Issue #661 - Sunday, December 22, 2024 Greetings Fellow Grower, - Lollipopping is power! That might sound a bit dramatic, but it's true. Learning how to effectively Lollipop your cannabis plants gives you the ability to transmute lower larfy bud into bulk for your top buds! You gain higher yields and greater
potency with the same amount of electricity.
- Take advantage of living in the future. As growers, we have access to an insane level of technology. The nutrients, the lighting, and the strains have progressed far beyond what growers in the 70s probably imagined. Luckily for you, you're here in 2024 and can take advantage of all that technological progress!
- Chubby cheeba, ahoy! One of our readers has grown a little chunkster
organic cannabis plant and it brought a smile to our faces. Check out the pictures in the "Weekly Plant Spotlight" and see if you also get a smile brought to your face.
Nebula Haze & Sirius Fourside
Co-Founders, GrowWeedEasy.com
"Be content to seem what you really are." ~Marcus Aurelius
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Lollipopping Cannabis: How to Do It Right! by Nebula Haze
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Click here to view the full article on GrowWeedEasy.com To “lollipop” a growing cannabis plant means to remove most growth from the bottom of the plant that
isn’t getting light. With lollipopping, the cannabis grower leaves the top of the plant untouched, so it’s full on top and bare on bottom, like a lollipop. The lollipopping technique leaves the cannabis plant resembling a lollipop—full on top, bare on the bottom
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Why lollipop your marijuana plant? It forces the plant to put more energy into the top buds, resulting in bigger, longer, and more dense top buds. As a bonus, lollipopping stops a cannabis plant from wasting energy on buds lower on the plant (which typically don’t get big and are less potent than the top buds on average). This marijuana lollipopping tutorial will teach you how to increase your
cannabis yields and bud quality using the lollipop technique. “Lollipopping” cannabis means removing bottom growth so that the marijuana plant puts more energy into the bud sites at the top. With these lollipopped cannabis plants, the bottom growth has been removed to allow the main buds to get all the light and energy. Lollipopped marijuana plants tend to put more “effort” into the top buds, which is what you want (top buds are typically the biggest and most potent buds on a cannabis plant). Lollipopping is a good choice when your cannabis plant is so tall that the light from your grow light doesn’t reach the bottom leaves at all. For example, if you have a small grow light with a tall plant, it’s likely the bottom leaves are in total darkness. These leaves do nothing for your plant as far as photosynthesis or bud building, and if they’re removed, your plant will put more energy into other more
productive parts of the plant. Example of lollipopping an untrained cannabis plant
This cannabis plant was grown naturally and it looked like this right before it was put into the flowering stage. It is a perfect candidate for lollipopping. Soon after the cannabis plant started making buds, the grower noticed the bottom buds weren’t getting any light, and as a result, they weren’t getting bigger. In order to help the plant focus on the top buds, the grower removed all the lower bud sites and leaves (“lollipopped the cannabis plant”). That cannabis plant just before harvest. As you can see, every part of the plant is completely filled with buds, though notice how even though it’s been lollipopped, all the biggest buds are still at the top. When you’re a cannabis grower, your goal is to try to maximize your top buds, as those are typically the biggest and most potent buds on the plant. Learn the trifecta – how to train, defoliate, and lollipop like a pro! How to Lollipop Cannabis for the Higher Yields
This isn’t the only way to lollipop cannabis plants, but this is the method I use and it works well for me. Step 1: Wait until just before the plants start flowering (making
buds)
I have had the best results lollipopping cannabis right before the switch to the flowering stage. Growers don’t typically need to lollipop in the vegetative stage, unless you haven’t trained your plant and it’s gotten very tall or out of control, leaving some leaves in total shadow. Photoperiod plants: Lollipop plants 0-3 weeks after initiating 12/12. I usually do it right as I initiate 12/12, though I’ve also waited a few weeks. So far, I
haven’t noticed that it seems to make much difference if you do it right at 12/12 vs a few weeks later. However, never lollipop an unhealthy or slow-growing plant to prevent stressing it out further. Autoflowering plants: Autoflowering plants often don’t get out-of-control enough to need to lollipopping. If the light is strong and can already get to the bottom of the plant, there is no need to do anything. However, if you’ve got a big autoflowering plant (or a
weak grow light) I recommend lollipopping autos right as the buds start forming, like in the picture below. The best time to lollipop is right around the beginning of the cannabis budding phase, while the plant is still growing vegetatively and before buds have fully formed. Step 2: Remove all the leaves and vegetation that will never get light
Cannabis growers call the technique “lollipopping” because you’re making the bottom bare like a lollipop stick 🙂 But keep in mind that removing too many bud sites can hurt your yields. When in doubt, it’s better to remove too little and come back
to it later. You can always take more leaves, but you can’t put them back! That's it!
At that point, you just continue taking care of your cannabis plant (giving a good environment, keeping buds from getting too hot, watering regularly, and ensuring it doesn’t have any nutrient deficiencies). Extra Cannabis Lollipopping Tips and Tricks
When you train cannabis plants to grow short and wide, combined with using a strong grow light, you may not need to lollipop much at all because the light will already penetrate deep into the plant. This grower stripped all the bud sites from the bottom of the plant while lollipopping, resulting in shortened colas. I’ve done this, too! His yield would have been bigger if he’d allowed those bud sites to continue further down on each stem. To prevent the problem with the plant above, avoid removing or damaging future bud sites, except for those at the very bottom. It’s easy to accidentally damage bud sites when they’re just tiny pre-flowers like this one, so be extra careful when removing leaves if you’re not also trying to stop the bud from growing. Experiment with different amounts of lollipopping to see what’s best for you! However, keep in mind… - Fluorescent grow lights don’t penetrate as deeply as more powerful lights. As a result, it makes a lot of sense to lollipop plants that have gotten
taller than the lights can reach.
- LED, HPS, and LEC grow lights all penetrate much more deeply into the canopy, which means you will get big buds that go deep. As a result, you should remove less leaves and growth from plants grown under these lights when you’re lollipopping. You don’t want to remove growth that is already getting strong direct light as it will turn into buds!
- Learn my exact technique from seed to harvest on how to train, defoliate, and lollipop!
Let There Be Light...
Even At the Bottom of the Plant! Lollipopping is about efficiency. It lets you get rid of small larfy bud at the bottom of your plant in favor of the bigger big on top. But what if even the lower buds could make chunky nugs? Modern LEDs like the 350R Diablo by HLG can get good amounts of light lower on the plant so that you end up with fewer wispy buds on the bottom. Instead, you get buds that will thicken and reach for the top of the
canopy. Between lollipopping and a good LED light the HLG 350R, you can end up with nothing but top-tier-looking
buds all the way down your plants. Mmm...Are These Fresh Baked?Can you smell that? Is someone baking? If you're growing Platinum Cookies, there will definitely be baking your future! Platinum Cookies plants grow a ton of chunky nugs that smell as good as they smoke. There are stronger strains available, but this one hits a sweet spot of being potent, but not so potent that you can't get
out and do something fun.
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📸 Weekly Plant Spotlight: They're ready for their close-up!
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"Purple lemonade on the left, strawberry gorilla on the right. 5 gallon pots, in coco loco with natures living soil in the bottom 1/3. Spider farmer sf 2000 and sf1000 for 300 watts. Plants grew fast with absolutely no problems and the buds are fat and very dense. I did top dress with Gia green bloom twice once they went into flower. Thank you so much for tuning me on to natures living soil, I love it!" ~Bigg Dee "Organic buds always come out a bit smaller than ones fed with nutrients, but they're worth it. These look as dense as lead and I know that they're going to taste and smell fantastic. 🏆" ~Sirius
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Recommended Cannabis Seed Sources
These sources have gotten great reviews from our readers:
- Seed Supreme – Florida, United States
- ILGM (I Love Growing Marijuana) – California, United States
- North Atlantic Seed Co. – Maine, United States
- DNA Genetics – Netherlands (with US centers)
- Seedsman – Ships from US & Europe
- MSNL – Netherlands bank with shipping centers in the US, Canada, and UK.
GrowWeedEasy.com has hundreds and hundreds of pages! Check out more resources related to today's main theme of growing weed with a smooth experience. - Low-Stress Training
(LST) Tutorial - If you're comfortable enough with cannabis plants to try lollipopping, then you should definitely be employing some LST (Low-Stress Training) in your grows as well. It's much more gentle than lollippopping and it helps increase yields in a similar way.
- Topping vs FIMing Cannabis Tutorial - This is
another free technique you can use to train your cannabis plants. Using either of these techniques will stop your plants from growing in that inefficient Christmas tree shape.
- Simplest Cannabis Plant Training Guide - Nebula wrote this article for people who want as many of the benefits of
training their plants with as little work/knowledge as possible. That's not bad or an insult; I salute you growers who choose to maximize efficiency ahead of anything else.
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Check out our friendly growing community to ask questions, discuss your grow, share pictures, or otherwise talk about growing cannabis with other real growers! Ask Questions & Talk with Other Growers! Please note: We let each person in manually, so please be patient after you request to join. We'll let you in as soon as possible!
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Who Runs This Newsletter?
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Nebula Haze: When I first started growing, I struggled. Now, it is my mission to make it easy for new growers to get started while helping advanced growers get bigger, better yields with less time and money. We update/add articles every week. Anyone and everyone can grow if they want to! Learn which seed sources are recommended by Nebula Haze Sirius Fourside: Sirius Fourside is a hobbyist grower who has gained the bulk of his experience growing in water as a medium (deep water culture, bubbleponics). "Growing
cannabis can be a relaxing hobby in and of itself, but it also saves you money and keeps you from having to deal with shady characters. Cannabis is much easier to grow than people give it credit for, and growing in water doesn't increase the difficulty much, if any. But whether you want to grow in water, coco, or a different medium, we'll show you how easy it can be!" Copyright (c) 2024 GrowWeedEasy.com NOTE: If links aren't working or if pictures are not showing up properly, please view the full newsletter here: http://archive.aweber.com/gwe-updates Disclaimer: Grow Weed Easy only recommends products that we've either personally checked out ourselves, or that come from people we know and trust. For doing so, we may receive a commission. Nothing in this e-mail should be considered personalized Financial, Legal, or Medical Advice. The contributors to this magazine grow legally under their local laws but are not lawyers or medical professionals. Any decision to grow
marijuana should only be made after consulting with an experienced lawyer or other legal adviser. Any medical decisions should only be made after speaking with a doctor. Be safe! How Did I Sign Up For This Newsletter? Our records indicate that requested to be added to the GrowWeedEasy.com weekly newsletter at . Date: December 26, 2024
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