Hi I have a question. I'm running an aeroponic system with white widow. One of the plants is fuckin motivated as hell and is growing 3-4" per day, I have to raise the lights like crazy. He's easily 6-8" taller than his bushier cousin WW's. A few days ago I decided to slow him down before he gets too tall so I pulled off some clones from him and did some pruning. Well it didn't slow him down at all, I went in this morning and he was touching the lights, again... (t5 fluorescents) so my question is this. If I top him and remove about 6" will he grow a new top or will the top node replace it and just start bushing out? I'm worried that he will grow out horizontally too much and steal light from his neighbors, I would rather just have him slow down for a week so the other guys can catch up and I can flower him. Thanks in advance!
WW Question
- Thread starter javie
- Start date
lampshade
Well-Known Member
Yeah top him. Dont cut alot though. Maybe 3 inches. this will cause it to grow bushier and also to grow two top nodes. Also i would get some string and tie it to the top, then slightly bend the stem over to a 45 degree angle, and tie it that way. Its a common method used to restrict height called LST. Search for it. Hope this helps. lamp
judahbotwin
Active Member
i had the same problem. i tried topping it with as large of a cut as you said (around 6" ) and it didnt stop it at all. i ended up having to super crop it, and that slowed it down for the others to catch up.
lampshade
Well-Known Member
No prob. Also remember that you can prune the roots if you want to stop growth completely. Also this will just put it on 'hold' for awhile. Once the roots grow back it will continue growing just how it was.
This would however stress your plant, and it is *possible*, although unlikely that root pruning can change sex. Lamp.
This would however stress your plant, and it is *possible*, although unlikely that root pruning can change sex. Lamp.
Brick Top
New Member
Trimming roots can be a tricky thing. To begin with root structure and above soil plant size are about an equal match in size.
It takes an about equal amount of roots to keep the above the soil part of the plant alive.
Next is that only a certain percentage of each individual root takes in moisture and nutes. Roots harden much of their length and only the end portion actually takes in moisture and nutes and the rest of the roots are only like pipes carrying the food and nutes to the rest of the plant.
When you trim the end of a root you either reduce the amount of root intake by whatever amount/percentage of the root that was trimmed off or you totally cut off root intake until new ends grow.
Just talking about growing things in general if you trim the roots you need to trim an equal or greater amount of the rest of the plant or bush or tree also. For one that reduces the amount of everything that relies on the roots so there is not a major draw being called for and the plant or bush or tree not receiving it and because of that part of it dying or all of it dying.
Pot plants are tougher than most other growing things but they can only stand so root loss before they too will need things balanced out by having the above the soil portion trimmed or else they to will have parts/leaves/branches die or the entire plant dying.
I know that people do trim roots but I am not an advocate of it and you are really playing with fire when you do it.
I've already trimmed up the roots about 8" out of necessity and the bastard still grows life wild fire! His roots are about 3' long now, he decided it would be a good idea to just by pass getting sprayed and grew all the way into my drain pipe and almost hit the res before I realized it. I came into the grow room to find some flooding going on because the roots clogged the drain return so I had to cut em =/ I don't like messing with the roots because of the stress, so after that I moved the roots as far away from the drain as possible to avoid that deal again.
lampshade
Well-Known Member
Did they react badly when you cut the roots?
Brick Top
New Member
Like I said pot plants are tougher than most plants but cutting all but about 3 inches of root would make me say you are very lucky they are alive.
It didn't seem to phase the plant at all really, kept on with the steady growth. It has roots going each direction at least 3', I'm guessing the other roots made up for the slack, so needless to say this plant is going to be a mother, has awesome disease resistance, few of my other plants got some rust fungi on em, this one never did.
lampshade
Well-Known Member
I still believe that you could trim the roots to halt growth, but i guess it would be too risky. Who would ever want to find out.
I could trim em, but might lose a bad ass plant. I'm gunna try some LST and if it's still growing faster than Barry Bonds I'll try topping it, I might just say fuck it and flower them early, I already pulled my clones so the faster I get this grow done the quicker I can get more of the super bad ass plant going. The only thing that's slowing me down is that I only got 1 Blue Berry to prop out of 20 seeds and its only about 10" tall, I want to take about 4 clones from that before I flower so I can keep it going, BB seeds are crazy expensive =/
lampshade
Well-Known Member
Well good luck, hope the topping and lst work for ya.