How Much Leaf Trimming is Too Much?

I have a crowded 3x7 grow space that is in its 7th week from seed / 1st week of flowering. 12 plants, mega bushed out, and not going to be able to implement a scrog. Ive noticed several budsites on the lower 8 inches of the plants that want to grow, but are shaded by huge leaves on the lower half of the plant.

I want to trim them of their large light-blocking leaves on the lower halves of the plants.

How much trimming is too much? And what can be some of the detrimental effects of trimming too many leaves from the lower half, to open up for more light to get through. Can I shock this thing into not wanting to bud properly?

All other factors look great - color, ph, ppms, temps, water, roots, etc...
Thanks in advance - I need this crop really bad - dont want to screw it up.

some pics would be nice to see exactly how cramped these plants are (prably pretty bad) why such the long veg?? i woudnt veg that long in a space that size ever. now for the trimming what you should do is lollypop them which is just actually removing the lower 1/3-1/2 of the plants branches and foliage (meaning the entire node and leaf its shooting from see pics below she was 8 week vegged) now this will help i wouldnt remove anything on the top as you will prably reduce your yield and dont do the entire trimming in one pass do it in a few through like the first 3-4 weeks of flower to reduce the stress on them as well.

drgreentm said:

some pics would be nice to see exactly how cramped these plants are (prably pretty bad) why such the long veg?? i woudnt veg that long in a space that size ever. now for the trimming what you should do is lollypop them which is just actually removing the lower 1/3-1/2 of the plants branches and foliage (meaning the entire node and leaf its shooting from see pics below she was 8 week vegged) now this will help i wouldnt remove anything on the top as you will prably reduce your yield and dont do the entire trimming in one pass do it in a few through like the first 3-4 weeks of flower to reduce the stress on them as well.

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Yes do what he said!

drgreentm said:

some pics would be nice to see exactly how cramped these plants are (prably pretty bad) why such the long veg?? i woudnt veg that long in a space that size ever. now for the trimming what you should do is lollypop them which is just actually removing the lower 1/3-1/2 of the plants branches and foliage (meaning the entire node and leaf its shooting from see pics below she was 8 week vegged) now this will help i wouldnt remove anything on the top as you will prably reduce your yield and dont do the entire trimming in one pass do it in a few through like the first 3-4 weeks of flower to reduce the stress on them as well.

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I hadnt planned on vegging that long. They were supposed to be feminized autoflowers, and I also (amateur mistake) had a couple of white widows in there. In the end of the sixth week I realized, the autos weren't flowering on their own, so I moved to 12/12 lighting and now everybody is starting to flower. I have pics but theyre under red spectrum LED lighting now, so its hard to see much, but yes, theyre crowded as fuck.

What would happen if the plant DID get stressed out. I wil try to space out the trimming down below, but what happens if the plant gets stressed?

his space looks bigger then a 5 foot tall 3 foot wide tent and ive heard to veg the plants till their 2 feet tall in that setting.

6 weeks from seed to get 2 feet tall seems like reasonable veg time :S

drgreentm said:

some pics would be nice to see exactly how cramped these plants are (prably pretty bad) why such the long veg?? i woudnt veg that long in a space that size ever. now for the trimming what you should do is lollypop them which is just actually removing the lower 1/3-1/2 of the plants branches and foliage (meaning the entire node and leaf its shooting from see pics below she was 8 week vegged) now this will help i wouldnt remove anything on the top as you will prably reduce your yield and dont do the entire trimming in one pass do it in a few through like the first 3-4 weeks of flower to reduce the stress on them as well.

Click to expand...

He's got a journal grow in the same area of the forums here with pics and yes they look pretty crowded.

I agree with lollipopping pruning for maximizing his space used but I think he could get away with doing it all in 1-2 days (bottom 1/3 of his plant). This is precisely what I did with 1/2 of my plants and the only noticeable difference was 1 week delayed harvest time (this could have been due to the fact that the main colas for the pruned plants were much larger however).

DemontauruS said:

What would happen if the plant DID get stressed out. I wil try to space out the trimming down below, but what happens if the plant gets stressed?

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Well your plant could become a hermaphrodite from stress but I don't think it's likely with a small amount of pruning. Other than that I think the only thing pruning stress will do is delay your ending harvest time.

DemontauruS said:

I hadnt planned on vegging that long. They were supposed to be feminized autoflowers, and I also (amateur mistake) had a couple of white widows in there. In the end of the sixth week I realized, the autos weren't flowering on their own, so I moved to 12/12 lighting and now everybody is starting to flower. I have pics but theyre under red spectrum LED lighting now, so its hard to see much, but yes, theyre crowded as fuck.

What would happen if the plant DID get stressed out. I wil try to space out the trimming down below, but what happens if the plant gets stressed?

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if to stressed while flowering it could reduce yield and the like everyone else said the plant (if to damaged or stressed) could halt its flower production for a while while it tries to recuperate and heal itself. its not to hard to just remove 2 or 3 branches from each plant every other day that way your plants dont even know whats going on. i remove up to the 4th week of flower and my white widows are usually well into flower so the lowers i am cutting are already little flowers (which is fine) i wouldnt prune a my plants in 1-2 days but then again my entire op is perpetual so i have strict time schedules that have to be met and i couldnt afford to have a batch going over its harvest date.

filtereye said:

his space looks bigger then a 5 foot tall 3 foot wide tent and ive heard to veg the plants till their 2 feet tall in that setting.

6 weeks from seed to get 2 feet tall seems like reasonable veg time :S

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i havent seen his grow space so from what im getting (information wise) is if the space is crowded you could do one of 2 things next time
1.less plants that are larger (long veg times)
2.same amount of plants with less veg time (take up less space)

I have six plants in 4X4X8 cab that were vegged for a really long time and were a huge forest going into flowering I slowly trimmed here and there strategically.
I also lollipopped them early on in flowering and popcorn buds grew all over right after.
I am not trying to push my thread but if you want to look you can see how it's working for me.
See sig if interested.
80 days vegging, 59 days into flowering.

In reply to all: thx for the info and experience

Here are pics below. I measured the grow space.
Its 2.5 feet deep - 6.5 feet wide

In the pics I tried to take pics of the main cola flower sites.
Been flowering 7 days
Veg'd 41 days
for a total of 48 days growth

Pray to Jah for me - I smoke everyday, and havent had anything for 2 months...
I need some buddys



The taller guys in the back corner are White Widows (mystery sex - I think they look female - can anyone confirm?)

The shorties are all the Bubblator Ice feminized autoflowers

There's one bag seed off the the front right of the space that spindly and taller - thinking thats a female too. See no signs of balls (those little male flowers)

I would leave em alone for a while (like a week) and by then some bud sites should be showing a lot more and you can like I said trim a little here and there.
You have around 8 weeks more to go minimum. Lollipopping is best to do early as those fan leaves are just taking 'energy' for nothing (in a jungle type environment) then as you get along in weeks you start to trim away the upper leaves to allow light through to the whole crop.
Where I'm at in my grow, 9th week of flowering I have very few fan leaves left and all (I mean all) branches are covered with buds.

@ DemontauruS Are those LED lights you're using for that grow? And if they are, are they the 300 watt LED's from ledwholesalers? I have one but I've yet to use it as it seems to be more of a red spectrum.

Brian11543 said:

@ DemontauruS Are those LED lights you're using for that grow? And if they are, are they the 300 watt LED's from ledwholesalers? I have one but I've yet to use it as it seems to be more of a red spectrum.

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Yes 357 Magnums, and its full spec. They run a strong blue/green/yellow spectrum, and a strong red. I ran both during veg. Kick ass light.