Timing of Topping and the Start of Flowering

so i got 6 plants from 2 different strains... one strain (4 plants) seems to be little shrubs (8 inches after a month of veg.) and the other strain is growing at what i'd call a more normal rate... so in a week i will be switching to flowering... and i think the 2 tall plants are gonna grow to big and fast for my little cabinet... question: can i top them this close to going into flowering? is there any amount of veg. time that the plant needs post topping? thank you in advance!

i topped mine a week before i flowered so its fine. but overall they are looking really healthy are you using any nutes and what are your growing conditions

promix hp and fox farm trio although i've only used the vegetative nute and sparingly at that... primarily had used 15 cfls for the whole month adding more as i went along and the plants couls handle more light... yeaterday i threw in the 150 hps w/ 9 cfls surrounding it... man what a difference! this is my 1st time around andd last week i got pruning happy hands as the shrubs had leaves that were ginormous... after i pruned them way way back i came on here and read thats a no no.... but they seemed to thrive almost instantly and grew like crazy... heres some pics of last weeks sparse look

also if and when i do top them how far down do i cut them? and is there any special protocal that needs to be followed? did you clone your topped cuttings?

If you have some more seeds, you'd probably be better off starting over at this point. You've put in a month of veg time so far in order to grow those leaves, and by cutting them all off you've killed any potential the plant had to grow nice buds.
The smaller plants may recover, if given enough time, but it will probably end up taking as long as it would to veg a new batch of seeds.

In the Advanced section there are stickies at the top on topping and FIMing that can get you started.

picture 5 looks terrible i would say harvest what you possibly can if anything and next time dont make that mistake again. the leaves are the main thing for the plant to thrive i never prune my leaves only lower growth that recieves no light. and top them a quarter inch above the new growth on the stem. personally i have never cloned upper growth because i heard that only the lower growth contains hormones to root i might as well clone since i remove the lower growth anyways

heres what they looked like yesterday not a bad comeback for a 1 week post pruning

yah theyre looking better now

Nice save! Looks like the HID lighting really sped things up for you.

Definitely! The HPS has added the light penetration I just wasn't getting from the cfl;s... all in all my fan leaf pruning adventure will prolly set me back 2 to 3 weeks... which sucks but i can be patient so I guess it is what it is...today i am gonna add more cfl complementary lights around the HPS Ive been using the 5000k and higher the day light bulbs so as to get a more balanced spectrum... i do have a bunch of 2700k bulbs also... which is more like the hps spectrum... any suggestions on which ones for flowering? im looking forward to this run being completed as my next run will be with these beans http://bit.ly/jo7hHN