Fimming Cannabis

Controlling The Canopy By Fimming Cannabis

When growing Marijuana, it is essential that as a grower you have some form of canopy control. In this video tutorial by Grow420guide, you learn one way of super cropping your plants by a technique known as fimming. A big problem that many growers face, especially with Sativa dominant strains, is unwanted tall plants. By watching this tutorial, you will see how removing around 80% of the growing tip will lead to wide bushy plants.

Flip I Missed!

Often mistakenly called supercropping, the name fimming came from the phrase “Flip..I Missed“ which means that not all of the shoot was successfully removed. When removing the entire tip, new shoots form and the plant will grow two shoots. By fimming the plant and leaving a small part of the shoot still on, the plant will actually stop growing vertically and begin to promote vigorous growth in the lower parts of the plant as the top recovers from the fimming. Before fimming was well known, the grower would think that they had removed the tip completely with the intention of growing two shoots, only to discover that the top shoot still remained and kept growing, while the rest of the canopy benefited. People have been growing this way successfully for many years now and it has become an easy to do, well established Marijuana growing technique..

Promote Bushy Plants By Fimming

When growing Marijuana, if you have plants that are growing tall and quickly then fimming actually promotes bushy plants and focuses the plant’s energy on the lower parts below where the fimming took place. The plant will usually resume growing vertically after a week or so once it has regrown the apical tip. In the meantime all of the lower growth has been accelerated. When the plant begins to grow together, the canopy is much more bushy and vigorous. Plants that have been fimmed are ideal for scrogging or sea of green set ups. Fimming is also a good idea when working with mother plants that will be used to take clones from. The clones will be more abundant and there will be more lower growth to select from which is also why people often confuse this technique with super cropping.

Fimming Will Slow Top Growth Down

There are growth hormones called Auxins that are responsible for what is called ‘Apical Dominance‘. Because there is an increased concentration of auxins in the apical tip of a plant, the plant will direct a large amount of energy towards this tip. Disrupting the top shoot can cause a cease in Auxin production and promote other hormones to work within the plant. Removing around 80% of the apical tip will cause a plant to become bushy. The next step could be to then do the same with the new growth until the canopy is thick and lush with new evenly balanced growth. When you are using techniques such as fimming it often is advised to vegetatively grow the plants for a longer period of time to allow the growth to recover and grow back, especially if you are using this technique more than once on the same plant.

Leave 20% Of The Shoot

The reason why you must leave around 10-20% of the top shoot on is to slow down top growth. If you were to remove the entire top shoot, the effect would be different in the sense that the bottom parts of the plant would certainly improve, however the new top shoots would require around 14 days to grow to a similar size as the removed top. By fimming you are giving the plants a week to recover and grow at full speed until the top grows back and new shoots form. Incorporating fimming in your grow rooms will benefit your plants massively when growing Marijuana.