It is your choice as long as you understand it will cost you production.

Sounds as if better cages are needed especially since it is normally a much taller plant ranging 8 feet easily and most of us just let the extra growth drape down over the outside of the 6' cages and keep on growing. Circulating the needed water and nutrients poses no problem for the plant. It just grows more back up systems. :)

Many discussions here about 'topping' and what happens to the growth if you do it. Unfortunately "bushing out" isn't what happens with indeterminates as those lower nodes are already sealed off. it just stimulates new top growth - usually doubled from the nodes just below the cut.

Dave

OK. I think the point is that topping won't encourage bushing out. That's a bit surprising, as there are plenty of suckers, and I would have thought that topping would just encourage them to grow more. I wasn't expecting lots of new suckers to form.

As I said, there are no incentives in this climate for letting the plant grow very tall. When the summer heat gets fierce, it's the heat that effectively "tops" the plant. I see that on many plants.

With my hybrid cages, I can manage 6 feet, which is probably where I'll lop them off.