Tag: cultivation
How to lollipop cannabis plants
Picture this: you've bought the best cannabis seeds and are ready to see your plants flourishing well immediately after cultivation.
Taking care of your cannabis plants involves a myriad of things. Still, each of them plays a critical role in determining the nature of the mature marijuana plant and the overall yields.
Among the most common techniques and which you probably know includes the training and pruning of cannabis strains.
This day, you are going to familiarize yourself with a different terminology and know much more about it to the entirety. Without further ado, let's have a glance at…
What is lollipopping?
Lollipopping is an analytical technique that involves pruning cannabis plants, and preferably those planted indoors to come up with better yields. Under most circumstances, this pruning method gets carried out to eliminate the marijuana plant parts that receive the least amounts of light.
Less light often translates to lower yields in the long run. That said, the flowering phase is the ideal time to introduce lollipopping. Most established marijuana growers claim that two weeks into flowering is the perfect time to introduce lollipopping.
The main reason for conducting lollipopping is ensuring that the cannabis plants tend to focus lots of energy on the buds. After this kind of pruning gets done, the cannabis plants tend to appear as lollipops, and thus, the name lollipopping to mean this activity.
Any cannabis strain can get lollipopped. Whereas some prefer to lollipop Indica-dominant strains due to their great one central kola, other growers swear by lollipopping Sativa and Hybrid strains. Either way, the lollipopped strains give amazing results.
Other words for lollipopping
Some terms that can get used to men lollipopping today include trimming and pruning. This is so because lollipopping involves the trimming or pruning the bottom branches of cannabis to allow for adequate light penetration and better formation of buds.
Does lollipopping your cannabis plant increase the yield?
Absolutely! When the lower growth gets removed from the cannabis plants, there is the promotion of better development of buds. Of course, when the buds tend to develop fully, one thing is sure – the overall yields will be high.
Secondly, lollipopping introduces the strains to ample light. Now that the flowering stage gets fully enhanced when there is sufficient light, there is the sanctioning of optimal development of the flowers and the betterment of the plant. This, in turn, leads to increased yields.
Thirdly, doing away with the bushy growth on the lower side of the plants helps in ensuring that there is free air circulation, thus, ensuring that molds and bacteria don't affect the plants and yields in general.
What is the best time to lollipop a cannabis plant?
As previously mentioned, the best time to lollipop a cannabis plant is two weeks before the flowering phase kicks in. That is during the vegetative stage. This not only helps in upping the yields but also ensuring that the plants are in the best form.
Two weeks is such a good time that the plants can adapt to the shock they have been subjected to before getting into flowering.
You may, nonetheless, be wondering whether they could be any negative impact about lollipopping a plant after the vegetative stage has kicked in. Well, it is critical to ensure that the plants don't suffer from the pressure of any kind since adapting may take a lot of time.
However, provided the marijuana grower does the primal lollipopping work during the vegetative phase, they can do some essential touch-ups during the flowering stage. This includes, but not limited to, pruning some branches and removing some unwanted buds.
The different lollipopping techniques
With the above points in mind, you may be curious to know how to lollipop cannabis plants. Let us now see how you can make this process a success.
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The top-down technique
This lollipopping methodology typically involves eradicating all the lower growth from a cannabis plant, to be left with the stem of the plant that gets topped by up to two enormous kolas. It is a relatively simple method because it typically involves choosing a single point, preferably four nodes from the cannabis plant's growing tip.
You can, nonetheless, select your most preferred point to make the canopy begin and remove the lower growth from that very point.
There are no special tools required to necessitate this process; thus, you can use the thumb to grasp the plant's stem and the forefinger to remove the undesired side shoots to the last selected node. If you feel that using fingers can bring about deforming the stalk, then you can be sure to use a sharp pair of scissors or a razor blade.
As the name suggests, you start lollipopping by removing the unwanted shoots from top to the selected bottom-most node.
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The bottom-up technique
Even though this method isn't common as the top-down technique, some swear by it. It typically involves removing unwanted shoots from the preferred bottom node to the selected part of the stem to get a desirable lollipopped plant.
You can be sure to eradicate the lateral branches that are such short that they can't form an excellent top canopy. Mostly preferred by those who prefer using the SCROG System, you have to use a sharp pair of scissors or a sharp razor blade to remove the unwanted lateral, and short branches that can't form a good lollipop shape.
In Summary: How to lollipop cannabis plants
As seen in this write-up, lollipopping cannabis is essential. However, that might not to be the case, especially when you don't take the trimmed cut-offs from where the cannabis plants have gotten grown.
Keeping these cuts near the cannabis farms or grow medium may expose some plants to bud rot mold and bacteria infestation, thus rendering the lollipopping process useless.
It is also worth mentioning that the trimmed plants retain a canopy-like bud structure, in a horizontal view. For the best growing and resu lts, the buds should be in somewhat same sizes and shape. That said, watchfulness is vital.
Can you touch cannabis seeds?
When you buy weed seeds for the first time, you may be wondering if you can touch the seeds with your bare hands. After all, they are very vulnerable, right? And there could be a risk of contamination in some way? So it's not a strange question to ask yourself whether you can grab those small, precious seeds with your bare hands. Opinions vary, but why would you want to take the risk?
It is always possible that a marijuana seed will not germinate, and the question rises what the reason is. The bad genetics of the seed are usually blamed. Most people will instantly say that the seed must be of very poor quality. But the gardener who lets the seed germinate and touches it without gloves or tweezers also has an influence. That is at least the opinion of many professional growers. Read on and learn more about this topic. What are the risks with germination? And what is the best way to handle your fragile cannabis seeds? Let's find out!
Germination power
Our hands and fingers are covered with oils and bacteria. Even if you wash your hands a hundred times a day, there will always be bacteria present again soon after every time you disinfect your hands. You don't see it, but if you touch a weed seed, you will leave your mark. Usually that is fine and the seed will germinate. But if you leave the seed for a long time, the bacteria and esoteric oils you have left on it can undermine the germinative power of the seed. Ultimately, that can result in a seed not sprouting. The chance of that is small, but it is present.
Touching seeds is a risk
There will be many growers who consider this nonsense. And most breeders will just touch seeds with their bare hands. But in addition to cannabis growers, there are many more people who are also professionally involved with seeds, such as botanists and biologists. These professionals are generally of the opinion that the traces you leave behind on a seed can indeed have an effect on the germination process and the growth cycle that follows.
See, there are many, many cases in which fortunately there is no problem. These are all situations in which a grower simply takes the seeds out of the bag with his bare hands, lets it germinate, and then puts it in the soil, or any other growing medium. All with bare hands. The seed simply germinates as if nothing is wrong. And the plant grows into a healthy shrub with beautiful flower tops. But on the other hand you have growers who prefer not to take the risk and also have a scientific basis for this.
There is indeed evidence that touching a seed with your bare hands carries a risk. So what should you do now? You will probably get away with it if you do not store the seed for long. If you let it germinate immediately, there is probably no problem. The risk, however, becomes greater the longer you store the seed before you let it germinate. The longer you keep it, the longer the esoteric oils have the chance to influence and reduce the quality of the seed. Many believe there is certainly a risk that the seed will not germinate, or that the plant appears to be weak. That would be too bad, wouldn't it? So why take the risk?
Use tweezers
Although this whole story would be based on a myth, and none of it is true, it is still always better not to keep your seeds for too long, but to allow them to germinate within a shorter time. Opinions on this subject clearly differ. But since there are a lot of professionals who say there is a risk that you could harm the product in some way, why should you take that risk? A simple solution is to use tweezers when handling weed seeds. With tweezers, you can work neatly and precisely and you are sure that you will not leave any traces that can affect the quality of your seed.
Stick to our grow guides
Certainly, if you are just starting to grow weed, it is smart to keep a grow guide at hand. On the site of Amsterdam Marijuana Seeds you will find grow guides that you can consult for free. They are easy to follow guides that help you to get the best out of your plant in every growth phase. These grow guides are written by experienced, professional growers who know what they are talking about. If you follow the steps, the chance of errors is very small. Certainly, if you have just started breeding, there are a lot of pitfalls, and by sticking to the grow guides you can prevent these errors very easily. This keeps the cultivation your own cannabis plants fun and your whole growing adventure will certainly grow into a big success. And that's exactly why you started it in the first place, right?
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