Got some new seeds in today. Auto Flowers… like the turnaround rate but obviously I know that kills the quantity you get because you don’t have time on your side sadly with generic coding at play. Everything mostly says don’t do it.
BUT, I know their must be some do or die out there who has tried and succeeded.
Anyone ever had success with topping these? Or what’s the best technique used to manipulate the plant?
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Stick with LST. Just bend her over gently. I got a larger harvest from the LST’d plant vs the topped plant. True, they’re autos and just may produce differently, but i’d steer away from big stressors
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i once topped an auto by accident, and even though it was still very early in veg state and flowered alright - you could tell it was stunted.
avoid it, im sure if you already know the strain, have your settings dialed in, know how fast it really grows etc, you could probably fine tune to find a good spot for a clean topping but honestly, i dont think its worth the trouble - just do LST as mentioned above, avoid the hassle and get pretty much same results.
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I’ve bent some over “supercropping” the top, and LST, and selective leaf removal. Some people do successfully top theirs. You can do a search and probably find them on here.
I find auto vigor and resilience highly influenced by genetics, so results will vary by strain. Also by growing media.
What you do should be about your goals - experiments, fun, breeding, bud yield, hash yield, height restriction, number of plants, time to harvest, mold prevention, amount of time invested per plant…
For myself, I like less effort and more yield. In my particular grow, the only thing that increased overall bud yield was spreading the plant out with LST to catch more light. And I can achieve just about the same yield increase by adding more plants, no one is counting them and I have lots of seeds, so after this last run I’m just about done doing much at all to my auto plants. Grow babies grow. 
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Stangely enough, I just asked this question in another thread. I had a sneaking suspicion that topping would probably stunt them. Actually, I was going to ask @RainToday about her “professional” opinion. And she already gave it. Must be my lucky day. 
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Hey man. How old is that plant?
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I harvested that plant day 82 from germination
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It’s not controversy
Pinch them at 3 node and off you go, however
Most autos I have grown are naturally branchy
As fook.
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Probably gonna top one. Just for experimental purposes and LST the rest of them
Last year I grew a forbidden fruit and a Bruce banner af. I topped the Bruce banner early as possible, and did no training to the forbidden fruit. The Bruce was definitely stunted and didn’t produce half as much as the untrained forbidden fruit. Outside grow. I’m pretty confident that lst is the way to go when it comes to auto flowers. Stunting them should be avoided at all costs.
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That’s what I’m getting. Everyone is saying just LST to achieve the same goal almost. I rather do a way that’s proved time and time again for good yield on autos. Topping just isn’t worth the risk.
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Topping won’t stunt them. Cold will.
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Honestly if its your first time running that strain, don’t do anything to it and learn how it grows and develops. Then once you know plant a second and mess around with it, some strains respond differently to different training.
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Usually I think it’s not worth stunting the plant the point of topping is to reduce height and increase width this would obviously take time to high you do not have, unless you’re in a very small tent I would say it’s a no go
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It mostly depends on genetics and growing method used.
If you grow full on synthetics you can probably top just about any strain and get decent yields.
If you grow 100% organic then genetics play a larger role.
Hot Cakes for example can be topped in organic because it’s a beast.
I’ve topped another strain, had two females, topped one and the yield was about the same.
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Great Question @UppersAnDowners, without a definitive answer.
Here’s an interesting grow in progress where two sister autos were topped and the other two left alone.
This training approach was adopted to increase airflow and reduce the chances for mold and mildew damage in the challenging environment for growing in the Hawaiian Islands.
After topping, the plants were also tied down to create an open and horizontal canopy.
It’s a work in progress so tune in for the results.
-Grouchy 
@TARpits
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Noted. So obviously if taking the route of topping I would want to look for more stress resistance gene type plants?
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Also check out the great results from @LoveDaAutos, an Autoflower Maestro who tops and trains with alacrity!
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