Mainline Method High Suckers Trimmed or leave?

Hey Y’all,

First grow. 6x Nirvanna Blackjack. 4x8 tent. 4x 230 watt led panels. Drain to waste in pro mix.

I am abt 2 weeks into flower. I have already trimmed back majority of suckers below the canopy. However each main bud site has two suckers coming up. I was hoping these wouldn’t stretch as much as they have but now worried they are going to be larfy or block light from the main cola. But I have no idea how these are actually going to end up. Pics are worth a 1000 words. Trim or leave?

and btw the white rings are bucket lids I put in to spread out the main branches. Stand in for wire cages.

thanks guys.

They look good, I'd leave it as it is.

I personally would strip off those lower leaves and the next node up from those lower leaves. I mainlined mine and spent time doing some Low Stress Training (LST). You’re trying to focus the energy of the plant on growing the main colas on each branch. If you leave too many lower limbs and big fan leaves you’re almost defeating the purpose of mainlining.

The plants look good and healthy though. Definitely keep hitting them with fan air to beef up your branches (oscillating Hurricane fans work wonders). I wanted to develop good sized branches so I vegged mine longer with a fan to build those pipes to send nutrients to the main colas when in bloom.

I’m also experimenting with mainlining. I have plants with 8 main lines. I also did a plant with 2 lines, but left almost all of the nodes to grow on each line. (See the bottom pic, plant in the middle). I’m just curious to see which way gets more yield. Fun stuff.

Decided to give them another hard trim and agree things were starting to look a little crowded For what my end goal is, which is more or less what you have in your pics.

I would leave them but strip the fan leaves on day 20 of bloom to get more light to the lower colas. Good job so far they look real healthy.

Update: 23 days into 12/12. I have been trimming things back pretty aggressively. Mostly taking fan leaves but also clearing out lower nodes that are competing with the main colas. I think looking good so far, but making it up as I go.

What @Quintana said. And their avatar rocks. "Nobody fucks with the Jesus"

Mktoizzo said:

Update: 23 days into 12/12. I have been trimming things back pretty aggressively. Mostly taking fan leaves but also clearing out lower nodes that are competing with the main colas. I think looking good so far, but making it up as I go.

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DOn't mess with the plants after 3 weeks of bloom your asking for problems. They look good let them swell up now.

Willy B. Goode said:

What @Quintana said. And their avatar rocks. "Nobody fucks with the Jesus"

Click to expand...

You said it man. Ha!

Yeah being your first grow you may wanna leave as many fans as possible and just trim the new growth out of the nodes above those fan leaves. I personally like to trim all new growth below the 3rd node when going to flower.

@Quintana - how long did you veg those monsters? I did 8 weeks and let them rip but will try 12 weeks later after summer when I start up a new run.

A few weeks out still.