Pruning

[Onetwothree]

i was wondering, how long do you guys wait into the 12/12 cycle before you pick off bud sites and immature/wimpy stems that aren't going to produce much bud/receive much light?

I've got two girls that were topped twice and trained throughout 6 weeks of veg so they are bushy as hell. I'm 2 weeks into 12/12 and there are several limbs that I feel like will amount to very little....I've got about 10 colas on both plants, and my logic was the sooner I pick off lower bud sites and prune off weakling limbs, the more energy/nutes will be diverted to the colas. So it's not exactly Lollipopping, more like preemptively removing material that's not going to amount to much.

Thoughts?

 

[mittenmedgrow]

Ideally I would have all pruning done by week 2 but I have gotten behind and prune all the way to week 3. I do my pruning in phases as to not stress the plant. I don't necessarily think you need to prune in phases if the plants are healthy, a healthy plant can take quite a bit of chopping and show no stress

 

[Onetwothree]

Thanks for the reply! I'm on my first grow, so I'm trying to eat up all the knowledge that I can from all you fine folks. So I'm not crazy? I just did a big pruning session last night, and was planning on doing the rest next week.

 

[Seamaiden]

I do it twice, usually at flip and then about 2-3 weeks post-flip, after they're done stretching. I consider the method you're describing to be akin to lollipopping, because my definition is removing poor potential bud sites.

To speak to mittenmedgrow's comment about how much one can remove, I've read, and put to practice myself, that you can easily remove 1/3 of the total above-ground plant material without causing harm to the plant. Removing just the bud sites shouldn't equate to quite that much.

 

[Onetwothree]

I do it twice, usually at flip and then about 2-3 weeks post-flip, after they're done stretching. I consider the method you're describing to be akin to lollipopping, because my definition is removing poor potential bud sites.

To speak to mittenmedgrow's comment about how much one can remove, I've read, and put to practice myself, that you can easily remove 1/3 of the total above-ground plant material without causing harm to the plant. Removing just the bud sites shouldn't equate to quite that much.

Excellent advice, thank you!

 

[Dunge]

I prune early and as often as my lazy ass will allow.
Any little sprig that I don't project growing into useful veg gets cut.
Lower branches are groomed for cloning or removed if needed clones are accounted for.
Taking out bud sites when they are small small small allows primary productivity to be assigned elsewhere.

 

[xavier7995]

I never really stop, but generally am all set by like week 3 or 4 after 12/12. There are always those questionable branches I hope will pan out, and I am just hard headed as they never do, but I just keep an eye on them until in a fit of sadness and rage i clip them.

 

[mittenmedgrow]

My theory on not pruning much in veg is that I do massive amounts of tying and supper cropping and most of my lowers become uppers and also I think that when I go into flowering I want the plant to have developed that extra root space and stem girth that it needed to support the extra branches. Then when I remove them that extra capacity that has developed is sent to what I left on the plant. Make sense?

 

[xavier7995]

My theory on not pruning much in veg is that I do massive amounts of tying and supper cropping and most of my lowers become uppers and also I think that when I go into flowering I want the plant to have developed that extra root space and stem girth that it needed to support the extra branches. Then when I remove them that extra capacity that has developed is sent to what I left on the plant. Make sense?

It does. I think the tying/cropping/etc. is the key there. I have some weird little vegging plants that I have topped a few times and good lord are they short and squat for being sativa dom. I was worried they were really outpacing everything and now have a flat bush going on so probably will not have to touch them again for a while.

Do you clone your clips? Kinda screwed myself over on clone material since they wound up being so even.

 

[mittenmedgrow]

I veg for awhile and grow decent sized plants , I don't top them just keep tying about once a week and super crop every couple days. Training and pruning would be different if I was growing small plants it would be different strategy. I generally cut many small clones and toss 80% of them I usually only grow a couple of each strain at once. I'll take ten small to medium size cuts and keep the two that are the best and toss the rest.

 

[Onetwothree]

You guys rock. Thanks for all this good info. @xavier7995 nice profile pic. That second album is still in heavy rotation!

 

[Panacea79]

I prune early and as often as my lazy ass will allow.
Any little sprig that I don't project growing into useful veg gets cut.
Lower branches are groomed for cloning or removed if needed clones are accounted for.
Taking out bud sites when they are small small small allows primary productivity to be assigned elsewhere.

I agree with not only taking off any large, lower FAN leaves but ALSO chopping any stupid little 4" long, spindly, thin branches that I already know aren't going to amount to anything useful and only serve to use NRG I'd rather have reserved for the main colas/upper branches. This is coming from my standpoint/current situation of: a) I'm growing autos that have JUST started preflowering within the last week or so, so I KNOW that these little branches aren't, like, "on their way to being large producers"; b) I'm growing in a fairly small tent (24"X24"X48") which, between the roughly 10" reserved vertically for the pot and about another 9" or so on the top taken up by my gull wing CFL reflector, which leaves me with a grand total of, say, 30" or so for my girls to vertically grow (another reason why I'm running with autos; cuz they tend to stay "smaller! But don't be fooled, if I didn't prune, LST, even c some of my previous grows I'm SURE some of these autos would've had NO PROBLEM reaching over 3 feet tall and 2 feet wide!!!!) Right now I have 2 Auto N. Lights from vision seeds that just started flowering along with a (hopefully female) REGULAR Aghani plant that I got as a freebie with an order that I was gonna do a trial outdoor guerilla grow, as I've never grown anything outdoors, but anyway....yeah I'm REALLYHAVING just reading EVERTHING I CAN on the forums in here regarding pruning, trimming, scrogging, LST'ing, etc. so that I can make the MOST of the small space I have...
Well, thanx for listening and KEEP EM GREEN, PURPLE, RED OR BLUE BUT, BOTTOM LINE....KEEP EM GROWIN'!!! PEACE!