tucker

A couple weeks ago, I was sitting at work thinking "I gotta top one of my plants." I wanted to experiment to see what difference it would make in the plant I topped. Later that day, before I went home, I read about the FIM Technique, in which you leave 10% of the growth node to encourage your plant to divide into up to 8 separate tops, rather than just 2.

Well, I could have posted this earlier, as I that my plant now has six (6) tops. And they look like they're growing pretty full too. Looks to me that this was well worth it.

Most importantly, this "FIM" Technique really works.

smokasplifff

So do you just make the cut a little higher that you normally would? For example if their were say 2" between the branches, would you make the cut at about .5" above the lower one?

gecko

Nope, you cut in the plant matter (growing tip).
And yes it does work

Keep on Blazing
(________()~~~~

Johnny5

FIM= F#$k I missed
lol, I think thats it though

TheGreenMan

If what is wanted is 8 separate tops then how would FIM ing differ from just topping the plant at the 5th node to leave just 8 pairs of branches ~ 8 tops
This is something I do anyway, I thought that FIM ing was something different.
I don't understand
What does FIM ing achieve that topping like that doesn't/wouldn't ??
Can someone please explain the difference to me, pertty please with berries and sugar

Green Man

PS ~ S2
"no secondary cola ever seems to come close to the size of the top. "
I read somewhere that side colas are actually always more potent than the top one, I assumed that this was part of the rationale behind the technique of topping to leave 6 - 8 lateral branches which then grow stronger than they would with the main cola stealing their growth energy and stronger than the top would have been anyway. Any thorts there ?

Also
Forgive me being dense but when you say
"I cut parrallel to the main stem right through the center of the top"
I know this sounds soo dumb but I want to be sure I understand properly, you mean you cut the top tip vertically, down it's centre rather than horizontally taking the tip off right ??
Like | instead of -- ??
Reason I ask, partly, is that I've just boldly, experimentally done this to one of my young plants and am unsure what to expect, I know that time will tell but I'd like to hear from anyone who has tried it already.
TYIA

absimiliard

Hey GreenMan.

Haven't said "Hi" to you yet, nothing personal mind you, we just haven't been on the same threads. So, "Hi!"

Anyways, on to business. What FIM gets you is all those extra growth tips from the top of the plant. You can still get the secondary growth-tips coming up from the bottom. So a FIM'd plant should yeild (if FIM'd at the fourth or fifth node) say 5 tops from the "top" that was FIM'd plus the additional 8 or so secondary growth tips coming up from below. Presumably you could then tie the top down and bring all 13 growth tips even and thus maximize light usage.

That said, I don't FIM. Just haven't had the chance to test it yet, got more important techniques to master on my plate.

__________________
Cool sigs are for cool people. I'm just a llama.
-Absimiliard

TheGreenMan

So the FIM'd top will produce a bunch of extra heads also ?
A bit like if you topped a few nodes later . . . . . . .

Has anyone found out if this extra growth takes a correspondingly long extra time to grow or not ?

Is that 'corona' of heads better ? and worth taking all that growth energy away from the rest of the plant ?
IF it is true that side colas are always more potent than that big, pretty, impressive top cola and a load of growth energy is being diverted from the lateral branches into a half dozen less potent top colas . . . . . . .

I'm starting to wonder already about this and I haven't even been able to properly try it out yet. Don't get me wrong I'm not trying to rubbish the idea I'm just wondering if it really is the promised land.

As far as I know in the plant world anything which increases one thing takes away from another. You get bigger plants - they're not as potent or sweet or juicy, you get extra juice - you get smaller plants, you get bigger juicier plants - they take longer to grow and you lose time . . . .etc etc etc
A bit like blak majik, you get nothing for free in the world of horticulture seems to be what I've read.

Green Man

PS I resurrected this after I discovered the search button and started looking for stuff, "stem splitting" I believe it was, try it out why don't you ?
BTW
the plant I did that too hasn't died yet . . . .

smokinrav

You've got potency and plant size interconnected somehow Green Man. They're mutually exclusive of each other. Big plants or small, as long as maturity in veg is reached, potency will be the same no matter the training technique employed or where the bud comes from on the plant (assuming all other factors are equal)

FIMming DOES make the plant respond as if its been topped. Exactly the smae IMO. As the plant grows out those multiple tops after the cut, a very time consuming process, the rest of the plant has 2-3 weeks minimum to grow the bottom branching out. Then you have to deal with a bunch of FIM tops (remember, 50/50 shot) that have had 1/2 the time to develop, compared to the lower branching, which is fully developed

later

Smokin

TheGreenMan

"In the 1940s H.R.Warinke experimented with colchicine treatment of cannabis in order to produce Polyploid strains with a higher fibre yield. He subsequently claimed that the resulting polyploid plants were more potent than the original diploid strains............although Polyploids tend to be taller with larger leaves, recent experiments have shown that potency is not necessarily increased"

Well it's not really saying that larger = less potent and of course larger at the same potency is still a bonus one might think but on the other hand,
"Colchicine is highly toxic.....since Colchicine is very poisonous it should be handled with great care. The toxic effects of smoking first generation colchicine treated plants is still in dispute. Some sources claim that first generation plants should not be smoked because of poisoning risk . . . . . ."

I think my point was more that any given cultivar has a certain finite amount of total growth energy/capability and whilst some things can of course be done to effectively maximize potential, often it's a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul. Like you say, maybe FIMing will create a bunch of extra heads but the time taken for them to grow and the total plant energy taken away from other parts of the plant make me wonder Awa wa wa wa wonder, as they say in the old country.
I know that a five inch plant properly matured and fully flowered will yield budz just as potent as it's five foot neighbour but I do believe that generally speaking if a plant is somehow artificially forced to extend itself beyond it's own full growth potential, what happens is that it just kind of stretches itself out thin so there may be more or bigger budz but less potent as the potency is the same only spread throughout more plant.
Zat make sense ?

Green Man