower branches and concentrate on the 2 tops. If a strain does not normally grow as a bush they may not react well to topping. Some strains just like to have baseball bat style growth and perform best that way. Topping does not always increase yields.

 

[elunex]

Thanks for the responses. I had no idea that different strains respond differently to topping.

 

[Wingman27]

My plant is kind of the same as yours. though i think mine might be a male but im not sure yet... but i topped and waited till it grew out alittle then i supper cropped the 2 tall tops so its the same hight as the lower tops and i also removed the lowest branches cuz i didnt think i needed them.
here it is after topping

then here it is after supercropping.

hope this helps.. and if your going to repot to a larger pot size then you can just bury it deeper into the soil to cover some of the stem to make it stronger

 

[Shawnyboy]

Bend her over completely. Slowly train it over. Expose the whole side to light. Be careful not to snap the stem. If you do tape it up. Plants are incredibly resilient in veg