On topping your plants…..I used this method 30 years ago!
A brief history. I started with clones and was placing over a hundred clones under a 1000 watt hps and flowering immediately. I would get one bud per plant. And yield just over a pound a light every 7 1/2-8 weeks. As you can imagine 100’s of clones were a lot of work!
Next I took clones (remember they were under fluorescents for 8 weeks, 2 weeks to root and 6 weeks to get started. I was growing a very indica skunky strain, very short intranodal distance. This strain if left to it self would grow side branches as tall and sometimes taller than the main stalk.
I would transplant these to 5 gallon pots and grow then under a 1000 watt hps for 1 ½- 2 weeks at 16/8 hours a day.
I waited till they had 6 strong branches growing not counting bottom two. They would be 7-10 inches tall at this point. I would one cutting off the main stem and 2 more from the top 2 branches. This gave me 3 cuttings per plant and with a 60-80% survival rate on my clones I always had plenty for the next crop.
This gave me 4 main branches on each plant. 9 plants under each light, I was running 4 1000 watt hps. Each covered a 5’ x 5’ area. I use homemade reflectors made of a 5 foot square pvc pipe frame wired to a stainless steel bowl that my socket was mounted in . Then these were covered in mylar and looked like a pyramid. I covered the walls with mylar too. At 3 weeks into budding no light would hit the grow room floor and the leaves were huge!
This strain flowers quickly and I would pinch smaller buds that were separate on the bottom of each branch till I was satisfied each branch would grow one solid bud. I realized early that the most potent smoke came from buds in the top layer of light. I would have a very even layer of plants that would completely fill the space. All the buds would be in the best light! Once again I would yield a bit over a pound per light! A lot less work than 100’s of clones but same yield at the expense of 2 more weeks in the cycle. Bud quality was greatly improved with ½ ounce rock hard buds common.
I ran a free standing room heater converted to propane that was very clean burning for co2 generation. This room was 15 x 15. I rigged the heater to a thermostat and would run till the temp hit 83 degrees and then would shut off and an exhaust blower would cool the room to 74 degrees and the heater would fire up and run the cycle again. Ran heater only when lights were on. I ran lights at night to keep overheating to a min. I had several oscillating fans that would shake the plants and had very sturdy branches that required no support. The main stem at harvest would be ¾ of an inch around on these 2 foot plants. No co2 monitor I just ran it this way.
I used peters 15-15-15 nutrient exclusively and discontinued fert 3 weeks from finish and just gave plain water. Wish I had known of bloom boosters then! I used this at ¼ the recommended dose for indoor plants on the package. I watered every 3 days and every 4th was plain water.
So now every 9 weeks I harvested 4 ½ pounds of stinky, sticky, covered in resin hard buds of skunk weed.
Ive been reading in Uncle Bens posts. I think he does an great job explaining the topping method. I did this to keep the buds in the best light and save myself a ton of work. I believe a plant will yield more left untopped but indoors there will be a lot of less potent buds in the mix. Outdoor my belief is left untouched will provide the highest yield.
So there is my tale of my indoor grow from 30 years ago.
By the way things were a lot different back then. At harvest I would pack those pounds in seal a meal and wipe them down with alcohol and then bag them again in seal a meal and wipe down again with alcohol and clean my hands between each stage too. I put all this in a samsonite hard locking suitcase and fly to California and hand the case to a friend and a day or two later he would hand me cash and back home on the plane. Never had a problem and I flew every 9 weeks for 3 years!
There that’s my first post hope you enjoy it!