There's a story to all of this, so here goes.
I was looking up some info on different auto-watering hempy/dutch/bato buckets, and ended up down a rabbit hole. I ended up on an r/ of the autoflower variety, and came across something very, very interesting.
A bound and gagged gorilla glue that forgot the safe word, and ended up in a manifold (aka mainline). With 16 tops ready to go, all grown by a poster going by DankSquared2. OK, so far nothing out of the ordinary. We've all seen plants trained like that, big whoop right?
Here's a pic that went with it.
This pic is not my work. This pic is from DankSquared.
OK, nice training. Looks like your typical manifold/mainline training. But wait, there's more.
This gorilla glue is from Fast Buds.
Wait, wut? Fast Buds? But that's an auto flower!
Yes, yes it is. (Allegedly.)
And the claim is that this plant is 5 weeks old to the day when the photo was taken.
The basics are that it was initially topped like for a quadline. (Topped between 4 & 5, keep 3 & 4, chop 1 & 2.) Then each of those were topped after the first branched node (making 8 total), and each of those were also topped after their first branched node (making 16 total.) So 3 rounds of topping, everything stripped out to the tips, and all in a 5 week period.
Wait, on an auto?
Yes. The poster claims that by continually jacking with the plant by removing old growth, it delays the internal flip of hormones from veg to flower. The short of it is to continue forcing the plant to create new growth. First waiting until you have the 5th node and can top, then taking the bottom 2 nodes. Then as you work your way out and top the next two times, you're also taking fans and such. Thus the plant is trying to create new growth before it flips itself to flower.
Now these are not my claims. I'm just passing it along for discussion.
My own observations with my current run of autos:
However, I am noticing with my current batch of autos that there may be some reality to this. For example, on my Auto Lemon Drop (auto version of Super Lemon Haze), I kept thinning her pretty often as she was just pure cabbage. Bushy AF is an understatement. She sprouted on 11/1, and didn't start flowering until a couple days ago.
Three of the other autos in the group (5 total) started flowering about the same time around 12/16-12/18. While they all had some defol, not to the extent of the Lemon Drop. Even still, they vegged at least 5 weeks, if not close to 6.
The final auto started flowering about 12/26, which was just about 4 weeks from sprout (sprout on 11/18.) So she flowered the fasted from seed, but also had the least amount of being messed with. (I was pre-occupied with the RDWC, and was barely keeping up with her training.)
All 5 of these autos were topped as soon as possible when the growth above the 4th node was enough to clip, and then two days later the bottom nodes (1 & 2) were removed. After that, they all received various amounts of defol as needed.
I would venture to say that some of this may be dependent on genetics. The poster posing this information was mentioning FastBuds a good bit, as well as pushing their instagram pretty hard. I don't have a login there, so could only see some of their work, however it looked legit. Enough to pique my interest and wondering if there may be more to this whole topping thing than we may be admitting to.
I may have to experiment with this and see, just to satisfy my own curiosity.
I did notice that with the one strain that went into flower the quickest, it was also the one which had the least attention to its training. It was topped and set up to quad, wasn't bushy and really in need of any fan removal, and progressed right into flower pretty quickly. Quickly enough that I was surprised to see flowers on her already, as she was the last seed to pop (Mexican Airlines), and the first seed popped wasn't even flowering at that point (Auto Lemon Drop.)
If the breeders flowering estimate is even halfway accurate 9-11 weeks), the Lemon Drop will have sprouted on 11/1 and will complete it's 9th week of flowering on 3/4, and if it went a full 11 weeks would be 3/18, and will have went 4.5 months (139 days, almost 20 weeks) at that point.
It is this time frame and attention differences that leads me to think that there may be at least some possibility to this.
I was looking up some info on different auto-watering hempy/dutch/bato buckets, and ended up down a rabbit hole. I ended up on an r/ of the autoflower variety, and came across something very, very interesting.
A bound and gagged gorilla glue that forgot the safe word, and ended up in a manifold (aka mainline). With 16 tops ready to go, all grown by a poster going by DankSquared2. OK, so far nothing out of the ordinary. We've all seen plants trained like that, big whoop right?
Here's a pic that went with it.
This pic is not my work. This pic is from DankSquared.
OK, nice training. Looks like your typical manifold/mainline training. But wait, there's more.
This gorilla glue is from Fast Buds.
Wait, wut? Fast Buds? But that's an auto flower!
Yes, yes it is. (Allegedly.)
And the claim is that this plant is 5 weeks old to the day when the photo was taken.
The basics are that it was initially topped like for a quadline. (Topped between 4 & 5, keep 3 & 4, chop 1 & 2.) Then each of those were topped after the first branched node (making 8 total), and each of those were also topped after their first branched node (making 16 total.) So 3 rounds of topping, everything stripped out to the tips, and all in a 5 week period.
Wait, on an auto?
Yes. The poster claims that by continually jacking with the plant by removing old growth, it delays the internal flip of hormones from veg to flower. The short of it is to continue forcing the plant to create new growth. First waiting until you have the 5th node and can top, then taking the bottom 2 nodes. Then as you work your way out and top the next two times, you're also taking fans and such. Thus the plant is trying to create new growth before it flips itself to flower.
Now these are not my claims. I'm just passing it along for discussion.
My own observations with my current run of autos:
However, I am noticing with my current batch of autos that there may be some reality to this. For example, on my Auto Lemon Drop (auto version of Super Lemon Haze), I kept thinning her pretty often as she was just pure cabbage. Bushy AF is an understatement. She sprouted on 11/1, and didn't start flowering until a couple days ago.
Three of the other autos in the group (5 total) started flowering about the same time around 12/16-12/18. While they all had some defol, not to the extent of the Lemon Drop. Even still, they vegged at least 5 weeks, if not close to 6.
The final auto started flowering about 12/26, which was just about 4 weeks from sprout (sprout on 11/18.) So she flowered the fasted from seed, but also had the least amount of being messed with. (I was pre-occupied with the RDWC, and was barely keeping up with her training.)
All 5 of these autos were topped as soon as possible when the growth above the 4th node was enough to clip, and then two days later the bottom nodes (1 & 2) were removed. After that, they all received various amounts of defol as needed.
I would venture to say that some of this may be dependent on genetics. The poster posing this information was mentioning FastBuds a good bit, as well as pushing their instagram pretty hard. I don't have a login there, so could only see some of their work, however it looked legit. Enough to pique my interest and wondering if there may be more to this whole topping thing than we may be admitting to.
I may have to experiment with this and see, just to satisfy my own curiosity.
I did notice that with the one strain that went into flower the quickest, it was also the one which had the least attention to its training. It was topped and set up to quad, wasn't bushy and really in need of any fan removal, and progressed right into flower pretty quickly. Quickly enough that I was surprised to see flowers on her already, as she was the last seed to pop (Mexican Airlines), and the first seed popped wasn't even flowering at that point (Auto Lemon Drop.)
If the breeders flowering estimate is even halfway accurate 9-11 weeks), the Lemon Drop will have sprouted on 11/1 and will complete it's 9th week of flowering on 3/4, and if it went a full 11 weeks would be 3/18, and will have went 4.5 months (139 days, almost 20 weeks) at that point.
It is this time frame and attention differences that leads me to think that there may be at least some possibility to this.
) 
Cheers
