Top During Flower?

[subrosa]

After finishing my first two grows, each successful but with it's own challenges, I am flowering 12 large plants in 5-gallon buckets under a 16-tube T-5. It is an LST grow with 6-8 tops on each plant. My goal was to get a perfectly even canopy and keep the T5 within a couple of inches of (nearly) every top. Two weeks in, what I have is "almost success."

The situation is that just three of the strongest growers decided to be about 4 inches taller than all the rest. Left alone, this is going to cause all the other colas to be about 6 inches below the light, which I don't think is a particularly good thing with T-5s.

I hate the thought of topping those beauties at this point, but it seems necessary. Should I try to bend them to the level of the others instead? Or just leave everybody alone? They are big, healthy and happy just as they are. I just worry that 6 inches from the tubes (Quantum BadBoy 16) for the majority of the colas is not close enough.

What would you do?

 

[supherbb]

Supercrop. Squeeze the stems until the inside weakens and bend the branches down. I wouldn't take a chance topping during flowering, but someone with more experience might be able to tell you otherwise. I would definitely go with super cropping though.

 

[pinecone]

I agree - supercrop, but also nobody says you have to hang your T-5 fixture level. You can have one end higher than the other. I do this routinely to accommodate differently sized plants.

Pine

 

[subrosa]

Good thought supherbb. I've been thinking about trying that technique anyway. Considering my one accidental experience with supercropping (I accidentally broke the main stem of one of my plants and it turned out to be the best one of all), I wonder if that would just cause the big girls to grow even more dramatically bigger than the others.

 

[subrosa]

Thanks pinecone. You're right, of course, but it's not three plants that are bigger, just one individual cola on three different plants. Otherwise, the canopy is extraordinarily flat.

 

[supherbb]

Well, if you supercrop the dominant cola, I believe the others will grow to try and compensate.

Also, like pinecone mentioned you can hang each side of your t5 at a different height to try and get more light to your smaller plants. I've also done this, mostly for different sized mother plants.

 

[subrosa]

I'll do that tonight and let you know how it works out.

 

[stonedar]

you can't raise the shorter plants to the height of the tall plants?

 

[Hundred Gram Oz]

How far into flower are you and which strain are you growing? You could get away with topping sativas with a long flowering period at early flower, I sometimes do it when growing SSSDH, if your growing a more indica dominate strain then I'd advise you to supercrop or some light stress training, you could even put a pea net over your canopy and bend your tops under it, room dependent?

HGO

 

[subrosa]

@supherbb: Is that the way it works? I guess I was thinking the supercropped one would be the one that went berserk.

@HGOz:
It is an Indica-dominant hybrid that finishes in about 10 weeks. They are two weeks into flowering.

I think I'll supercrop. In fact, I guess I'll do it again whenever a couple of colas get over-ambitious.

@stonedar: I don't have shorter or taller plants; I have 6-8 colas per plant with just three colas significantly taller than all of the others.

 

[stihgnobevoli]

just grab that cola at the level of the other tops and bend it over. even if it snaps just leave it, as long as it wasn't a clean break it will recover.

 

[Zdub7k]

yup..super-crop that B....I use super-cropping and then fishing weights (cheap at wal-mart) to hold them in place for the stubborn tops that want to stand back up...

 

[subrosa]

Thanks for the suggestions. Since it seemed to be the consensus, I supercropped them (five of them, actually) last night. I got careless with one and it snapped, but it seems fine. The canopy is perfect for the moment.