StrawberryKush asked:

"I just topped my cannabis plants for the first time, was it too much, how many times should I top my plants?"

Hi StrawberryKush,

Before jumping into the answers below, just a reminder to check out my Grow School for Cannabis Beginners looking to understand the basics in a non-intimidating way.

how many times should I top my plants?

This is a great question, and I see it often. It's also one that frustrates me with the amount of misinformation out there!

So I have 3 answers, of decreasing cynicism for you.

0 Times - ideal for beginners
We can grow massive, bushy, happy plants with big yields with 0 tops, crops, or chops (but the final 😏 ). There are so many "GrowBros" now rushing to make their fame on youtube acting like experts, but just repeating things they heard the previous week -- most of it incomplete knowledge. Unfortunately Topping is usually first on their list. But the truth is, we don't need to top at all. It's an optional activity, part of a broader training strategy.** The downside to not topping; that we will have many smaller buds, and one or two massive colas reaching above the rest. Our overall yield is not optimized (why? read on!), but for beginners optimization should not be the goal yet!
1 time - ideal for most growers
To understand why one-topping is useful, we need to understand the impact topping has. In nature it was beneficial for the plant to grow a massive flower high and centered away from all the rest, and the hungry deer who will eat the them. But in our grow tent it just means a greedy primary stalk growing above the rest that a) blocks light, b) makes us move lights higher away from other buds, c) steals nutrients to grow up instead of flower out.

So a proven strategy is to top the plant once, just before it enters flowering (2 days - 2 weeks prior). This tells the plan to give up on that primary flower, and redirect energy and nutrients to the remaining branches and flowers. This helps the lower growth get a boost and yield bigger buds. Usually folks will pair with some defoliation of lower branches.
multiple times - advanced training techniques
You would really only ever top a plant more than once if you are applying advanced techniques like mainlining or manifolds in which your essentially forcing the plant to constantly "split" its energy equally into 2 branches instead of 1. This starts at the 2nd or 3rd node on the stalk very early on (first couple weeks) and is repeated on the resulting growth yielding 2, 4, 8 and so on. These are usually held in place with wire or netting to arrange the 8+ colas to share light at equal heights.

Want to learn more? Read about cannabis training techniques here.

This series uses actual questions and answers from various discussion platforms in which I participate. They are collected here and reference original sources where public.