Topping

Safe time to start topping. After they develope their 5th node. I usually defoliate a little bit every 2 weeks with major defoliation 3-5 time throughout the life of my photoperiod plants. Don't worry so much. They recover really well from it within a week or 2. I have removed about 60% of the leaves before and she handles it just fine. If you're too nervous about the cutting the plant maybe start with some lst and a horizontal tellis(screen of green). Start tieing the limbs down to make them grow out rather than up.

To clear things up for new players, faster/early version plants are not autos, but photoperiod plants that contain a trace of ruderalis genes, which causes them to react faster/sooner to any change in lighting to 12/12, meaning they finish flowering 1-2 weeks earlier than their pure photoperiod cousins. They do not flower automatically and require a reduction in light to trigger flowering. They can be thought of as an intermediate step between auto flowers and pure photoperiod plants. Topping is not essential for growing cannabis, but if you do want to top this plant, I would suggest removing the apical tip when there are between 8 and 14 branches, this will give you a decent amount of colas with great yield potential. Topping will also force the branches to grow out and longer, which could be an advantage with such a compact plant and it will certainly make training easier. But whether to top or not is a decision you will have to make, based on your set up and your desired outcomes. Letting it be and allowing it to grow naturally is the other option, with a bit of training and good nutrition, results will be faster (topping can slow growth for 1-2 weeks while the plant recovers from the trauma) and yields for all practical purposes, will be almost identical. Hope this helps, Organoman.

You dont HAVE to top...you could just LST the whole way thru... Depends how much height you have to work with GG isnt meant to get that high but if you dont have a tall tent then topping is the better way to go. Just take off 3-4 cms of the newest shoot and she will recover just fine.

I usually top my plants above the second node around day 10 to 12 as long as they are growing fast. The sooner you top the faster they recover. I would just snip the top nose off your plant now. It looks like its happy and growing well so it probably wont slow it down much. Looks like that's going to be a stocky plant with fat stems so you want to stay on top of spreading her out and training because stems like that usually harden up fast

The question is why would you want to Top this Plant? It is already short and bushy 🌳

Raise your light, let it stretch now. If nodes are 2-3 inches that’s fine. I usually only too when i have 5 nodes or more. Probably want hurt it but you got a bush already. Let it get some node stretch.

I’d top ASAP and get some space going between everything there. That looks like it’ll be short fat little colas.. so I’d top and almost mainline. I’d leave 2-3 nodes and let them grow out, cleaning up older growth as it stretches out.. this will get you some space. Otherwise I’m afraid this will just be a stubby single cola plant.

Well a lot of ppl will tell you not to top auto, I know it doesn't say auto, but "faster", but it's very similar to the growth of an auto right? If it is, wait until it shows the 5th-6th node. If you topping above the 4th I'd wait til the first signs of the 6th making sure you give an overall shape. If topping above the 3rd wait until at least the 5th, of what I can see that's early 4th coming up right? Bit hard to tell. But she's healthy and if you have the space grow room, if you only doing 1 plant I'd let your 1 auto take centre stage. But if you are set on topping your 1 plant wait until at the until the 6 just starts showing. Best of luck, she's very healthy and will do very well in topping or without she has a lovely shape. I'd focus m9re on trying to get your stretch if think you'll have the height/space. Good luck.

I leave at least 5 nodes minimum. You can top higher if you want a bigger plant.