To top or not to top. Nepelese Jam and Orient Express

[The Hatter]

I have month old Nep Jam and Orient Express plants that I plan to put into flower within the next week or so. I know its a bit late in their growth but I just can't help but want to avoid "hurting" my babies so I have put off Fimming or topping them longer than I should have.

I also am new to this and I know some strains hate topping so I'm not sure if this is going to hurt or help at this point. The Nep Jam in particular looks like it might not like topping. It is growing a bit like an indica in that it has a single strong central stem with weak branching. The orient express I plan to choose is VB leaning and quite branchy and sativa like in structure.

To give you an idea of the space I am working with, I have about 8 ft vertical space. It's 2ft wide and 5 feet long. I plan to squeeze a total of 4 flowering plants into this space. (1 Nep Jam, 1 Orient Express, 1 Destroyer, 1 Super Lemon Haze.) The light will eat up about 2 1/2 feet of the vertical space leaving me with about 5 1/2 solid feet for just the plants and the pots.

Would it be wise to Fimm or top any of these plants now, a week before I put them into flower? (It should give them long enough to recover and branch judging from their vigor.)

I was thinking I will probably have to do something about the Destroyer in particular. It is a classic lanky sativa that is shooting for the stars but I thought maybe I could get away with leaving the OE and Nep Jam with their natural shape?

If anybody has experience with topping these strains, what would you recommend I do?

 

[The Hatter]

I should emphasize that each plant is going to have roughly a 2 ft x 1 1/2 foot rectangular foot print to flower in so I'm worried that if I top them I might not have enough lateral space for it to be particularly beneficial?

 

[Cryptlord9999]

Personally my last grow i topped and tied down one of my Nepalese Jam plants fairly early on and it developed into about a 2 foot plant by the end of flowering, had i not topped/ tied down it would have been about 3 feet tall. It caused it to branch quite well and it developed into what appeared from first glance to be an indica but up close you could tell it was a sativa, the plant had a very even canopy for the most part and it allowed me to keep the my lights lower to the ground, meaning more penetration to the lower parts of the plants which means increased yields. I would recommend topping or fimming it, tying down all the main branches/stems as much as you can without breaking/causing major stress, raise your light (if using a 1000 watt HID) about 1-2 feet higher and let the plant recover for a 7-10 days, then throw it into flower as soon as it has fully recovered from the stress. Throwing it into flower too soon can cause it to hermie if its already under a lot of "environmental" induced stress.

 

[The Hatter]

How long did you veg your nep jam for? If its only going to end up 3 or 4ft tall I might just let it grow naturally (with some tying down) since its my first time and I have already stressed the poor things quite a bit during their short lives.

The destroyer might need some sort of intervention to keep it manageable. It's really shooting up fast. I should really ask somebody in the cannabiogen forum about that one since it's their strain rather than Ace's although I hear the two breeders are close and a lot of the people who grow Ace strains grow Cannabiogen as well.

I will be flowering the 4 plants under a 600w HPS with a high lumen bulb.

 

[Cryptlord9999]

Well from germination to end of seedling stage was 2 weeks under a 150 watt CFL (actual drawn wattage not output equivalent) then vegged under a 400 watt metal halide for 25 days. Then i kept them under the 400 watt MH for the first 2 weeks of flowering, switched to a 600 watt HPS for 5 weeks then back under the 400 watt MH for the last 2 weeks of flower. I now just flower 100% under metal halides as it keeps plants shorter and bushier so i can keep the lights closer to the ground for maximum penetration. Also metal halide lights have a spectrum that more closely mimics natural sunlight and they peak in the blue spectrums which increase trichome/cannabinoid production, you will yield roughly 10%-15% less under metal halide vs HPS yields though, but its worth it.

 

[Bud buster]

If you look at the last couple of pages of the MH vs HPS thread some people have claimed 20 to 30% more with 7200k metal halide it can be strain dependent.

 

[The Hatter]

By the time I get them into flower they will have been alive about the same amount of time as yours so I would imagine they will end up under 4ft tall which sounds good to me. I won't have as even a canopy if I don't top but they have been stressed enough and since this my first real grow aside from an Auto Cheese freebie I through in the dirt while I got the room ready, I think I'll leave them in their natural shape just to get a baseline and to avoid stressing them further.

The Destroyer I still might need to do something about. I have a feeling its going to get very tall.

I've heard from several people that adding blue spectrum to the flower period has some good results. I might give that a shot by switching out to a mh bulb near the end although the wattage and lumens will be lower.

I would Imagine OE is the same or less tall than NJ? The photos seem to show it as a shorter bushier plant mostly.

 

[dubi]

Hi The Hatter,

I wouldnt top the more columnar compact looking phenos, especially if you are going to change them soon to flower.

On the other hand, the taller, branchier, more sativa Orient Express phenos react very well to topping.

 

[The Hatter]

I had suspected the columnar Nep Jam might not like being topped or fimmed. Thanks for the helpful advice.