“Fimming” (also known as FIMing) is a cannabis grow technique to increase yields. Discovered by mistake, this unusual plant training technique increases the number and size of cannabis buds. When the fimming is done right, of course. This marijuana fimming tutorial shows you how to fim plants perfectly every time.

Fimming refers to removing the top growth of a young cannabis plant, like this.

The result of successful fimming? 4 branches from one spot.

Fimming can help make more bushy, productive cannabis plants.

What to remember: The ultimate goal of fimming is to create a bushy plant with lots of main branches. This results in many big buds instead of only one.

What is fimming cannabis? Growers pinch off the top of a cannabis plant when it’s a few weeks old. When timed just right, plants naturally grow more top buds once the plant starts flowering. The fimming process causes a plant to naturally grow more wide and bushy as it develops. When growing cannabis indoors, creating a wide, flat plant is key to getting the biggest yields from your setup. Fimming naturally helps create that ideal plant shape for you.

A freshly “fimmed” cannabis plant.

Does fimming increase cannabis yields?

Yes, usually. The results of fimming range from “no effect” to “very effective”, depending on whether it’s done correctly. The bonus of basic fimming is growers can’t really do it wrong. The worst that can happen is no effect. But if you follow this fimming tutorial, your cannabis yields consistently get a yield boost.

Is fimming better than “topping”?

“Topping” is a similar technique to fimming, also to increase cannabis yields. The difference is topping means removing the whole top of the plant. Fimming means pinching off a small amount of growth.

Both methods are effective to make plants grow bushy and produce lots of big buds. Topping consistently splits the main stem into two, but you can accidentally stunt plants if you do it at the wrong time. Fimming is less consistent, resulting in 1-4 stems coming from the same spot, though you should get all four when fimming is done right. If you fim cannabis plants wrong, the result is no effect, and you’ll have the same single main stem as before. You can’t stunt a plant by simply fimming, but if you do it wrong, it doesn’t work and you don’t get any of the benefits.

Learn More: Topping vs FIMing Cannabis Tutorial

Why is it called “Fimming”? Fimming was discovered by mistake, and the name “Fim” reflects that history. The story goes that a cannabis grower tried to cut off the top of the plant, but didn’t do a complete job. But he liked the results better, and named the technique “FIM” for “F*ck I Missed”. Fimming was born.

How to “Fim” a Cannabis Plant

The main idea behind fimming is to “mow” off the top growth of your plant. The goal is to split the main stem into 4 stems with one strategic cut. A plant with 4 main stems is easy to train to grow wide and flat with simple bending. When done right, fimming cannabis can give results somewhat similar to time-intensive manifolding without adding weeks onto your grow time.

Wait until plant has grown 3-5 sets of leaves. At the right time, you’ll noticed all the lower stems are starting to grow into little branches. Yes, it’s not just about the total number of leaves, but also the overall size of the plant. If a plant is still tiny and thin, you should wait even if it’s got plenty of sets of leaves.

Too small to fim – even though this has 3 sets of leaves, the plant is tiny. The lower growth has not started growing away from the stem yet. Wait until plant gets a bit bigger or it may get stunted from fimming.

Beginning of fim window – This plant is just barely big enough to fim. The lower branches are just starting to grow away from the main stem. You might get better results by waiting just a bit longer.

Ideal size to fim – A cannabis plant about this size is the perfect size to fim. It’s got about 4 sets of leaves, and the lower growth is starting to grow away from the main stem into little branches of their own.

End of fimming window – This seedling has 5 full sets of leaves, starting on the 6th. This is about as big a cannabis plant should be when you fim. If your plant is bigger than this (and still in the vegetative stage), you should use the “topping” technique instead of fimming. To top a plant, cut through the main stem right above the 5th set of leaves (check out the full topping tutorial).

Right after fimming your young cannabis plant, it should have a “mowed” top left behind. Look at the above diagram to try to make sure you’re cutting through at the best spot.

Look at your plant and compare to the diagram above.

Remove this much growth to “fim” a cannabis plant.

Leave this much behind.

When done right, fimming results in 4 stems coming from essentially the same spot on the cannabis plant. However, fimming is not always the most consistent. Instead of 4 tops, if you don’t cut at the right spot you might end up with 1, 2, or 3 tops instead of all 4. If you want total control with perfect symmetry, check out the “topping” technique instead.

It’s normal for the new growth right after fimming to look weird. Remember, you cut off 80% of these leaves before they got a chance to grow out! If you damage a young leaf, it becomes more and more obvious as the leaf grows. However, brand new leaves after these ones should look normal.

A few days later, those mowed leaves from fimming should look a bit funny growing in.

Plants that have been fimmed naturally grow more bushy, which helps maximize yields in the flowering stage.

However, to improve your results, bend over tall branches. Just regularly bend the tallest stems down and away from the center of the plant, and tie them down. This process is known as Low Stress Training, or LST for short.

Keep bending tall stems down, so plant grows wide and flat.

The result? Tons of buds at harvest time!

Advanced Technique: Remove all stems but the top 4 (Serious Fimming)

Some growers take their fimming to the next step. Instead of just splitting the stem into 4 and letting the plant grow naturally, some growers remove all the other stems on the plant. In other words, they remove all steps but the top 4 they want to keep.

A fimmed cannabis stem. All but the top 4 stems were removed off the main “trunk”. Source: Nugbuckets

This makes it so all branches come from essentially the same spot on the cannabis plant.

Another example of a cannabis plant that was fimmed and all other branches removed. Source:Tarzan

However, if you want to go this direction, you may enjoy a more consistent plant training technique known as manifolding.

Learn how to manifold your cannabis plants.

Manifolding – better than fimming for cannabis growers who want symmetry.

Now you know how to fim your cannabis plants, so you get bigger yields at harvest time!

Want to learn about other marijuana plant training techniques to increase yields? Check this out!

Complete Guide to Cannabis Plant Training Techniques

The post “Fimming” Cannabis: The Secret to a Bigger Harvest? appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

1. Topping
2. Low Stress Training (LST)
3. Supercropping
4. Defoliation (Strategically Removing Leaves)
5. Lollipopping
6. Sea of Green (SoG)
7. Manifolding (aka Main-Lining)
8. Screen of Green (ScrOG)
9. FIMming
10. Monster Cropping

Bonus: Fluxing

Every Cannabis Grower Should Use Plant Training Techniques

As a cannabis grower, your goal is to get your plants to produce a lot of high-quality buds as efficiently as possible. A key tactic to increasing cannabis yields and bud quality is to “train” your cannabis plant when it’s young to grow wide and flat so that it produces a lot of fat top buds in the flowering stage.

The goal of all cannabis plant training techniques is to grow wide flat plants with many big top buds. Fill your grow space with top-shelf weed!

Cannabis Plant Training Benefits

• Bigger yields
• Denser buds
• Increased bud potency (higher THC)*

*In our side-by-side experiments, trained cannabis plants produce buds that have higher THC levels when tested at the lab.

Today’s cannabis plant training tutorial is all about showing you how to use free techniques to get more and better quality buds from your current setup.

Achieve better marijuana bud quality and increase THC levels with these free plant training techniques!

1.) Topping

Topping is the #1 most important, easiest, and most effective cannabis plant training technique. If you must choose only one technique, do this.

“Topping” means cutting off the growing tip (“top”) of the main stem to encourage the growth of two or more secondary stems. A grower typically “tops” the plant when it’s a few weeks old. The purpose of topping is to break the apical dominance of the cannabis plant (reduce the tendency to grow one main trunk) so it naturally grows with many branches. Topping a young cannabis plant helps encourage it to grow wide and bushy with many tops for buds to grow.

Topping means cutting off the top of a cannabis plant when it’s a few weeks old.

The result: plants naturally grow more bushy, even if you don’t do anything else.

Topped cannabis plants naturally grow wider and bushier.

The result is many tops on each marijuana plant, and each of those top stems becomes a main bud.

2.) Low Stress Training (LST)

Low Stress Training (often called “LST”) is a fancy way of saying “bending and tying down branches”. The goal of LST is to get the plant to grow in the shape you want, typically to create a more even and horizontal canopy so the plant produces many buds instead of just one. Training cannabis plants to grow flat and wide also helps deliver more light to more top buds, increasing overall yields and bud quality.

This is another technique, like topping, that can definitely be used by itself to increase yields without doing anything else.

Learn More: Low Stress Training Tutorial

Cannabis plant before low stress training.

A cannabis plant after low stress training. Branches were bent down and away from the middle of the plant, then secured with plant twisty tie.

At harvest, the cannabis plant has many big buds instead of only one. (Here’s the full grow journal)

3.) Supercropping

The main purpose of “supercropping” is to gain total control over the height of unruly cannabis plants by being able to bend even the stiffest of branches without breaking them. I’m not sure how it got its name (perhaps just because it helps make super harvests?) but the supercropping technique involves pinching and bending the stems until they break internally, but not externally. After the stem can be bent, the branches get secured where you want them to stay.

In addition to height control, supercropping causes the plant to form a knuckle at the bend point, which, as a bonus, may increase the flow of nutrients and hormones in some cases. This technique may also potentially increase the potency of buds by slightly stressing the cannabis plant in a “good” way. However, be careful to follow the tutorial to make sure you don’t accidentally break the skin and potentially kill the branch.

Learn More: How to Supercrop Plants to Control Height

Supercropping is a technique to safely bend branches at an extreme angle without “breaking the skin”. This gives you a lot more control over plant height.

4.) Defoliation (Strategically Removing Leaves)

“Defoliation” means removing fan leaves, and should be done in a strategic way to get the best results. The main goal is to remove big fan leaves that block light from reaching the bud sites early in the flowering stage. This helps the plants grow into a better structure, improves airflow, increases light penetration, and overall enhances bud development. However, this technique should be done with caution as over-defoliation can stress or stunt the plant, and works best if you follow our defoliation tutorial.

Learn more: Cannabis Flowering Stage Defoliation Tutorial

Defoliation means removing fan leaves in a strategic way during the early flowering stage. Strategic defoliation for cannabis plants is typically done on a specific schedule after flowering is initiated.

When done properly, strategic defoliation results in bigger, longer buds. In our cannabis defoliation experiment, defoliated plants also produced more THC!

5.) Lollipopping

The “lollipopping” technique involves removing the lower branches and leaves that receive little light and produce small buds. Essentially, you turn the plant into a lollipop with no leaves on the bottom. Removing the bottom leaves and bud sites that will never get light helps the plant focus its energy on the upper buds. As a result of lollipopping, the topmost buds typically grow bigger and denser.

Before and after lollipopping cannabis plants. The left plant was lollipopped, and the right plant has not been lolliopped yet.

This was done right as the grower initiated the flowering stage. Notice how all the leaves have been removed from the bottom of the plant and light now reaches the floor.

Lollipopped cannabis plants produce big buds that go deeper down into the plant. Notice how the bottom branches are bare.

Lollopopped plants tend to produce bigger and better top buds, with fewer small airy lower buds that typically are not that potent anyway.

Learn More: How to Lollipop Your Cannabis Plants

Useful Specialty Techniques

These techniques are useful in many situations, but unlike the tactics listed above (which are useful for every cannabis grower), these techniques may not be the best choice in every situation for every grower’s goals.

6.) Sea of Green (SoG)

“Sea of Green” (also known as “SoG”) is about creating a sea of buds with a bunch of little plants. Many small plants are grown together in close proximity, then forced to start flowering early. Since plants stay small, growing with the Sea of Green technique reduces the vegetative time, allowing for both quicker harvests and more harvests in a year. This technique works best for cannabis strains that have a dominant main cola, and for grow spaces where it is easy to reach all the plants including plants in the middle or back. Although Sea of Green is surprisingly efficient as far as the yields for the time and electricity used, it’s not suitable for growers with legal plant limits, and tends to take more work compared to growing fewer plants.

Learn More: How to Make a “Sea of Green” in Your Cannabis Garden

Grow many small cannabis plants for a “sea of green” and initiate the flowering stage when plants are still tiny (this size).

Each cannabis plant will grow one main bud and fill your space with weed.

7.) Manifolding (aka Main-Lining)

Originally called main-lining, this technique has come to be called “manifolding” because that is more descriptive, and also because “main-lining” has another meaning in the drug world. Manifolding involves topping the main stem multiple times when the plant is still small to create an even number of main colas that grow from a single manifold. This process creates a symmetrical and balanced plant where each main bud receives equal amounts of nutrients and light.

Note: Autoflowering strains cannot be manifolded because their vegetative stage is too short. Learn more about how to train auto-flowering cannabis strains.

The manifolding process is a neat way to learn about training cannabis plants and also ensures an excellent harvest of many big buds. In my opinion, every dedicated cannabis grower should try manifolding a photoperiod plant at least once, even if just for the experience. It’s not necessarily the most scalable or efficient plant training technique, but is definitely one of the most fun!

Manifolding is a training regimen that causes the entire plant to grow from one main “manifold”. Manifolds are fun and interesting to make!

Example of a manifolded cannabis plant at harvest.

8.) Screen of Green (ScrOG)

“Screen of Green” (often abbreviated “ScrOG” – no relation to Sea of Green technique despite the similar names) refers to using a screen or net to support and train the branches to grow flat and wide. The branches are woven through the screen as they grow, creating a flat and uniform canopy that maximizes light exposure and bud production. Creating a screen of green can be useful in some situations, but personally, I believe it’s often less work to use other techniques on this page to create wide flat plant canopies. Once a cannabis plant is woven through the screen, it’s stuck in place unless the screen also moves, which can be inconvenient. Also, if you use wire as part of the screen, it can be difficult to cut all the buds out at harvest.

Learn more: Screen of Green Tutorial

Create a screen (best to use string instead of wire to make it easy to cut away from plants at harvest).

Example of a cannabis plant growing in a screen.

(Less Useful) “Hit or Miss” Techniques

These cannabis training techniques are not consistent and should generally be avoided, or at least considered experimental.

9.) FIMming

“FIM” stands for “F*ck I Missed” 😂 Essentially, this technique is similar to topping, but instead of cutting through the main stem, a small portion of the top of the plant is left behind. FIMing was “discovered” when someone messed up while topping their plant. When done in just the right way, this can result in four or more secondary stems growing from the same node. The downside is it often doesn’t work as intended. While topping consistently splits one stem into two, FIMing can result in 1, 2, 3, or 4 final stems. If you want 4 main stems, it’s better to top the plant twice than FIM it.

FIMing means removing 80% of the top node and hoping it results in 4 main branches (inconsistent and not recommended).

10.) Monster Cropping

The “monster cropping” technique involves taking clones from a flowering plant and reverting them back to the vegetative stage (“re-vegging” the cannabis plant). A re-vegged clone often grows strangely, with multiple branches and bud sites, creating bushy and monster-like plants. Some growers think this can be an easy way to make the plant grow many buds, but in my experience, re-vegged plants grow slowly for a long time compared to seeds or regular clones. Almost any other technique on this page to make plants bushy gets faster and more consistent results.

Learn More: What is “Monster Cropping” a Cannabis Plant?

A “monster cropped” plant. Note: a cannabis grower will likely get better results with almost any other technique on this page.

Bonus: Fluxing

Similar to manifolding except more complicated and with more steps. This gets similar results as manifolding but takes more time so it’s best for growers who enjoy the process of training and experimenting with vegetative cannabis plants. Typically, you’ll get the same results for less effort by manifolding a cannabis plant instead.

Fluxing is essentially a more complex version of manifolding.

Fluxing gives similar results to other techniques on this page that take less time.

Learn More: What is “Fluxing” and How Do You Do It?

Start training your cannabis plants today using the techniques in today’s tutorial!

Grow many buds at the same time…

…and enjoy your bountiful harvest!

The post 10 Most Common Cannabis Training Terms: In Order of Usefulness appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

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You may be asking yourself these common growing questions:

“How do I grow marijuana indoors?”

Read this guide on how to grow marijuana indoors. Or check out this article to learn what materials you need to get started growing your own marijuana!

Luckily, it’s really easy to get a cannabis seed to sprout!

“How much money will it cost to get started?”

If you’re considering growing weed, it costs as little as $300 to get started growing or a bit more for a semi-automatic, high-yielding bubbleponics grow system. See examples of yields to expect, electricity use & startup costs for different setups. Read this article to see even more growing styles with different price ranges.

“Where can I get marijuana seeds?”

Check out our How to Buy Marijuana Seeds Online Guide (with delivery to every state of the USA) to safely get your hands on good genetics. Starting with good seeds lets you choose the looks, smell, and effects of your buds!

Learn where it’s safe to buy cannabis seeds online (2026 update).

What do good cannabis seeds look like?

Learn about the best marijuana beginner strains and how to research and find the right strain.

Cannabis buds are generally green, but can also be pink or purple with certain strains.

“How much will electricity cost each month?”

If you’re just growing a few marijuana plants for personal use, it will cost you $20-$100+/month for electricity, depending on what grow lights (electricity) and nutrients you use. On average, I’d say a hobby-size grower might pay about $50/month to grow, but it depends greatly on your setup and local electricity costs! How much will electricity cost each month?

“How can I increase my marijuana yields?”

We have quite a few techniques to choose from or combine! See some of our most popular pages:

• Super Cropping – A simple technique to bigger yields
• Simplest Guide to Growing Short & Bushy Marijuana Plants
• LST (Low Stress Training) – Training your plants can easily double your harvest!
• Or check out our page on the controversial defoliation technique

Even More Ways to Increase Cannabis Yields

1. Increase Light Intensity (plus choose right light for desired yields & possibly add CO2)
2. Manipulate How Plants Grow (a free way to yield more bud indoors)
3. Provide Right Nutrients (low Nitrogen in the flowering stage, and remember sometimes less is more!)
4. Control Growing Environment (let the growing environment work for you)
5. Harvest Plants Properly (most importantly, don’t harvest early!)
6. Lastly, it’s important to remember that the strain has a major effect on yields!

Two small cannabis plants can yield several ounces of premium weed!

“How can I grow weed privately?”

Read guide on growing weed indoors without anyone knowing. But remember the most important factors to stealth growing: “No tell, no smell, no sell.” Never tell anyone, not even your best friend, that you’re growing. Be on top of preventing smells, and never ever sell cannabis. Breaking one of those 3 principles is how 99% of growers get found out!

“What if my plants get sick?”

The most common issue a grower runs into is a pH imbalance. Barring that, your marijuana plants likely either have a nutrient deficiency, heat or light stress, or are being attacked by some sort of marijuana mold, pest or bug. Whether you call it weed, cannabis, sinsemilla, skunk, pot, marijuana, or something else, the plant known as Cannabis Sativa is a hardy weed in the wild and can actually be easy to grow indoors at home when you know what to do.

Growing Medical Marijuana

“Medical marijuana” has become a household name. The body of evidence for medical marijuana in the treatment of cancer and other illnesses is growing every day. And for those who need medical marijuana, growing weed indoors is the perfect way to ensure a safe, regular supply of buds, for cheap.

In fact, when you grow weed indoors for personal use, you often end up with way too much. If you catch the growing bug like I did, and if you start enjoying the process of tending your cannabis garden just for the sake of gardening, you’re going to have to find a way to press, cook, freeze, and concentrate all your extra buds. 🙂

As you probably know, both medical marijuana and recreational cannabis have been decriminalized or legalized in many places around the world and weed is becoming legal in more places every day! Yet there still aren’t many simple indoor “how to grow weed” guides for beginners (even for those who legally grow, such as medical marijuana users and those who live in places where marijuana is legalized for personal use).

If so, I know how you feel. It can be hard to weed out all the bad information on the internet and find well-researched, free tips or instructions on how to grow your own cannabis. That’s why Grow Weed Easy.com aims to be a simple online resource that explains from start to finish what you need to do when growing cannabis so you can learn how to grow cannabis with great yields and potent buds, even if you only have a small grow space like a closet or even a computer case.

We’ve grown cannabis out of closets and have gotten ounces of buds and you can too. Grow Weed Easy.com covers many popular cannabis cultivation topics, including:

• A comparison between different cannabis grow lights including experience-based information about LED grow lights
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If you are interested in doing a bit of reading or would like to know more about the science behind marijuana hydroponics or horticulture, I strongly recommend viewing our page of Marijuana Grow Book Reviews. Read reviews of marijuana grow books. We would love to hear about your experiences with growing cannabis. Whether you are a pro grower already or are just starting your first plant, we have learned so much from our readers both beginners and masters! If you have any suggestions, comments, concerns, or just want to ask some questions about your marijuana grow, please contact us!

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Table of Contents

Introduction: Most Common Plant Training Mistakes

1. Not Training at All
2. Breaking a Main Stem by Accident
3. Mistakenly Keeping Plants Too Small
4. Letting Plants Get Too Big
5. Topping Plant Too Early (or Incorrectly)
6. Not Securing Plants Properly
7. Excessive Training on Sick or Slow-Growing Plants

Did you know that “training” your cannabis plants to grow many main bud sites (instead of just one) is a simple and free way to get bigger yields indoors? Plant training can increase indoor yields by 40% or more (compared to letting plants grow naturally) by forcing plants to grow bigger, denser buds, without as many smaller or airy ones.

In the vegetative stage, marijuana plants are trained to grow wide and flat, like a table

In the flowering stage, this shape ensures that many bud sites develop into long, thick colas by taking advantage of the fact that cannabis plants put the most energy into buds that are both at the top of the plant and close to the grow light.

Although plant training can produce impressive results, sometimes marijuana growers aren’t given the right information, which can cause unfortunate mistakes that hurt their yields!

With that in mind, I will cover the 7 most common marijuana plant training mistakes, so you get the yields results you want every time, even if it’s your first time!

1.) Not Training at All

In our growing forum, when I asked what people’s biggest mistakes were when it came to training their cannabis plants, the most common answer was actually growers regretted not training their plants at all!

It’s true that you can get great results without any plant training, but training techniques can significantly improve your yields compared to letting the plant grow into its natural shape. Plant training can be as simple or as complex as you want it to be, but even a little bit of effort in your plant’s early life can make a big difference to your final bud weight!

The trained plant on the right had many more main colas and produced far more bud than the untrained plant on the left, even though it took up less space

2.) Breaking a Main Stem by Accident

It’s important to use bending techniques from the beginning of a plant’s life because stems start getting stiff as they get older. Starting while the plant is still young makes the whole process go much more easily!

However, even if you’re careful, it can be easy to snap a stem by accident. This most often happens when trying to forcefully bend an older stem that has become thick and unyielding.

Nothing is better than bending when stems are flexible to get your plants to grow exactly how you want, but there are a few techniques that can help you bend over stems after they’ve already hardened!

Prevent broken stems by bending at the newest growth if possible, where stems are more flexible.

Supercropping (Advanced) – If a stem feels too stiff but it must be bent, don’t force it! Use a technique called “supercropping” to soften up the inside first, so the skin doesn’t break.

1. Pinch the stem tightly between your fingers at the place you want it to bend
2. Start gently wiggling the stem back and forth while also trying to crush the new joint in between your fingers.
3. Wiggle back and forth for 10+ seconds, or until the stem has greatly loosened up at the place you want to bend.
4. Once the stem feels loose and flexible at the joint, you’re safe to bend it over and secure it in place. This can even work with thicker stems if you’re patient enough to wiggle for a while!

Learn More About Supercropping

If you do end up breaking a main stem, you can often tape up the injury like a cast and the plant will heal itself over the next week or two.

Remember: If you do break off a main stem early in a plant’s life, it’s no big deal because there are usually dozens more growth tips to take its place! And even if you break off a main stem/cola during the flowering stage and can’t tape it up in time, it can help to remember that most growers lose a cola at some point!

3.) Mistakenly Keeping Plants Too Small

A very small plant just can’t make as much bud as a bigger plant, so keeping plants smaller than needed can reduce your yields. You will get the best yields by growing your plants so that they fill up your grow space.

Since this plant was kept so small before it started flowering, it just doesn’t have the size or infrastructure to support a lot of buds. There’s nothing a grower can do at this point to get a plant like this to yield a lot of bud. It’s important to avoid mistakenly keeping plants too small before they start making buds!

It’s important to wait until a plant is at least 3-4 weeks old before initiating the flowering stage (putting cannabis plants on a 12/12 light schedule), even if you’re trying to get to harvest as fast as possible.

This is because a plant won’t start flowering before about week 3-4 anyway, so giving plants a 12/12 light schedule before that time just reduces the total amount of light they get each day, and they won’t get as big as plants under 18/6 or a 24/0 schedule from seed.

3-4 Week Old Plant – Never switch to 12/12 earlier than this or plants will stay tiny, and waiting a few more weeks is probably better!

This plant was switched to flowering when it was 4 weeks old, and yielded about an ounce in one big cola.

Some growers recommend you wait until 6 weeks to start flowering. One reason is that cannabis plants tend to mature the fastest if they have already started showing “pre-flowers” (tiny versions of adult flowers) before initiating the flowering stage.

But the main reason is that letting the plants go just a little bit longer – to about week 6 – will give you plants that are significantly bigger and which can support bigger buds.

6-Week Old Plant That’s Been Trained to Grow Flat

After being switched to 12/12 immediately after the above picture, the plant turned into this, yielding about 6 ounces on the single plant. Two extra weeks in the vegetative stage can make a huge difference in plant size!

Note: These rules don’t apply to auto-flowering plants, which will automatically start flowering on their own without any input from you. If you want a very small plant that yields a lot, consider auto-flowering strains: they’re ready to harvest about 3 months from germination and stay small on their own! Overall, it’s much better than doing 12/12 from seed.

4.) Letting Plants Get Too Big

As we just covered, if you have the space/height for it, you’ll get better yields for your electricity by giving the plant time to get to a decent size before switching to the flowering stage.

However, if you let a plant get too big during the vegetative stage, it may completely overgrow your space!

Look at how this plant has already grown into the grow lights in the vegetative stage! This is a problem because the lights can’t be lifted up any higher in this particular grow space, and the plant is going to double in height after the switch to 12/12! This kind of crazy overgrowth can happen before you know it if you have a fast-growing plant, so stay aware of how big your plant is getting!

If plants are allowed to get too big during the vegetative stage, you’ll not only end up wasting time and electricity, you’ll also find yourself with an overcrowded grow space. Plants being too close to each other and the grow lights can cause light burn, white powdery mildew, bud rot, and other unwanted problems.

Flowering Stretch: It’s important to remember that plants often double in height (known as the “flowering stretch”) after the switch to the flowering stage, so it’s important to change to 12/12 around the time the plants have reached half the final desired height.

Pre-Stretch – Right before the switch to 12/12

Post-Stretch – 4 weeks after the switch to 12/12. Notice how much taller they got!

Learn more about the flowering stretch!

If you have a plant that’s been growing incredibly tall and lanky, with a lot of upward growth without as much side branching, consider that a plant like that may stretch up to three times its height after the switch to 12/12. A plant that tends to grow short and bushy its whole life may not stretch much at all.

Different strains will stretch a different amount after the switch to 12/12. The main clue is what the breeder says about the strain, as well as how the plant tended to grow in the vegetative stage (lanky vegetative plants often become lanky adults).

5.) Topping Plant Early or Incorrectly

Removing the top of the main stem (“topping” the plant) before it has grown at least 3-4 nodes often wastes more time than it saves.

In fact, removing any part of the plant when it’s very young can stunt the plant, meaning it may grow slowly or stop growing altogether for days or even weeks.

However, if you wait until a plant is healthy and growing fast with a good root system, it won’t even slow down after being topped! Waiting until the plant is the right size often improves your overall results from topping.

These young cannabis plants are ready to be topped

If you cut off just the very tip of your plant, there’s very little chance of stunting, even if it only has 3 or 4 nodes in total.

Many growers top down to the 3rd node/pair of leaves (like in the following picture) in order to form a short manifold. If you plan on any kind of extensive training like building a manifold, wait until the young plant has grown at least 6 nodes before starting; this ensures it has established a good root system. The more of the plant you remove at a time, the more it stresses the plant, so you want to make sure your plant is mature/strong enough to handle it!

Be careful not to damage the growth tips during topping. These tiny stems will become your new main colas, and the base of every growth tip is where buds form.

Always leave a little extra stem when topping a marijuana plant – this helps prevent the main stalk from splitting!

6.) Not Securing Your Plant Properly!

Don’t use string or anything “sharp” to secure plants, as it can start cutting into their skin over time! Also, it’s important to make sure that you can easily access all your plants after training.

Never use string to hold down your plants!

Notice how this plant can’t be moved from its location because it’s attached to a nearby wall? Don’t do this! Always attach your plant directly to the pot so you can pick it up and move it. Also, avoid using something sharp like string or chicken wire to hold down the plants, because it will slowly cut into the plant’s “skin” over time and cause damage.

Plant twist ties are perfect for securing plants! They bend into the shape you want, and are soft enough they won’t hurt plants.

Or get creative! Any type of soft flexible wire works well

Make sure to attach any twisty ties directly to the plant container; this lets you pick up and move the plant freely!

As the plant grows, whenever some of the colas are getting taller than the others…

Bend the tallest ones over until they’re all the same height as each other. Following just that one principle will produce the shape you’re looking for!

7.) Excessive Training on Sick or Slow-Growing Plants

When a cannabis plant is slow-growing or suffering from deficiencies, it is much more sensitive to stress from training. Things like topping, supercropping and extreme defoliation can all aggravate a sick plant and make it take longer to recover.

If you have a sick or slow-growing plant it’s good to give them a few days of TLC before you commence training 🙂

Always let sick plants recover before extensive training. This plant suffered from a grower accidentally giving 3x the correct amount of nutrients. It’s important to wait until it’s healthy and growing new leaves every day before doing anything else to this poor plant!

What can you do to help a cannabis plant relax for a few days?

Help plants recover quickly by moving the grow light a few inches away, and leaving the plant alone on an 18/6 light schedule (if it’s in the vegetative stage, of course, if you have a plant on a 12/12 light schedule you don’t want to change it!).

Providing relatively low levels of light in a comfortable, temperate environment without any disturbance can help a stressed plant regain its strength and start growing fast again in just a day or two. Once your plant is healthy and growing again, put the lights back on at full strength!

How far away should I keep my grow lights?

After extensive wilting from a heat spell, the grower of the plant below thought his baby was a goner. He tossed the dying plant in a bucket at the edge of his grow room, with the plan of throwing it in the garbage later that day. He somehow forgot, and a few days later he came back to find out that the comfortable temperature outside the grow tent and filtered light levels from a nearby window had been just the thing to bring the plant back to life! Even with just an inch of water at the bottom of the bucket, the plant was thriving!

Check out that plant at harvest!

At a recent growing convention in San Diego I heard from another grower who’d noticed that lowering the light levels just a tiny bit can help a sick plant recover more quickly. The worst thing you can do for a sick plant is turn up the light, because it makes the plant work harder to keep up with all that photosynthesis!

I thought a cannabis plant could come back from anything?

When people say, “It grows like a weed” and explain how cannabis plants can recover from anything, they’re talking about a healthy, fast-growing plant. You really can do almost anything to a vibrant cannabis plant in the vegetative stage and it’ll bounce right back!

For growers who always have healthy plants, it can seem like plants simply can’t get stunted. But if you take the same approach with a sick, sparse or slow-growing plant, it can dramatically slow down the plant’s growth for days or even weeks in rare cases!

Now is not the time to train this plant (or try anything new really). Wait until it has recovered first, then start training!

Whenever you’re thinking about training or removing parts of the plant, always consider the plant’s overall health first. You’ll know when you would be better served by waiting a few days to start training.

Now that you know how to prevent the 7 most common plant training problems that hurt yields…

Time to start training your plants!

Jump to….

How Many Plants Should I Grow?

7 Things I Wish Someone Had Told Me When I First Started Growing Weed

Why Are Cannabis Leaves Turning Yellow?

7 Tips to Improving Bud Quality

The post 7 Unfortunate Plant Training Mistakes appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

In addition to the search bar, this link guide helps you navigate through the Grow Weed Easy website. Learn about growing topics you won’t find anywhere else! This is a shortened list of all our cannabis growing tutorials, as the website has over 500 articles and tutorials!

Full List of EVERYTHING on GWE  ← Over 500 Articles & Growing Tutorials!

Start Here – Beginner Grow Guides

• Complete Beginner’s Guide
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• How to Grow Weed in 10 Steps
• Simplest Cannabis Grow Guide Ever!
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Cannabis Life Stages

• Germination
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• How Much Will Electricity Cost?
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• 7 Reasons Why Cannabis Plants Grow Slow
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• Simplest Plant Training Guide Ever!
• How to Control Height of Indoor Cannabis Plants
• Complete Plant Training Guide
• Breakdown of Techniques​
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  • Topping vs FIMing Tutorial
  • LBH’s Famous ScrOG Tutorial
  • Supercropping: Magic Technique to Control Cannabis Plant Height
  • Sea of Green (SoG) Tutorial
  • 12-12 from Seed – Flowering Plants Early
  • Nebula’s Manifold Tutorial
  • How to Manifold Clones
  • Nebula’s Bud-Based Defoliation Tutorial
  • Alternate Defoliation Tutorial ​
  • What is Re-Vegging / Monstercropping?
• How Can I Train an Auto-Flowering Plant?
• 7 Unfortunate Plant Training Mistakes

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• What’s the Best Growing Medium?
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• Hydro/DWC/Bubbleponics Guide
• “True” Organic Growing vs Just Using Organic Nutrients
• Can You Use Miracle-Gro?

Nutrients

• Which Nutrients Are Best For Growing Cannabis?
• Soil Nutrients
• Coco Coir Nutrients
• Hydroponic Nutrients

Grow Lights

• 5 Best LED Grow Lights 2025 (Yields, Speed, & Bud Quality)
• Compare Types of Cannabis Grow Lights
  • Fluorescents (T5s) – Good for Seedlings Only (not powerful enough to produce potent buds or big yields)
  • CFLs (Spiral Bulbs) – Not Recommended (LEDs are much better)
  • LED Grow Lights – Recommended for Most Home Growers
  • MH/HPS Grow Lights – Good Alternative to LEDs, But Run Much Hotter
  • CMH / LEC Grow Lights – Good Alternative to LEDs, But Run Much Hotter
  • Plasma / Magnetic Induction Grow Lights – Not Recommended (poor cannabis growth)
• How Does Light Spectrum Affect Marijuana Plants?
• How Far Away Do I Keep My Grow Lights?
• You Can Actually Give Plants Too Much Light?!
• Grow Light Upgrade Guide: Yields & Potency Explained
• Cannabis Grow Lights: What’s the Best Size?

Best LED Grow Light Articles

• 5 Best LED Grow Lights 2025 (Yields, Speed, & Bud Quality)
• LED Grow Lights: Too Much or Not Enough Light?
• LED Grow Journal: Mars Hydro TSL-2000W vs Spider Farmer SF-2000
• LEC vs LED Grow Lights: Side-by-Side Cannabis Grow Journal
• Nebula’s Auto-Flowering Grow Journal (Topping vs Natural) – cannabis plants are grown under LED grow lights

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• Create the Perfect Growing Environment
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• Cloning
  • How to clone weed in a cup of water (easy!)
  • How to make cannabis clones with an aero cloner
• Intro to Plant Training for Bigger Yields Indoors
• How Often to Water Plants
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• How (and When) to Transplant Cannabis
• Male vs Female Plants
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How to Improve…

• Yields
• Bud Quality
  • 7 Environment Effects on Bud Quality
  • The Secret to Excellent Bud Quality
• THC Levels
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• Density
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• Glitter (Make Buds Sparkle with More Trichomes)
• Bonus: What Determines Yields?

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• Where to Get Seeds
• How to Find the Right Strain
• What are “Feminized” Seeds?
• Which Breeders to Trust?
• Photoperiod vs Auto-Flowering Cannabis Strains
• Bag Seed vs Hype Seed: Is it worth it to buy cannabis seeds?

Recommended Strains

• Best Autoflowering Cannabis Strains for Yields & Potency
• List of Sugar-Dusted Strains (Heavy Trichome Genetics)
• 10 Cold-Resistant Cannabis Strains
• 14 Heat-Resistant Cannabis Strains
• Which cannabis strains stay short? (Best strains for small spaces)

Auto-Flowering Strains

• Nebula’s Guide to Cannabis Auto-Flowering Strains (Photoperiod vs Auto-Flowering)
• Should I “Top” or Train an Auto-Flowering Plant?
• What’s the best light schedule for auto-flowering strains?
• Nebula’s Auto-Flowering Grow Journal (Topping vs Natural)

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• Decarboxylation: How to Decarb Your Weed (crucial step for just about every edible recipe)
• Best Weed Butter Recipe
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Extracts (No Solvents Used in Any Recipe)

• Solventless Extraction Showdown – Bubble Hash vs. Dry-Ice Hash!
• Dry Ice Hash (Made with Dry Ice)
• How to Make Bubble Hash (Made with Ice Water)
• How To Make Your Own Homemade Rosin (dabs)

And Lots More!

• How Long Does it Take to Grow Weed?
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Happy growing!
Nebula & Sirius

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The post Link Guide to Growing Cannabis Tutorials appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

Yes, healthy auto-flowering plants respond well to being topped as long as they have at least 4-5 sets of leaves and haven’t started making buds yet. Usually around the end of week 3. Avoid topping a flowering or slow-growing plant to prevent the chance of stunting.

When it comes to growing auto-flowering cannabis strains, there is a lot of controversy about whether they are compatible with the cannabis training technique known as topping (cutting off the tip of the plant while it’s young to improve plant structure and yields). This is because topping an autoflowering plant can go wrong if you don’t do it right.

Topping the right way helps keep autoflowering plants short and bushy with many buds.

But be careful! This autoflowering plant was slow-growing and got topped after buds started forming. As a result, it stayed small and stunted.

Autoflowering plants can produce a sea of fat buds when topped properly. This helps maximize yields under a grow light.

Autoflowering plants can still produce great yields without topping, but untopped plants are more likely to get tall and usually only grow one main bud.

Many growers say you should never top an auto-flowering plant, while others claim they can top their autos without a problem. How can there be such a big difference in results between different growers? Well, here’s the thing about topping autos…

Topping auto-flowering cannabis strains is often discouraged because plants may not recover in time. Due to their short life cycle, proper timing is crucial to success.

Auto-flowering cannabis plants are on a tight schedule. Most auto-flowering strains start flowering at 3-4 weeks from germination and typically stop getting bigger by the time they’re 6-7 weeks old. After that, buds keep fattening but the plant stops growing new leaves and stems.  It’s difficult or impossible to change an autoflowering strain’s individual time schedule.

Most auto-flowering plants have achieved “full size” by the time they’re 6-7 weeks old. For example, these autos were 7 weeks old and didn’t get any bigger despite needing 4 more weeks before buds were mature enough to harvest.

The short 6-7 week grow period means that if your auto-flowering plant is shocked and stops growing for even a week or two, plants may stay dramatically smaller. A tiny cannabis plant is going to yield a lot less than a full-sized one. That’s why many growers say to never to top your autos. You want a good-sized plant instead of an undersized plant to get the best yields from autoflowering cannabis plants.

For a first-time grower of autos, it can be easy to stress the plant and stunt its growth for all kinds of regular reasons. Topping just throws another factor into the equation. If an auto-flowering cannabis plant get stunted early on, it often stays tiny its whole life.

A stunted autoflower won’t produce great yields because it can’t support big buds. This plant wasn’t topped, but it suffered from deficiencies and problems during the first few weeks of life that kept it small until after buds started forming. Topping would have only stunted it more.

Even though the above grower took really great care of this plant from here on, and got pretty good yields for such a small plant, he would have harvested far better yields if the plant had gotten bigger during the first few weeks of life.

An auto that grows big can yield a lot, even if it’s untrained like this one. That’s why many growers believe topping is not worth the risk of stunting. You couldn’t yield all this bud on a small runty plant no matter what you did.

And you don’t need to top your plants to get multiple big buds anyway. These autos were trained with just LST/bending and they all have multiple tops. However, I will say that this took me a lot more time and effort than simply topping them.

Topping isn’t necessary to get multiple colas. There are alternatives such as LST/bending.

All that being said, topping an auto usually goes great when you do it right. If you have a healthy, fast-growing young plant, topping will likely not stunt it at all.

So it’s not a matter of whether you should or shouldn’t top autos. It’s more about evaluating how your plants are growing and deciding if the reward is worth the risk in your particular situation.

When it’s Not Recommended to Top Auto-Flowering Plants

• it’s your first grow
• plant has deficiencies
• plant is drooping
• plant is growing slowly
• plant is more than 3-4 weeks old
• plant has started flowering (little white hairs are growing at the joints)
• plant has less than 4 sets of leaves by the end of week 3 (that means the plant is too slow-growing)

These two plants are the same strain. The left plant was topped at the proper time, but the right plant was topped after buds had already started forming. The late topping caused it to stay small and stunted. The smaller plant still produced good buds, but yields were about half that of the full-sized plant.

Note: If you’re trying to grow really small plants (for example in a tiny grow space), you may actually want to stunt your plant’s size on purpose. If that’s the case, cutting off the top after you already see buds is a good way to do it 🙂

When You Should Top Auto-Flowering Plants

• plant is green and healthy
• plant is growing quickly (you’re seeing new growth every day)
• plant has grown at least 4-5 nodes (pairs of “real” leaves) by the end of week 3; this isn’t a hard-and-fast rule, it just demonstrates that your plant is growing fast enough to handle being topped without stunting
• plant is not flowering (no white hairs at the joints)

To actually top the auto, pinch off the top set of leaves. Try to remove as little plant as possible if you’re trying not to stunt its growth.

Only cut off the tip when topping an auto!

Don’t cut off more than this when topping an auto-flowering marijuana plant

Conclusion: Topping an auto-flowering strain can be good or bad, depending on how it’s done.

There are times when topping an auto-flowering marijuana plant makes sense, and times when it doesn’t. In some situations, topping an auto may reduce yields by stunting the plant overall. But for more experienced growers, topping is a great training tactic.

Use the guidelines in this article to decide what’s right for you. When in doubt, use LST/bending instead because it can accomplish nearly the same thing without much chance of stunting your plant.

I hope this information helps guide you to make the right decision for your auto-flowering marijuana garden! Here are a few more resources you may enjoy.

• Learn how to train auto-flowering plants for bigger yields
• What’s the highest-yielding auto-flowering strain?

Jump to…

Auto-Flowering Strains vs Photoperiod Strains

Cannabis Plant Training for Bigger Yields

Where Can I Buy Seeds That Deliver to My Country?

5 Ways to Increase Indoor Yields

The post Can I top an auto-flowering cannabis plant? appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

Table of Contents

Intro: Cutting Cannabis for Better Structure

Topping vs FIMing Cannabis

Tips for Topping & FIMing Weed Plants

• Don’t Cut Too Early!
• Don’t Cut Too Late!
• How to Know It Worked 

How to Top Cannabis Plants (Topping Tutorial)

How to FIM Cannabis Plants (FIMing Tutorial)

Cutting Cannabis for Better Structure: Topping & FIMing

Topping and FIMing are two cannabis plant training techniques that involve “pinching” or cutting off some of the top growth. These techniques give you a free way to achieve better plant shape (to make better use of the available light), create more top buds, and overall achieve bigger yields.

Topping: Cut off top of plant through the main stem (between nodes).

FIMing: Remove newest growth, but don’t cut through main stem.

Topping and FIMing, like all cannabis plant training techniques, are designed to help growers get a more desirable plant shape and bigger yields. The cool thing about plant training is it increases cannabis yields without having to change any other aspects of their grow.

Notice how these cannabis plants have many buds instead of just one. Topping and FIMing help you grow plants like this.

Cannabis plants don’t naturally grow in a way that takes full advantage of indoor grow lights. Since only tops buds get full light levels, a lot of light gets wasted indoors when cannabis plants are allowed to grow naturally without “training”.

Check out the above example. The cannabis plant on the left was allowed to grow naturally, which resulted in the classic cannabis “Christmas tree” shape. This natural shape is not efficient under indoor grow lights because it only produces one main bud (also known as a “cola”).

The plant on the right was topped or FIMed as a seedling. This broke the apical dominance of the main cola, and the plant grew many colas and therefore multiple big buds.

Quick Reference of Cannabis Training Terms

What does “topping” stand for? “Topping” is when you cut off the top of the plant. It’s common to hear growers phrases like “top the plant”, or a grower “topped” the plant.

What does “FIM” stand for? FIM is like topping, but you take off a little less. The acronym “FIM” stands for “F*ck I Missed.” FIMing originally referred to growers accidentally pinching off some top growth instead of fully cutting off the top. FIMing has become known as its own technique as it has slightly different results compared to topping (recovery time, number of colas produced in one cut, etc.).

What is a “cola” and why do they matter? “Cola” is Spanish for “tail” and refers to any big, long, thick bud. When dried, these buds may look like a tail, hence the nickname. As a cannabis grower, you want a lot of colas on your plant to maximize yields. Colas grow at the top of stems, so when a plant is young, growers try to get their plant to grow many main stems. This rewards you later. Even before the plant starts making buds, the main stems are still often called colas or sometimes “mains”.

Buds the size of 2-liter cola bottles. Really puts the “cola” in cola!

Some cannabis strains naturally grow bushy with many buds/colas, but most strains only naturally grow one and therefore produce lower yields indoors without your help.

With both topping and FIMing, the growth tips that become new colas are already present. They just get bigger and become colas because topping and FIMing breaks the symmetry of the plant and exposes these growth tips to light and air. Instead of focusing on just one cola, the plant starts focusing on many growth tips until they become colas of their own.

Main Idea: Topping & FIMing remove or damage top growth, signaling the plant to put energy into lower growth tips.

By damaging the main stem, topping and FIMing encourage the plant to spend energy growing many colas instead of focusing on just one.

Lower stems will become new colas once they’re exposed to light and air, but they develop much faster when the main cola’s dominance is broken by topping or FIMing.

Notice how these growth tips have started developing and rising up after plant is topped or FIMed. On this plant, the fan leaves were removed so you can see the new colas and overall structure more easily.

Topping vs FIMing

When it comes to FIMing vs Topping plants, it’s more a matter of growing preference than anything else. They both work great for growing marijuana!

Topping Cannabis

• Cuts off top of plant through main stem (sever the stem in between sets of leaves)
• Creates 2 main colas at the top of the plant, and gentle bending of the tallest stems can be used to expose lower stems and create more colas.
  • Note: Bending over stems to make the plant more bushy is often referred to as LST (low stress training).
• The 2 new top colas are evenly spaced (attached to the stem in the same place).
• Unlike FIMing, topping can also be used to reduce the height of plant in vegetative stage.
• More stressful to the plant than FIMing. Vegetative plants may need a few days to a week to recover from topping.

This videos shows you how to top a cannabis plant.

The extra main stems grow from above the node where you make the top cut. This next video shows the whole cannabis topping process, in a timelapse format, showing what topping looks like in 10 days. The lower growth tips also begin rising up, and can produce even more main colas.

Here’s a video showing what a plant looks like in the 10 days after being topped. Thanks to grower fuzzygrow for this awesome cannabis topping timelapse!

Read the complete guide to topping cannabis plants!

FIMing Cannabis

• Removes top growth, but does not cut through stem
• Creates 2-4 main colas at top of plant, and LST can be used to create more.
• New colas created are not evenly spaced
• Does not reduce height of plant
• Does not stress plant compared to topping, so plants recover more quickly or don’t even notice

FIMing takes off less than topping.

Before FIMing (dots are where the new colas will be)

After FIMing (leave about 20% growth)

Read the complete guide to FIMing cannabis plants!

These plants were FIMed early in the vegetative stage. The stems were gently spread out, resulting in this productive shape.

In either case, whether you top or FIM, you will end up with a wider, bushier plant that doesn’t grow just one main cola in a Christmas tree shape.

With Topping & FIMing, you easily achieve cannabis plants like this…

…In basically the same amount of vertical space as a plant like this. Why not have many buds instead of just one?

Some growers will use several phases of topping or FIMing to produce cannabis plants with dozens of colas. Some techniques take this to the extreme, for example, manifolding (also sometimes called “main-lining”) is a technique that uses topping several times to make a cannabis “manifold.”

Tips for Topping & FIMing

Here are some extra tips to ensure topping and FIMing your marijuana plants goes perfectly every time!

Don’t Top or FIM Too Early!

With both topping and FIMing, you remove some of the growth on the end of a cola of a young marijuana plant, which causes the plant to stop focusing on one cola (like a Christmas tree) and instead to create many bud-laden colas (grow bushier).

If you Top or FIM the plant too early, it will have a hard time recovering. It may seem like a good idea, but you will get the best results and fastest recovery if you wait until the plant has enough nodes.

Wait Until Plant Has at Least 3-5 Nodes (FIMing) or 4-6 Nodes (Topping)- Topping or Fimming a Too-Young Seedling Will Dramatically Slow Down Growth. If You Wait Until Plant is Growing New Leaves Every Day, Recovery Will Be Much Faster.

Growers use the plant’s natural response to FIMing/topping to produce short bushy plants with many colas. After the plant has been switched to the flowering stage, the wide spread of colas allows the plant to efficiently use indoor grow lights to produce the biggest yields possible.

If you choose to use either of these methods, you will get the best results by doing it when the plant is young, usually when it has around 3-6 total nodes formed. Generally, you would only want to FIM a plant that has just 3 nodes, and wait until 4 nodes to top the plant.

These young cannabis plants are almost ready to be topped or FIMed. Cannabis plants can be FIMed before they can be topped.

You get great results by breaking the tendency of the plant to grow one main cola while the plant is still short, because you can arrange your multiple colas however you want as the plant develops, instead of dealing with a Christmas tree-shaped plant.

You can also top or FIM your plant later in the vegetative stage, but you will have a longer main stalk, giving you less ability to arrange the colas the way you want.

After being topped or FIMed, your plant will need some time spent recovering in the vegetative stage, though generally this just causes the plant to ‘fill out’ more instead of growing taller, which is often desirable for indoor growers.

This plant was trained for ~2 dozen colas in the vegetative stage

Important: Don’t Top or FIM in the Flowering Stage; It’s Too Late!

Topping and FIMing techniques should only be used in the vegetative stage! In fact, any training technique that involves cutting or damaging your plant should optimally be done in the vegetative stage of cannabis growth, before the flowering/budding stage begins.

In the flowering stage, only gentle training techniques such as LST or other types of bending should ever be used to change the shape of the plant.

A plant with many colas can only be achieved by training a plant from early in the vegetative stage

Cannabis plants are much less tough in the flowering stage, and they no longer are growing vegetatively (producing new stems or colas) by the time they hit about week 6.

If you watch a plant in the flowering stage, you’ll see that it doesn’t get taller or develop growth nodes after about week 6. It only “focuses” on making buds. Topping or FIMing at this point won’t do any good. Damaging your plant during the budding stage will often cause a reduction in your final yields because you’re just taking away more plant/bud sites and may cause unnecessary stress during the crucial bud-building phase.

By the time your plants are in the flowering stage, much of the growth structure has already been created, and you generally need to try to manage as best you can if your plant has grown into a shape you don’t like.

What if my plant is already too tall in the flowering stage?

If your plant is already too tall in the flowering stage for your grow setup, you’ve got to take immediate action to prevent the plant from getting any taller.

My suggestion is to use bending (LST) your plant to control the height of further growth. Very careful supercropping can also be used if you have a stem that is far taller than the others.

Once flowering is fully underway (after the initial flowering stretch), the plant will not grow much taller, so you can just try to hang on until harvest. Sometimes you may even have to harvest a particularly tall cola ahead of time to prevent it from getting bleached or burned. Don’t stress, it happens to us all! I recommend trying to take it as a learning experience 🙂

How Can You Tell That Your Plant is Diverting Energy to New Colas?

Almost immediately after topping or FIMing you cannabis plant, the connections to each node become enlarged at the base. These thickened connections demonstrate that your cannabis plant is spreading energy more evenly across the whole plant.

When you see your plant thicken connections like this, it means that the plant is strengthening the “internal system” of the stem, so it’s easier to deliver nutrients and other building blocks. This results in faster growth, bigger colas, and increased yields for each of the affected stems.

The thickening that happens at the base of stems is one sign that the plant is diverting energy to the new colas (where before it was putting the majority of its energy into just the one main cola).

As time goes on, the most used stems can become so thick they’re almost like tree branches.

Topping Your Cannabis Plant

When topping your cannabis, you cut off a growing node of the plant, reducing the height instantly. This can be especially beneficial if you’ve let your plant get too tall. Topping also increases the number of colas, which can give you more bud at harvest,

Never Top Cannabis in the Flowering Stage!

When topping your marijuana plant, it’s best to top the plant when it is young, and has 4-6 nodes (sets of leaves) in total. Although you could do it a little earlier, you’re more likely to accidentally stunt your plant the younger it is. Additionally, the less actual plant matter you take off, the less likely the plant will get stressed. Think about it, if you’re taking off 10% of the plant it will have much less effect than if you took off 30% of the plant.

“Topping” the plant means cutting off the newest node on your marijuana plant’s main cola in order to split it into two. However, the word “topping” can also refer to cutting of the tip of any stem.

A good place to top is directly above the leaves of the next node. In other words, cut through the stem right above its next set of leaves from the top.

Topping will cause your plant to transfer its energy to two new main colas, as indicated by the two yellow dots in the diagram above.

Make sure to leave a little extra stem behind for reinforcement. This helps strengthen the two new colas to prevent them from splitting down the middle.

Timelapse Video of a Cannabis Plant’s Recover After Being Topped

These 2 new colas for a V which can easily be bent to spread wide. You can top these two new colas a few weeks later and have 4 total colas. This can even be doubled to produce 8 colas that all come from a single “manifold.” Learn more about manifolding cannabis.

Another benefit of topping is how the plant tends to grow bushier afterwards, spreading its energy much more evenly around to the whole plant.

Often lower branches rise up to become new main colas. This is especially true if you combine Topping with LST to open up the plant so the lower branches get more light.

If you’ve grown a very tall plant, it’s also possible to top your (vegetative) plant down to the node you want to reduce the height, but remember that all the time the plant spent getting tall will be lost. In order to get the most flexible colas, without losing vegetative time, try to top or FIM early in the plant’s life

If you’re still in the vegetative (non-budding) stage and plants are growing way too tall, you can top the plant immediately to remove height as needed. The time spent growing the extra growth will be lost, so this may add time to the veg stage.

Note: Don’t use topping to reduce the height of auto-flowering cannabis strains! They don’t have time to recover. Learn about how to top auto-flowering strains to increase yields.

If you want to top the plant multiple times, you may be interested in learning about main-lining (creating a manifold – a plant training technique).

Read the complete guide to topping cannabis plants!

FIMing Your Cannabis Plant

FIMing is generally less traumatic to the plant than topping. FIMing barely slows down growth and can stimulate the plant to grow up to 4 main nodes in one cut (instead of just 2 like with topping).

FIMing will often not make symmetrical colas like topping. The resulting number of colas becomes less predictable.

With FIMing, the 4 new colas created are not evenly spaced, and do not join to the stem in the exact same place. This might not matter to some growers, but is useful to know when using a technique like main-lining where it’s important for nodes to join at the same place on the stem.

Never FIM Cannabis in the Flowering Stage!

More About FIMing (Pinching) Your Marijuana Plant

Note: FIM (unfortunately) stands for “F*ck I Missed” referring to the fact that it’s like topping your plant, only you’re taking off about 20% less.

With Fimming, you can get less consistent results than with topping. If you don’t actually pinch off the top growth just right, you may end up with only 2 or 3 colas instead of 4.

The 4 colas also may not grow as evenly as the 2 tops that are achieved with topping. If you top your plant twice, you will end up with 4 colas just like FIMing, but you will generally get more consistent results. However, topping the plant slows down growth more than FIMing, so it’s up to you to decide what’s best for your situation.

All you need to do is remove the top growth

Instead of cutting the plant, which can sometimes accidentally result in topping, some growers may choose to crush the top of the plant between the fingers, without removing any part of the leaves. However, I recommend removing plant matter and only leaving about 20% behind. This gives more consistent results. Sometimes if you just try to crush the top the plant doesn’t even notice!

It’s best to FIM a plant when it has 3-5 nodes. While you can FIM a taller plant, there will still be a long main stem and your new colas won’t be as flexible as colas from an early FIMed cannabis plant.

FIMing an older plant will leave you with one long main stem, but lower growth tips start growing up

FIMing is sometimes referred to as “pinching off” the top of the plant. To FIM the plant, you simply pinch or cut off the newest growth, taking just the tips of the newest growth off, and making sure to leave a bit behind.

FIMing causes the plant to grow very bushy, and the other nodes will becomes strengthened just like when topping.

FIMing barely slows down growth since very little of the plant is removed.

Be warned, when FIMing your plant, the top growth on the plant will look weird when growing in. This is normal!

Read the complete guide to FIMing cannabis plants!

Topping and FIMing are both great choices for cannabis growers.

• FIMing – If you’re worried about stunting your plant, then use the FIM technique.
• Topping – If you want the most consistent results, then use the topping technique.

The best technique depends on what you’re trying to achieve!

Jump to…

More Plant Training Techniques!

LST (low-stress training)

Super cropping

How long does it take to grow cannabis?

The post Topping vs FIMing: Complete Cannabis Tutorial appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

Once a grower is able to successfully take a plant from seed (or clone) to harvest, a common new goal is: “How can I do it better?”

The answer: efficiency!

Although cannabis is a weed and has an easy time growing, it doesn’t do so in an efficient manner for indoor growing.

Cannabis naturally tends to grow in the shape of a christmas tree which works great outside with a sun that moves through the sky. Yet inside the lights stay in the same place so it unfortunately means that parts of the plant are getting much more light than the others.

Although you can grow great bud this way, it wastes a great deal of the usable light you're paying for. That’s where “Cannabis Training” comes in!

Cannabis training is when growers use established or improvised techniques to alter the natural growth pattern of a marijuana plant, usually to increase efficiency and yields when growing indoors.

There are already many methods available to train your plant, and growers are experimenting with new techniques all the time. In fact, there are so many methods available that many people get confused or intimidated and opt to not try any of them.

But you're not one of those people! Instead, you're reading infomation on how to take advantage of these techniques to get the most out of your cannabis plants!

Below, I’ll give you my cheat notes on some of the most popular methods of training plants. We'll be reviewing:

• LST (Low Stress Training)
• Topping
• Fimming
• Manifolding
• Defoliation

LST (Low Stress Training)

What It Does:
Low Stress Training – or LST – allows growers to change the actual shape of the plant by slowly bending the stems downward in a deliberate fashion. The stems will then grow vertically again, but now they will be better placed to allow light to contact more bud sites.

How To Do It:
Anyone who has done LST will agree that it’s an art in its own right. The basics are to use twistie-tie, twine, or something similar to tie to a stem. Next, the other end of the twistie-tie/twine/etc. is anchored in such a way as to bend the stem downward. This can be accomplished by tying the twine/etc. to the pot/bucket the plant is growing in. The stems are meant to be pulled away from each other to maximize growing space. Think of spreading out the stems from the middle like a star. LST is most effective when done in combination with topping, fimming or other training methods that break apical dominance (the tendency to grow in a christmas tree shape)

Who Should Try This?
Indoor growers of all skill levels can and should try LST. If you're doing a small grow or just trying to maximize on your indoor grow lights, LST will become a must after you've tried it once!

Pros:

• Drastically increases yields when done correctly
• Manages height of plants; makes shorter plants with more buds!
• Makes much more effective use of lights
• Works amazingly with topping/fimming

Cons:

• Growers can snap stems by bending too much at one time, or by trying to bend woody older stems instead of flexible new growth. If you ever snap a stem, tape it up immediately and it will heal!
• Can take more time than some other training methods since plants will likely need to be LST’d multiple times (per branch)

Learn more about LST

Topping

What It Does:
Topping is a method used to essentially force the cannabis plant to have two slightly smaller main colas instead of the single normal one. Main colas almost always have the highest concentration of buds (by weight), so yields are noticeably increased by making two of them, even if nothing else is done besides topping.

How To Do It:
Not only is Topping easy to do, but it only takes seconds and is totally done afterwards. To top your plant, you’ll need to wait until it grows at least 3 to 5 nodes. To finishing topping, simply cut off the newest node right above the leaves of the node below. You can also cut down further on the plant if you need to make it shorter.

Who Should Try This?
Like LST, topping is a great starter training technique and can be attempted by growers of all skill ranges. I would suggest topping after you've grown a single plant (just to see how it works), but you can try it on your first plant if you're the adventurous type!

Pros:

• Super easy to do
• Increases yields by a noticeable amount
• One cut; do it once and it’s done!
• Works amazingly with LST

Cons:

• Can be intimidating to cut off the top of a plant

Read more about topping

Fimming

What It Does:

Fimming is like topping in that it forces the plant to grow extra colas. However, while topping will make the plant to grow two main colas, fimming usually creates 4.

How To Do It:

As with topping, a grower should wait until their plant has at least 3 to 5 nodes before going through with fimming. When ready to fim your plant, firmly pinch the leaves of the newest growth between your index finger and thumb. You can also cut the new growth instead of pinching it. See the picture to the below for a detailed look.

Who Should Try This?
Fimming can be tried by all growers as nothing really happens if it isn't done correctly. Go for it!

Pros:

• Super easy to do – you can't really mess this one up
• Noticeable increase to yields
• Works extremely well with LST
• Pinch it once, and the work is all done

Cons:

• None! In the worst case (if not fimmed correctly), you’ll have a plant with a few weird looking leaves that still function.

Learn more about FIMing

Manifolding

What It Does:
Manifolding is a modified way of topping a plant multiple times to get it to distribute energy equally to all nodes. When done correctly, all remaining branches will get a equivalent amount of energy from the roots, and as such, grow to a similar size. The point of manifolding is to create 8 symmetrical main colas.

How To Do It:
Before attempting mainlining, growers should be very comfortable with topping as it involves topping the same plant multiple times. Below is the abridged version of how to mainline a plant.

Please note that these steps are just to get you acquainted with what’s involved in mainlining, these are not complete steps!

1. Wait for the plant to grow 6 nodes.
2. Top to 3rd node and remove extra growth
3. Let each new cola grow 2-4 nodes
4. Top to the 1st or 3rd node (whichever is more symmetric)
5. Let the new colas grow 3 nodes
6. Top to the 2nd node

At this point the plant will have 8 symmetrical colas.

Who Should Try This?
Manifolding is definitely an advanced technique, and we'd strongly advise growers to only try manifolding when they're very comfortable with growing plants. Manifolding can work in most mediums, but it shines brightest in hydroponics since the recovery time is dramatically shortened. It is not a good technique for small plants, since the plant needs to be at least a few feet tall to get the benefits of manifolding.

Pros:

• Equal distribution of energy makes for a hearty, good looking plant
• No small, larfy buds. All energy goes into long, huge colas
• Makes for efficient use of growing light
• Very noticeable increase in yields when performed correctly

Cons:

• Time consuming
• Involves lots of cutting on the plant (topping) which will increase total grow time
• Doesn’t work with fimming
• Not good for small plants – plants should be able to grow to at least a few feet tall after being manifolded in order to take advantage of the 8 colas (otherwise it's probably a waste of time)
• Not for beginners!

Read more about manifolding

Defoliation

What It Does:
Defoliation is a controversial technique that involves removing fan leaves to increase energy spent on bud sites. Defoliation is also thought to limit the amount that a plant will grow vertically.

How To Do It:
To defoliate a plant, a grower would use their hands or scissors to remove fan leaves from the plant. These are the leaves that grow right under the bud site and have a long stem with just a single fan leaf on it. It's important to note that this is typically done early in the flowering stage, and only on healthy plants with an abundance of light.

Who Should Try This?
This is another advanced technique, so you should only try it if growing cannabis feels easy, but you want to get more out of your grows. Growers who want to defoliate should be in early flowering (though it can be done in veg for height control) and using lights with enough power to penetrate to far into the canopy once the big fan leaves are gone.

Pros:

• Easy to do.
• Higher yields (more light to more bud sites = more bud)
• Creates more space between branches for bud sites to capitalize on.
• Tends to shorten the overall height of plants.
• Decreases chances of White Powdery Mold

Cons:

• A bit scary/dangerous; one wrong cut can remove future buds
• Defoliating gives you less room for error, and any deficiencies will hit bud sites first
• Some growers claim defoliation actually stunts plant growth instead of helping
• Sirius: I picked up defoliation after Nebula covered an article about its benefits. Since then, I defoliate in every grow and I’d definitely stand behind it as a valid way to increase efficiency and yields when done right.

Read more about cannabis defoliation

Even though we’ve gone through all these training methods, there are still more techniques to train your marijuana plants. In fact, there are two that are VERY popular that were skipped to keep this article from getting too lengthy.

If you want to find out more about them, check out our articles on:

ScrOG (Screen of Green)

and Super Cropping

Jump to…

LST (Low Stress Training) – How to Grow a Short Sativa or Haze

Topping & FIMing

Nebula's Manifold Tutorial – Main-lining Cannabis

Cannabis Defoliation: Removing Leaves to Increase Yields

The post Quick Guide to Marijuana Training Techniques appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

FIMing: The act of pinching or cutting a young cannabis plant in such a way as to force it to grow 4 main colas instead of one. FIM is used as a word itself but is actually an acronym for “F**k, I missed!”

So what exactly is FIMing?

FIMing is an easy way for growers to dramatically increase their yields while also making the plant more manageable for limited spaces.

I know that sounds too good to be true, but it’s definitely the case!

The problem with the natural growth pattern of the cannabis plant is that it tends to be shaped like a Christmas tree. This is inefficient, and not very good for indoor growing since the main cola will typically receive much more light than the rest of the plant.

When you FIM your marijuana plant, it grows 4 main colas instead of one (this is where the extra yields come from). Next, the grower would typically tie those 4 colas down a bit to help force the plant into having a flat canopy. This allows you to lower your lights and makes it so most of the plant is receiving a higher overall amount of light.

Whenever you see a picture of a marijuana plant with multiple large buds that are at a similar height, the grower almost certainly used FIMing or another technique called ‘Topping’ to achieve this.

At this point, choosing whether to FIM or not might seem like a no-brainer, and I agree that it’s a technique that most growers should employ. However, nothing is absolute, and there could be a few scenarios where FIMing isn’t for you:

• If you’re doing a tiny microgrow, such as in a computer case
  • In tiny stealth microgrows, there isn’t always room for an effective FIM.
• If you’re doing ’12/12 from seed’
  • Your plant will get close to skipping the vegetative stage, and that’s the only time to FIM.
• Auto-flowering strains
  • It’s generally a bad idea to top OR FIM auto-flowering marijuana plants, as they don’t have enough time to recover before they start flowering, similar to plants grown 12/12 from seed
• You don’t like having lots of weed at your disposal
  • I know that sounds like a joke (it was, a bit), but some places have limits to the amount of weed you can possess, and FIMing could actually get you in more trouble in some cases because of all the extra buds you will produce.

FIMing vs. Topping

First, what is ‘Topping’?

Topping is a technique similar to FIMing, wherein you cut a young cannabis plant to create extra colas. However, unlike FIMing, the Topping technique produces 2 colas instead of 4.

If you would like to learn how to Top your plant, check out our Topping tutorial on GrowWeedEasy.com.

This article is about FIMing, and does not go in-depth about Topping. FIMing can be a superior choice in many cases. Why FIM instead of Top?

• FIMing is less traumatic to the plant
  • When you FIM your cannabis, you only need to pinch the newest growth, which doesn’t really stress your plant much. With Topping, totally removing the newest growth is necessary, which is a stressful event for young marijuana plants.
• FIMing barely slows down plant growth; Topping slows down plant growth considerably for a short period.
  • When you FIM your plant, you will see recovery move at a much higher speed than with Topping. When I FIM one of my plants at the beginning of the day, I can usually already see it adjusting by bedtime.
• FIMing creates 4 main colas at once, while Topping only creates 2.
  • Double the main colas…no explanation needed!
• It’s easy to FIM a plant more than once!
  • I wouldn’t necessarily advise this tactic for growers who are new to FIMing, but definitely keep this in mind! You can FIM your cannabis plant more than once, and with some Low-Stress Training, you get plants with dozens of colas like the one to the right.
• Nebula says – In my experience, FIMing causes my plants to grow bushier than topping, even when I do it to the same strain. I will choose to top marijuana plants when I’m trying to achieve a specific shape that requires a complete split of the cola, like main-lining.
  • Sirius says – Although this last point is anecdotal evidence, I have to say that I’ve experienced the same thing. FIMing causes plants to dramatically “bush out” more than topping.

How to FIM Your Marijuana Plants

There are three important factors we need to pay attention to when FIMing your plants for the first time:

1. Pinch vs. Cut – What method do we use to remove/damage the new growth and force new colas?
2. Amount – How much do I pinch/cut?
3. Timing – At what point in the plants development do we FIM?

Pinch vs. Cut

When you’re FIMing your plant, you have the option of either cutting off a piece of the new growth or pinching it. Both have the potential to work equally well at forcing the plant to create new colas. However, I strongly recommend pinching your plant instead of cutting it since pinching leaves more room for error.

Another benefit of pinching is that it leaves the damaged foliage on the plant. This way, your girls at least have a chance to continue using those leaves if they can, whereas with cutting they don’t have the option. Here’s a case:

In my last grow, I saw a few weird looking leaves that appeared to be chewed-up. Upon further examination, and judging by where I found them, I determined that they were actually pinched leaves! The plant kept those leaves, and used them to make energy all the way til harvest!

Amount

When FIMing your plants, the amount you’ll want to pinch is actually quite small. You’re basically pinching the tips of the leaves of the newest growth on the main cola that hasn’t ‘stretched-out’ yet. See the picture further down for a good example.

Timing

The first pinch or cut in a FIM should happen when your plant has 3-5 nodes (or sets of leaves) in total. Once that initial FIM has been completed and the plant has recovered, a grower can use his/her discretion to determine when to FIM again as it’s mostly based on plant health and desired shape. Just remember to make sure your plant looks healthy and recovered before FIMing again!

Techniques to Get the Most Out of FIMing

Now that you know the basics of FIMing, take a look at some of these other growing techniques. I use these same techniques (in combination with FIMing) to maximize the amount of weed I get per harvest while keeping the total amount of work low.

There are MANY other techniques you can use in combination with FIMing to increase your yields, but in my opinion, these two in particular (with FIM) offer the highest return on investment.

• Low-Stress Training – Train your plants to grow as a flat surface; easily double your harvest.
• Defoliation – Advanced, but well worth it. More buds exposed to light means more, bigger buds!

Strains That Are Especially Good For FIMing

FIMing is such a versatile technique, that pretty much any marijuana strain is a perfect candidate for it!

However, some strains are experts at recovering and getting HUGE RETURNS on growth control techniques!

These are a few strains I’ve grown personally that each gave me at least 6 ounces or dried & cured, super sticky bud per plant.

Aurora Indica

Sirius: This plant effortlessly bends, breaks, recovers, and flourishes. That plus a naturally high yield, pungent diesel smell, and high potency make Aurora a must-have. Seriously, try growing it!

PPP(Pure Power Plant)

Sirius: Funky smell, crazy potency, and super resilience are all attributes of the Pure Power Plant. I’ve once cut off the top 4 nodes of this strain in a panic(it got too big, too fast). This plant totally healed its stem in 2 days and never stopped growing the whole time.

Wonder Woman

Sirius: Wonder Woman has recently become one of my favorite strains. You can FIM it in the morning and watch it recover before the day ends. That combined with crazy fast growth patterns, the highest yields on this list, and a nose-wrinkling diesel smell make this strains name remarkably accurate.

The post FIM Your Way to Multiple Colas! appeared first on Grow Weed Easy.

You and I most likely share this opinion: Growing your own marijuana is the best way to obtain it!

But what happens when you’re growing your own cannabis and you run out? You may know how aggravating that feels, but I’ll sum it up with this: No grower likes running out of weed.

In the interest of breaking that cycle, we’re going to show you how to NOT run out of cannabis.

By using a few of these simple tactics, you can ensure that you have a steady supply of cannabis all year, every year.

1.) Know How Much Cannabis You Want

There’s no right or wrong, good or bad, or high or low answer for this, so as long as you’re taking care of what you need to, don’t worry about how much cannabis you want. Rather, you’re figuring out how much cannabis you want so you know how much you need to grow to stay in steady supply.

Once you know this information, you can come up with a good estimate of how much you’d need to bring in each harvest to keep your coffers full. For example:

1. If you typically go through 0.5 ounces of cannabis every month, you know that you would need to harvest a minimum of 6 ounces of weed every year. (.5oz x 12 months = 6oz per year)
2. If you typically complete 2 grows per year, you know that you would need to harvest a minimum of 3 ounces of weed per grow. (6oz / 2 grows = 3oz per grow)
3. So, the amount you need to harvest per in oz =
   ((The amount you use per month) x 12) / (The amount of grows you complete per year). Using the examples above, you would get (.5 x 12)/2 = 3(oz per harvest needed to never run out)

This information will help to keep you from putting too much/little time and effort into a grow. For the example above, this person could have more cannabis than they need all year with a small grow tent and a cheap LED grow light or low wattage HPS.

2.) Use High-Efficiency Growing Techniques

There are several techniques cunning growers can use to drastically increase the amount of marijuana harvested from plants. I won’t go into the detail of each one here, but I would definitely recommend checking out our links for more information.

• LST (Low Stress Training) – Bend your plants branches to get more light to each bud site. Buds that are exposed to direct light develop faster and increase your yields.
• FIM’ing & Topping – These techniques force your plant to grow multiple colas (main stems covered with bud sites). More colas mean more sticky buds for you!
• Manifolding – An advanced version of topping. This form of training helps you create a ‘manifold’ which forces your plant to grow in a much more orderly and efficient manner. (Advanced!)
• Defoliation – This is an advanced technique that involves removing certain leaves from your plant to control growth and boost bud production in the flowering stage.
• Super Cropping – Super Cropping is a ‘High Stress Training Technique’ that involves planned breaks in branches. This done to get the plant to open up larger pathways in the branches as a natural reaction.

Since I’ve been employing these five techniques in particular, I’ve more than doubled the amount that I harvest while only barely increasing the amount of time I spend tending to my plants. While I’m sure you’ll find all the tips in this article useful, the high-efficiency growth techniques are the biggest reason I don’t run out of medicine.

3.) Separate Vegetative and Flowering Areas

Having separate areas for vegetating and flowering plants might not be practical for everyone, but it gives a huge advantage in that it allows a grower to start a second set of plants while the first set is still flowering. Vegetating marijuana is the most forgiving, so your vegetative area can be much smaller with a much weaker or lower-quality light than you use to flower.

With careful planning, you can time it so that you’re putting new plants into the flowering stage at the same time you’re harvesting the plants that just finished flowering.

Not only is this super efficient, but it eliminates the empty-tent time in between grows which is when your medicine seems to disappear the fastest.

There are even more advanced methods where you can use separate vegetative/flowering areas to have a ‘perpetual harvest’. Keep in mind that the perpetual harvest method is a bit advanced, and many people don’t need the amount of weed it provides, not to mention the planning it requires.

If having separate vegetating and flowering areas isn’t within your means though, don’t worry. You can still get a degree of that efficiency with…

4.) Back-to-Back Grows

If you’re serious about not running out of cannabis, starting your next grow right after your last one finishes should because a common practice. Back-to-back grows ensures that you always have cannabis growing, so even if you start getting low on weed, you already have your next harvest on the way.

Another benefit of back-to-back grows: Practice!

When you do back-to-back grows, not only do you keep your weed supply high, but you get better and better at making your cannabis more potent, healthy, and bulky. In time, cannabis growers can get so good from this that they don’t even need to do back-to-back grows anymore.

This leads to the last tip for today, which may seem like common knowledge…

5.) Keep Cannabis Seeds/Clones On Hand At All Times!

Most of the tips in this list are about making things more efficient when growing weed; they’re about shaving time off of things you end up doing anyway. This one, however, is about prevention.

Imagine this scenario: You’ve just finished a successful grow, and you’re preparing for the next one. You vacuum and clean your grow area, get the lights adjusted, and get the growing mediums ready. You double check everything… and it looks perfect. It’s time to begin an amazing grow… except… wait… you have nothing to grow.

That was me. I paid for the venue, got the lights and stage ready, sold out all the seats, and forgot to invite the band!

Now I always keep extra cannabis seeds on hand, and I plan what strains I’m growing ahead of time. That’s because ordering cannabis seeds online can set your next grow back by weeks, like it did to mine. And even after that wait is over, you still have to begin the next grow.

So just remember the lesson I had to learn the hard way, and consider seeds/clones as the first thing on your list since they take the longest to obtain of any cannabis grow supplies.

In the end, we could really boil all these tips down to: Grow smart, and never stop growing.

Just always have some cannabis plants growing, and you’ll be filling your weed coffers in multiple ways: harvesting your own weed, getting smarter about growing, and getting better at the actual task of growing this wonderful captivating plant.

About The Author: Sirius Fourside

Sirius started growing in 2007 and has extensive experience in all types of grow styles including soil, coco, and hydroponics. He co-founded GrowWeedEasy.com in 2010 with his now-wife Nebula Haze. His focus is on experimenting with new trends and technology for home growers, such as testing new models of LED grow lights and exploring different methods of hydroponics, automated grow systems, and fully organic growing.

Start With A High-Yielding Strain!

While all the tips and tactics above will help you stay in steady supply, the genetics of your plant also play a huge role.

That’s why growing a high-yielding strain can be one of the best ways to ensure you have top-notch bud all year long.

Here are some proven high-yielding cannabis strains that also produce top-quality buds:

Kushberry Moonrocks by MSNL – Remarkably Strong

Although we haven’t grown the Kushberry Moonrocks strain ourselves yet, according to our readers this enchanting new strain has remarkable effects and looks/smells beautiful. We were pleasantly surprised to find out it also tends to produce high yields.

Zweet Inzanity by Ethos – Big Yields!

Zweet Inzanity impressed us with her high yielding power and big, round, hard nugs.

Growing tips: This forgiving strain is extremely easy to grow, and responds well to FIMing/topping/LST and other training methods. It gets to a nice size – not too tall, not too short – and about doubles in size after the switch to 12/12. This strain takes about 2.5 months to finish flowering, and rewards you with great yields and chunky, round baseball buds. It tends to do best at relatively high levels of nutrients – we got great results feeding her at full strength.

Buds: Big yields. Dense, hard buds that sparkled, and highly potent yet friendly social vibes when smoking. Our buds smelled sweet and delicious.

FOR SERIOUS GROWERS ONLY

You’ve told me you’re looking for a complete guide to growing marijuana that covers everything, from beginner to ultra-advanced.

And the techniques on this page are only a few of the many paths to getting seriously killer harvests. If you want to learn ALL the secrets…

Learn from the best!

Invest in the most advanced Grow Bible Available: Growing Elite Marijuana + 6 bonuses (including one-of-a-kind comprehensive strain guide)

Total care explained step-by-step… indoors… outdoors…Monster cropping… advanced growth control… bud production secrets… and much, much more…

Over 700 pages of pictures, tutorials and advanced insider tips!

Get Instant Access to It All Right Here: GrowWeedEasy.com/growing-elite-marijuana

I thought I already knew it all, but after I went through this grow bible, I discovered that there were still lots of easy ways I could increase my yields and grow even more potent buds! I find myself going back to it again and again for new ideas.

-Nebula

Jump to…​​

The Perpetual Harvest

Cannabis Growth Control – Topping & More

Nebulas Manifold Tutorial – Mainlining Cannabis

7 Tips to Growing Top-Shelf Buds

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