Backfilling buds by trimming the tips

Advanced Techniques
#1

Discussion moved thanks @toastyjakes

I ran across a technique in this video (start at about 1:30 to skip the stoner session)

Building massive buds/ backfilling your buds.

This is done for the same reason you top in veg but for flower. He trims about 1/2" off the tops of his colas about 3 weeks into flower to encourage the buds to back fill on the branch. Anyone else done this? results? I see shit I’m always asking for confirmation first. Reasons not to? I see his logic here and he certainly seems to know wth he is about.

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About the Advanced Techniques category
Seed Run Co-Op Bodhi F2 DBHP - Give Away Has Ended
First Grow, popped in April
#3

My personal opinion is that it kinda gives a placebo effect.
You see ‘new big building buds’ but really you just stunted growth and lost tip growth.

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#4

I had a someone I trust with years of experience confirm this. Also had it confirmed with MotR

I appreciate your input and MomOnTheRun did actually note using it more often for long flowering sativas. OTOH she reported 10-15% size gains.

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#5

Epigenetics. I would like to see a simple experiment conducted to tell if phenotype expression is altered if a seed undergoes a) a freeze or not before germination.
b) Temps of differing ranges that are reflected in our temperate, tropical, sub-tropical etc. night time extremes
c) What if during the life development of the seed the temps drop all the way to 40 degrees …and then once dried it undergoes a freeze. Would it perhaps unlock shorter flower times?

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#6

I ran across a technique in this video Building massive buds/ backfilling your buds. This is done for the same reason you top in veg but for flower. He trims about 1/2" off the tops of his colas about 3 weeks into flower to encourage the buds to back fill on the branch.

Anyone else done this? results? I see shit I’m always asking for confirmation first. Reasons not to? I see his logic here and he certainly seems to know wth he is about.

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#7

I found out a weird technique
When colas have streatched out but not filled it cut the tips off.
All the lover bud growth doubles up like when you top in veg.
Some strains it makes the colas twice as dense and way heavier yield

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#8

So that is what I said in the comment above yours. I did get an experienced grower to confirm this technique works. He said yeah they will “fluff up if you clip the tip but you have to time it right.”

Another technique I saw in the videos by that fellow mentioned spreading the leaves apart when they are really young to help node spacing by getting some light to the very tip sprout early. He literally spread the leaves apart with his fingers which I have also done and it seems to work. Makes those leaves pop early more like oleskools.

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#9

That’s funny I didn’t see you posted that

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#10

With some strains with the long colas it works great

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#12

You both are talking about what older growers refer to as pinching bud tops or what growers nowadays call it, Back Building…its a really old technique that is mainly used for fluffy, scrawny sativa type buds to help fatten them up though imho, all cannabis benefits from it and do it routinely on anything I am flowering out for smoke.

By cutting off the very tip (1/8-1/4") it will concentrate on widening as it can no longer elongate having the growing tip removed. Now some will do this at the 3rd and 6th week of flower and cut up to 1/2 the bud off though really it works best at budset which is when the plants stop stretching and start focusing on “stacking” …for most its 4 wks into flower though with some Sativa’s won’t be until 5-6 wks into flower and only the very tip is removed kinda like topping in veg.

Anyhow, not many do it anymore as it is a bit of work to gain ~10-15% more weight naturally though totally worth it imho, especially with CMH and/or QB/Solstrip Leds…beats that $80/oz bud hardener without compromising the soil by adding willy nilly stuff to it. In fact, I just did this with the big DBHP girls though didn’t think to really document it or leave any untouched for a comparison as its just a routine thing I do

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#13

Moved it over for you @Olbrannon

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#14

thank you @toastyjakes
the original vid that started the thread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oZczRdcNdo

now skip to about 1:30 in so you don’t have to witness one more stoner getting high. I think this puts most people off his vids. It did me.

He says it is just like topping to get the rest of the plant to bush in veg. removing the tip and distributing the auxin was my take.

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#15

It works to “chunk up” longer sparser flowers, you’ll get better looking top buds for it. I don’t feel it increases yield but the proportion of nice looking chunky tops does increase. It also dramatically slows vertical stretch. I feel trimming tips is best applied to stretchier narrowleafs than short chunky broadleafs.

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#16

@MomOnTheRun
Can you elaborate on this? I thought CMH didn’t have the penetration power but must be missing something. Also would seem to make sense if there was a height restriction as well.

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#17

@MBVapester Mom on the Run made those references I have no xp with CMH.

#18

Because the CMH has lower intensity, being a smaller point of light relatively than, say, a 1K HPS, it would be in the grower’s best interest to keep more tops as close to the light as possible. Since the trimming of tips encourages flower development down the stem, you can keep floral clusters where you need them to be to receive the most possible light.

I’m assuming the grower would strip the lowers if they had taller plants to discourage larfy bud further away from the light, outside the “sweet spot”. With a single 315 CMH that sweet spot is like 8" vertical. Too close and you deal with excessive heat (open hoods), too far away and the light isn’t strong enough for the real density and trichome coverage.

Back trimming is just another tool to keep more of the plants bracts within the most amount of light to produce the best product, like defoliation, stripping lowers, and crushing stems.

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#19

I’ve found it to help long skinny colas fatten up at the top… done it with a few GG4 crosses as I’ve found quite a few glue crosses to throw long skinny almost flat colas … then again they aren’t kept around after that but yeah I’d say it can help a tad

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#21

Yup! exactly :wink:

CMH does have the needed penetration around 1/2 way down where the qb’s are more like 1/4 of the way down the plants so when I am running the CMH, I don’t worry about spreading them out as much as I do the qb’s…in my personal side by side of hid, cmh and qb’s I noticed the CMH consistently gives more leaves = more plant growing power = bigger plant = denser buds. Add in pinching the flower tops, that energy goes into widening instead of elongating so the finished buds are rounder and a bit more firm. Now it isn’t much though its the little things

You explain it so much better :heart_eyes:

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#22

This should be the target any time. There is an optimum distance for each light type and depending on the stage of growth an optimum PAR spectrum and saturation level I’ll speculate. That origin point in the case of CMH is usually just one point. A section of the sphere at optimum distance and PAR from the light.

In the case of led we are not talking a single point of origin usually and so we should be able to get a larger section of the lights zone in the optimal region.

That’s not really the point here though I don’t believe. It’s just like topping in veg the way I see it.

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#23

I have grown My WW to harvest twice now. I have reached this stage while trimming the tips and not. My impression is it does make the buds fuller but it does shorten the reach. This is just one more tool available to us as growers. Thanks everyone for your feedback.

If the timing is right and you are having stretch issues this could help and/or increase bud density at the same time.

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