How to Top Auto?

I strongly advise against using high stress techniques with autos as this will result in a noticeable decrease in yield. I personally avoid even defoliating from the dying leaves at the base of the plant, let her decide. However, you can safely apply LST techniques.

The best time to top an auto is harvest. Autoflowers will usually produce less yield when topped as they don't have enough time to recover. Your best option is to use LST to spread her out and create a wide even canopy. I would wait another week before bending her over. She is still young and wont benefit much from early lst. Good luck and Happy Growing.

High bro, Nice setup and great start. My experience with topping autoflowering plants is that it doesn't give the benefit that you try to archief with the topping technique. I would prefer LST technique to keep the canopies on the same hight so that they get the same amount of light. And defoliate the lowest 30% of your plant to stimulate your plant growing those fatties on top of your plant. The buds at the lowest 30% of your plant do not develop enough to be taken serious and the leaves just don't gain enough light to be useful. Happy Growing! 😋

MY short answer is : don't. If you want to try your hand at topping, grow a photoperiod... autoflowers have their own schedule built in to them and you never know exactly what that is.... NORMALLY, autos go into pre-flower around Week 4 - but I've had some pre-flower in Week 3 and some in Week 5... Topping is a very stressful event for the plant and it may not have time to recover. Have some done it successfully? Yes, of course... but is it WISE? No... Do some good LST on her instead to open up the lower bud sites and make them as strong and as big as you can... Good luck...

Any where between the 3rd and 5th node, all depends how you want to grow. There is a large debate if topping autos is ok or not. I have topped some of mine with success and some were failures. I would suggest playing aorund with LST more vs HST "topping" and get a feel for how autos grow before moving onto more advance growing techniques. growdiaries.com/journal/how-to-do-low-stress-training-lst-on-cannabis-plants vs growdiaries.com/journal/how-to-do-high-stress-training-hst-on-cannabis Good Luck & Happy Growing! ***disclaimer, multiple people are answering all questions as there is a contest called GOTM, when a user is selected as the answer they get a point. Please see the contest page for information regarding the details: growdiaries.com/giveaways/GotM-August-2022 Please note, when you reply to anything on the questions part of Growdiaries website, no one will be notified of this. Not even if you use a "@" tag in their name. Best to reach out to them in DM using your inbox, it can be found in the bottom right hand corner of the site. It's the small paper airplane button, it will be highlighted green if you have new messages***

Based off of what I have heard and read, you want to do it during week 3 at the latest. Autoflowers don't have a very long veg period, so you want to get the high-stress training done and out of the way as soon as you can. I hope this helps. Good luck!

@AloeLover hi mate its best to wait until it has 5 sets of leaves before topping and then remove that 5th node and prepare for the training that will follow