Should I top or LST my plant, and when?

The best training move is usually earlier and softer than the one you're reaching for. Bending and tying a young, flexible plant, back around four to six nodes, costs her almost nothing. A top makes sense on a healthy plant with a couple of weeks or more of veg left. A hard top right before the flip mostly buys you a stall.

Training is timing and recovery, not aggression.

Why the late hard top backfires

Every cut is a pause. A top is a wound she has to seal, and taking out the main tip hands the lead to the shoots below it, which takes her time to reorganize. A healthy plant might sit roughly three to seven days, longer if she's lanky or slow. Do it right before the flip and she can spend the stretch, the exact window you wanted to fill the canopy, healing instead of expanding.

And a lot of legginess was never a training problem. Tall, thin growth with wide gaps between the nodes usually means the light is too far away or too weak. Top her for it and the cause is still there, so the new growth above the cut can stretch right back.

LST or top?

• Low stress training, bending and tying: spreads the canopy with almost no recovery cost. For most home grows it's the better default, and it's your safest move when time or vigor is short.

• Topping: for a healthy, well rooted plant with weeks of veg left, commonly by cutting just above the third to sixth node, once she has grown a node or two past it.

• Autoflowers: they run on a fixed clock with no veg to stretch out for recovery, so bend and guide them. Don't cut unless you know the plant and the timing cold.

The order to run before you touch her

1. Read her health and runway. Growing hard, well rooted, good color, two or more weeks of veg left: a light top is on the table. Pale, droopy, clawed, freshly transplanted or almost out of veg time: no high stress cut. Training steers vigor. It doesn't rescue a struggling plant.

2. Check the light before you blame her shape. Tall, thin and reaching is a light read before it's a training read. Bring the light closer or stronger gradually and aim for tight, compact new growth. Bending a stretchy plant spreads the stretch out, but it doesn't fix the light that caused it.

3. Match the move to the time and vigor you have. Healthy with weeks of veg left can take an early top. Short on time or vigor, choose low stress training.

4. Make one move, then stop. Wait for the rebound, tips turning back up, roughly a handful of days, before you decide the next thing.

5. Stop high stress training before the flip. A week or two out, up to three if she's slow or older, put the scissors in the drawer and let the stretch fill the shape you already set.

What not to do

Don't stack techniques. Top it, strip it, bend it and feed it heavy in the same week, and you don't get it over with faster. Each one asks for its own recovery, so stacking them tends to multiply the pause right when she should be building. One adjustment, let her show strong new growth, then decide again.

Don't top to fix a stretch. If the light is the reason she's tall, the cut changes nothing about the reason.

Don't wait for her to look like she needs training. By then the cheap, gentle version is gone. You don't force a plant into shape. You invite it while she's still soft enough to say yes.

When it's something else

• Thinking about pulling fan leaves too: see Should I cut the fan leaves?

• Deciding when to flip: see When should I flip to flower?

On our shelf in Worcester: Trellis netting, stakes and plant clips for training are in Plant support & training.

Keep going

Watch the episode: Leggy Plant Before Flower? Why Topping Late Is the Wrong Fix on MyRemy Live.

The best cut is the small one you make early. The whole system is written down in the free Stability Playbook. Get the free Stability Playbook