Is it a bad idea to top your plant after the pisti...

Hi Sativa_Juice_Grows I'm guessing those are autos? You have 18h of light so a photo-dependent wouldn't go into flowering with that schedule. At that point I wouldn't top and auto. If you're growing in cups past the 1st week the plant root system will be small. Therefor the plant will be small. This might trigger flowering sooner. Topping a plant is when we want to make it bigger with less height but it must have a longer cycle that yours. If you plant them in bigger pots next time or transplant after 1st week you'll probably find the cycle a bit more normal.

I would transplant her then maybe top her if its because your worried about height. If height isn't an issue then don't top her.

it's not an autoflower, so you can top as much as you want... given common sense. can top an auto too, if you want to. Pre-flowers are no problem. It is convenient to see them early. The picture for this question, on the other hand, looks like it is an autoflower with first sign of buds at terminal... as long as there is enough vege growth remaining, topping is potentially viable. Topping seems to work better after some axillary growth (branching) has at least started vs just some tiny nubs of a growth tip- " axillary buds" - (not referencing your specific context, just a generalization)... if it's too short of a period to recover, it is not worth it.

Hey there Sativa Juice, thing about pistils is they usually mean you're getting into flowering but looks like what happened is your clones' roots found the edges of the cup and got stressed so they triggered flowering in a last ditch effort to procreate before the end of their lifecycle. topping now would not be good, repotting first is a good idea, just to see if you can manage to bring the plants back to veg. Try that first, then if they're in veg, go for it. Hope this helps ! 🚀