Tag: how to top cannabis plants

How to Top a Weed Plant: Topping Cannabis

Topping cannabis is one of the best ways to maximize yield and ensure your harvest is successful. This technique, known as topping, has been around for many years to encourage Cannabis plants to produce more high-quality cannabis plant buds.

The process involves pruning or cutting the main cola at the very top of the cannabis plant, thus forcing the cannabis plant’s top two or three side branches to divide and grow multiple colas.

Cannabis plant topping helps to promote a more even canopy across the cannabis plant and allows more sunlight to reach the lower-growing parts of the marijuana plant.

This leads to more bud sites. So stay tuned as we break down everything you need to know about topping cannabis plants.

 

What is Topping Cannabis Plants?

Topping Cannabis plants is a technique used to increase the weed plant’s yield by inducing rapid growth patterns. This occurs by cutting off the top of the main stem at the point where side branches appear.

This method helps the marijuana plant to produce multiple main stems and more branches, resulting in an overall bushier cannabis plant with more buds. Topping also helps to make light distribution more even and suppresses stem elongation, leading to denser buds.

By topping cannabis plants, professional indoor growers can expect a bigger yield, a more even canopy, and overall larger plants. The topping should get done when the cannabis plant has grown a few sets of side branches and is in a vegetative phase.

If your cannabis plants are healthy and the nodes are close together, you can top the plant multiple times, keeping it at a height that you are comfortable with. Topping cannabis plants is a great way to get top growth and overall quality of your cannabis plants.

How to Top a Weed Plant?

If you’re a cannabis grower, you know that topping is one of your cannabis plants’ most important steps in cannabis cultivation. Let’s explore topping weed plants.

1.    Choose Your Topping Point

Before you start any topping process on your cannabis plants, it’s important to choose the right spot: Look for the main stem on your cannabis plants and determine the best location to break off the stem.

Aim for roughly five separate stems that sprout from the same point for a more even-sized top.

2.    Gently Break Off the Stem

Once the cannabis plant topping point gets selected, grasp the stem with your thumb and forefinger and gently break it off. Make sure your hand motion is smooth and slow so as not to damage any of the buds that are still growing.

3.    Remove Fan Leaves

Topping will generate excess fan leaves, which can block airflow, reduce light penetration and leave more resources for the more desired colas that are not touched. Removing these leaves will help your cannabis plants focus on the remaining branches’ growth.

4.    Train the Remaining Colas

Topping your cannabis plants typically produces two new main stems that require shaping. To help with this, use plant training techniques such as bending, tying, or pruning the stems to manage and spread out the new main tops to get the maximum yield.

5.    Continue Caring for Your Plants

After cannabis topping, your plants will require the same level of care. Monitor and care for it by providing proper watering, fertilization, temperature, and more light.

This will help ensure your cannabis plant can thrive and carry out the topping growth cycle.

When to Top Weed Plants: Finding the Right Timing 

While topping may seem like an easy chore – it isn’t, at least not for your cannabis. While your weed plant is using all the nutrients to birth the flower buds, trimming it causes great stress. 

Hence, if you don’t want to damage an already fragile plant, you have to top weed plants only at the right time. Here is how to tell when the time has come for topping.

The best times to top marijuana depend on multiple factors, including:

• the expected size of the weed plants, 
• desired shape, 
• amount of open space needed for light, 
• and most growers’ experience level.

Generally, the best times to top marijuana plants are when the plant enters the vegetative cycle.

During the vegetative stage, the cannabis plant is pouring energy and putting on height to the main stem. The vegetative stage happens before the flowering phase.

Don’t worry if you think you may accidentally overlook the vegetative stage because it does not happen overnight. The “topping stage” lasts for about 2 to 6 weeks. 

The Marijuana plants should be between one and two weeks old at this stage. Depending on the grower’s goals, marijuana plants can get topped more than once during the vegetative stage. Professional growers may prefer to top their cannabis plants two or three times to achieve optimal results.

Low-stress training (LST) can also create a four-way lateral growth, making for an even bushier plant. Another good time for cannabis topping is when plants have three to four nodes, and the main stalk is thickening.

Cannabis topping at this time will encourage a fuller bush, as buds will form on the marijuana plant rather than just the sides.

When to Top Weed Plant: Tips & Tricks 

Counting the Nodes

For new weed growers, it’s understandable to be worried about understanding when the vegetative stage begins. Hence, there is a practical tip you can use in your practice to know exactly when to start topping weed plants. The method is to count the nodes. 

When you look at the stem of cannabis, you will see branches on it forming in a node or in pairs. So, when you spot 4 nodes on a stem, it’s a good indication a beginning stage has begun. 

Although the number of nodes may vary, the general rule is to wait for your plant to form 4 nodes. If the space allows, let your weed grow 6-8 nodes before topping it. 

Counting the Weeks

We don’t expect you to track the growth of your weed in a calendar– although that’s not a bad idea. Counting the weeks is a great method to monitor each cycle, ensuring you know exactly when to top weed plants. 

The seedling cycle usually takes up to 2 weeks, followed by the vegging cycle. The vegging cycle starts in the third week of growing cannabis, but it is better to wait until the fourth week when enough nodes are formed. 

Checking the Height

The female tip is suitable for growers of bigger plantations of weed, where it is easier to compare the growth rate of each plant. The rule of thumb is to have your cannabis reaching 6-8 inches in height before topping it. If you monitor your plants’ growth only by their height, remember never to top your weed plants when they start flowering.

When to Stop Topping Cannabis Plants?

Topping cannabis plants should occur shortly after the vegetative phase begins, no more than a month in. Cannabis plant topping will cause it to grow more lateral stems and bush out instead of the main stem that continues to grow taller.

Topping a cannabis plant too early won’t have much of an effect, and topping it too late can cause it to go into shock, stunt its upper growth, and produce a lower yield.

Thus, it is important to time the cannabis plant topping correctly. If the cannabis plant has already reached a desirable height and the flowers are beginning to show, it is too late to top.

Topping can occur multiple times on a single cannabis plant to create a bushy shape with several stems. The last topping should get done when the central stem is about as thick as two of your fingers.

After the previous cannabis topping, no additional topping should take place. If the plant grows taller, the gardener can pinch off the tops of the uppermost branches and flower clusters to encourage new lateral growth.

 

Why Purchase Cannabis Seeds Online? 

• Great variety: When shopping for cannabis seeds online, you can choose from an unlimited collection of various strains and varieties. 
• Convenience: Online retailers offer a more convenient shopping experience. You can compare different seed strains and read detailed product descriptions in the comfort of your own home. 
• Multiple payment options: Online stores also have a range of payment methods and delivery options to choose from, making the whole process hassle-free.
• Free materials: You can find an abundance of helpful advice and tips available for free when it comes to looking for the right strain.
• Customers’ reviews: You can find recommendations and reviews from other customers and information about the effects of different strains, the best growing techniques, and more. 

Above all, online retailers provide safe and secure transactions. The website ensures that your information is protected and that all products are delivered in discreet packaging.

This way, you can purchase their premium weed seeds without worrying about their privacy or product quality.

Buy Premium Weed Seeds Online in Canada from Get Kush

In Canada, you can buy premium weed seeds at Get Kush. Search for premium weed seeds on the website. The platform has moderated product prices, making them accessible to everybody.

Or, if you want a wider selection, you can check out The Seed Pharm. On the website, customers can find many different varieties of premium marijuana seeds that suit their individual needs.

Online retailers, like those you can find at Atlantic Cannabis, also provide unlimited materials about various strains and their properties.  

Start exploring today and find the perfect seeds for your needs! 

References

Cannabis (Marijuana) and Cannabinoids: What You Need To Know. (n.d.). NCCIH. Retrieved January 5, 2023, from https://www.nccih.nih.gov/health/cannabis-marijuana-and-cannabinoids-what-you-need-to-know

The Seed Pharm. (2023, March 5). Buy Cannabis Seeds Online. Available at: https://www.theseedpharm.com/

Chandra, S., Lata, H., & ElSohly, M. A. (2020, June 26). Propagation of Cannabis for Clinical Research: An Approach Towards a Modern Herbal Medicinal Products Development. PubMed Central (PMC). Retrieved January 5, 2023, from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7333344/

Atlantic Cannabis (2023, March 5). Find Reliable Marijuana Dispensaries and Weed Delivery Services in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, and PEI. Available at: https://atlanticcannabis.net/

Marijuana Cultivation/Vegetative Growth – Wikibooks, open books for an open world. (n.d.). Marijuana Cultivation/Vegetative Growth – Wikibooks, Open Books for an Open World. Retrieved January 5, 2023, from https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Marijuana_Cultivation/Vegetative_Growth#Vegetative_Growth