18" and Time to flower, too late to top and prune?

[malufizzgig]

So I have eight plants started from seed in a four by four tent and it's getting way too full in my tent and watering is a hassle! The plants are all female and just started showing preflowers late last week, about 18 inches tall from the medium to the tips.

I have never grown anything before, and a lot of the opinions about topping, pruning, training, defoliation and other techniques I read were conflicting or assumed a level of experience that I felt like I didn't have, so I decided to let them grow out to learn for myself about how they grow naturally.

Is it too late to FIM or top my plants now that they are this tall and ready to go to 12/12? Will topping or fim'ing them now increase my yield? I was thinking of topping half and fim'ing half just to see what happens unless someone has any other advice?

What about pruning the lower branches that aren't getting enough light? It's packed in like a Sea of Green in there and I can barely get at the base of the plants to water them and it's hard to see when the medium is dry and i feel like the lower branches aren't going to get enough light to matter. How should I prune them? at the main stalk or? I'm not really sure where or what to cut, everything I read says something different.

Can someone advise me on what I can do right now?

 

[OldSchoolGreen]

Check it out!

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?threadid=115377

-Old School

 

[malufizzgig]

Thanks, I read that. My plants are already super tall and ready to flower and I don't know which techniques to use or where to start or if it's just too late.
I'm looking for specific advice on what to do right now not end up with a puny yield. What would you do? I feel overwhelmed by all the different techniques and have no idea what I should do.
What would you do with a plant that looked like this:
http://forum.grasscity.com/uploads//gallery/album_5697/gallery_692302_5697_820733.jpg
in a grow room that looked like this:
http://forum.grasscity.com/uploads//gallery/album_5697/gallery_692302_5697_537005.jpg

 

[malufizzgig]

Next time I'll definitely train them from the start with plans on doing a SCROG grow, but for now I just want to make sure I can water them easily and that the yeild is okay for a first grow. I have enough space to accommodate a 150% increase in height in space and 1000w of light on a dimmable ballast in an air cooled magnum xxxl hood, so it's not a big deal if they get tall.

 

[Shiva Blaster]

Generally want to to leave at least a week for the plant to recover from the topping and start growing again before flipping it. At this stage I'd just tie that baby over and use LST....will be just as effective without stressing your plant this close to flip. You can LST all the way through the stretch to manipulate your plant and to spread it out and keep it short.

 

[Coconutz]

I would cut that bitch in half and clone the fuck out of the top half.
Let the bottom veg for a week and flower her with 4-6 main colas.
What kind of strain is it though?

 

[Shiva Blaster]

I would cut that bitch in half and clone the fuck out of the top half.
Let the bottom veg for a week and flower her with 4-6 main colas.
What kind of strain is it though?

Cutting that plant in half just defeated the purpose of a nice long veg period though, and there is no guarantee the top clones successfully.....often they won't depending on the strain. If he just ties the top right over, he'll have a bushy monster with 15-20 main tops when all the side branches shoot up like crazy.

Just did this with my Kandy Kush plant and I've got a beautiful monster on my hands

 

[Shiva Blaster]

Will get waaaay more yield this was rather than removing half the plant material this close to flower.

 

[tech138]

I would definitely agree with Shiva Blaster. If you bend those main tips down out of the way, those side branches will explode with growth. That apical dominance thing is not a myth. You will get the benefits of topping without having to lose that large main tip. Once the side branches catch up in size, you can release the tip and you will end up a bush of colas. I almost always tie plants over and train to stakes rather than top them. I almost forgot to tell you how awesome your plants look. Great job!

 

[coldcanna]

If you top now plan on letting them veg for another couple weeks, good practice to not do anything too stressful to them right before flower. I'm gonna go with the other posters and say that your best bet is to tie down the main stem and let the laterals catch up, this will kindof give you the bushing affect of topping. Better yet, if you have the resources to throw a scrog not over them you'd be golden- squish it down on them pretty good and give em a few days to grow up through the screen.

For the future- top them when they are about 10 inches tall and that'll give you 2 main stems, top those and you'll have 4. Hope this helps - happy growing

 

[malufizzgig]

thanks for the input. I'm going to train them for scrog next time from the very start and plan ahead. At least this way I learned how they grow naturally, which is helpful when you're looking into how to train them to grow unnaturally.

 

[Reevage]

I FIMed one of mine lat and it grew to have a cluster of four nugs at the top

 

[malufizzgig]

I ended up not doing anything to them but watching and learning how they grow naturally. But next time I'm going to go for veganic nutrients, an automated drip feed system, and the scrog method I found here. Now that I know more about how they grow naturally I think I'll really be able to understand and benefit from more advanced techniques

http://growweedeasy.com/lbh-4-way-lst-tutorial
http://www.growweedeasy.com/lbh-scrog-tutorial

 

[Jnugg]

I find the top shoots root easiest.