Pruning questions

wheelyman

Well-Known Member
What do you guys do with the spindly small branches that are in the lower parts of the plant, and some of the offshoot branches that will have tiny bud sites?

Do you just let everything go and make hash out of the small buds , or do you trim them and let the plant grow just big buds?

And, what week do you do so, if at all?

I usually end up with half subpar quality, while the tops are prime. Looking for some help from fellow growmies.
The last two photos are my other plant. VERY dense vegetation.
 

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Er3

Well-Known Member
Pretty good looking ladies there!! I chop that lower stuff myself but not too much. At this point I'd let what you have roll on
 

Delps8

Well-Known Member
100% agree! Is it too late to trim, being that it's in stretch? And should I go little at a bit? Will cutting all the bottom off at once shock it, being an auto?
Leave them alone. It's a healthy, well shaped plant so I can tell that a you've given it a fair amount of light but I would give it more light. The plant is not compact and bushy so it hasn't been grown with a light with a lot of blue in the spectrum and hasn't been grown in "high light" conditions.

Growers love to futz with their grows and it's unfortunate because the plant just wants to be all it can be. The only time I remove leaves is when they're senescing, when they're damaged, or when leaves under the canopy are blocking air flow (which should not happen if you put fans under your canopy).

Though I would love to see a reasoned argument to support the idea of removing leaves to let light hit the bud sites, the counter arguments are pretty convincing (I wrote a couple of paragraphs of counter argument if you're interested).

Like the other posters, I remove the scrawny stuff in the underbrush because a cannabis plant that's well fed (light) and well tended produces so much weed that the larf underneath is a PITA. One guideline I learned on another site to remove any stem that is thinner than a pencil. That's worked pretty well for me.

Cannabis is a light whore loves light and will grow, in ambient CO2, in light levels of well over 1000µmol. I grow my autos at 80+ DLI and my last photo grow was 1150µmol±. Simple reason - assuming that your plant can use that much light, the more light you give them, the more glucose they'l generate, and so you will get a larger, higher quality crop.

[checks the pictures again]
Yeh, those plants are in great shape. Very nice.

Increase your light levels* and keep doing everything else that you're doing.


*$32 for a Uni-T lux meter is money well spent to get your plants to the light saturation point quickly but, without a meter, you can turn up the dimmer until you start to see signs of too much light - tacoing leaves or leaves that rotate so that they're vertical to the light - and then back off a little. It's much easier with a meter but you can get there without it.
 

wheelyman

Well-Known Member
Leave them alone. It's a healthy, well shaped plant so I can tell that a you've given it a fair amount of light but I would give it more light. The plant is not compact and bushy so it hasn't been grown with a light with a lot of blue in the spectrum and hasn't been grown in "high light" conditions.



Like the other posters, I remove the scrawny stuff in the underbrush because a cannabis plant that's well fed (light) and well tended produces so much weed that the larf underneath is a PITA. One guideline I learned on another site to remove any stem that is thinner than a pencil. That's worked pretty well for me.
Mars TSL2000. I read 40-50 DLI is the sweet spot. Is that incorrect? Does that light not have enough red?

I didn’t see your reply until after tending to the plants. Ironically, I raised the light a bit because the tops were looking stressed.

regarding removing buds and stems, my question is when? I know it’s too late now. Included our pictures of where they are today. I seem to always get them to compact. Too many side branches with little buds.

It’s a learning process. I’m being patient. I just seem to be making the same mistakes.
 

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Delps8

Well-Known Member
Mars TSL2000. I read 40-50 DLI is the sweet spot. Is that incorrect? Does that light not have enough red?

I didn’t see your reply until after tending to the plants. Ironically, I raised the light a bit because the tops were looking stressed.

regarding removing buds and stems, my question is when? I know it’s too late now. Included our pictures of where they are today. I seem to always get them to compact. Too many side branches with little buds.

It’s a learning process. I’m being patient. I just seem to be making the same mistakes.
mistakes" - eh, I don't see evidence of mistakes. Your plants are doing really well and these discussions will, hopefully, get move things to "great".

"sweet spot" - I grow my autos at a DLI of 80± because that's the DLI for 1kµmol at 20/4 (or so - it's been a few years since I grew an auto). Photos in flower generally get 40mol but I think I've done 41 or 42. My goal is to get as much light on that plant as it can use because that's how it grows the fastest. I use that approach because I've spent a lot of time reading research into growing cannabis and the research indicates that's the approach that ends up with the highest yields.

"enough red" - if that's the light you've got, it's got enough red. :-)

Lights for a small tent generally have a fair amount of blue because that will tend to keep plants smaller and bushier which means they won't outgrow the tent.

Ah ha, that's for a 2' x 4' tent (same here!) - that spectrum has more blue than I'd like but, if that's the light you've got…

No doubt about it, you can get a great crop with that light. Great equipment helps but a grower can still f*ck things up — I completely hosed my last grow even with "top of the line" veg and flower LED grow lights and my OC approach to grow lighting.

I don't clean up the under carriage until about the second week of flower. Prior to that, the leaves on the plant are all playing a part in building the "infrastructure" so I let them contribute to that. After week two of flower, the plant has completed vegetative growth so I remove them. My focus is on harvesting flower so the buds under the canopy are of no value to me.

Lots of branches is a characteristic of as plant that has received good amounts of light - lots of branches, lots of small leaves, and limited internodal space.

The plant below, a photoperiod, is probably the best shaped plant I've grown. It was topped and LST'd using fishing weights. I've toyed with the idea of mainlining/manifolding but chicken out. :-) I think it's a good shape to emulate, if you've got room in the tent, of course.

IMG_0174.jpeg


The canopy is very even. These are the PPFD values on the canopy which were taken at the high points of the canopy, starting in the left rear, left center, left front, center rear, center center, etc.

A lot of those variances are a function of the light, eg the last four readings were all on the right end of the light where the output falls quite a bit.

1721325238011.png
 

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Delps8

Well-Known Member
I would trim the lower third and selective thin the uppers.. Needs more air flow..
Agree, especially that last bit.

The plant in the photo I just posted had a couple of fans under the hood but it wasn't enough — I got hit by bud rot two days prior to chop date. It was my first photo after five auto grows where 20 hours of light pretty much eliminates the chances of bud rot so I just wasn't taking enough care to keep air moving. Ref my comment about f'ing up a grow.
 

wheelyman

Well-Known Member
Wow thanks for the props as well as quick replies.

So the consensus is to trim up the bottom? What about the small bud sites up the lower branches? And it’s time to do so now?
 

Delps8

Well-Known Member
Wow thanks for the props as well as quick replies.

So the consensus is to trim up the bottom? What about the small bud sites up the lower branches? And it’s time to do so now?
For me, yes. I remove the larf from the underneath but I am loathe to remove leaves until they've sensesced (the plant migrates nutrients from the lower, older leaves to new growth); unless they're very old (because leaves that are 50 days± are becoming photosynthetically inefficient); or they're badly damaged; or they're blocking air flow. Other than that, I don't remove them because leaves are used to make food via photosynthesis or, if they're not getting light, they're used by the plant for transpiration.

Branches that are thin, for a given plant, and that have nothing but larf on them get cut off.

Timing - it looks like you're just starting to bud, right? The general guideline of second week in flower has been about right. At the point, the plant has finished building out and the buds will start their rapid growth phase.
 

wheelyman

Well-Known Member
I didn’t keep track of the weeks this time; I got ill and needed to be hospitalized. Long story. Big mess.
I noticed pistils on the 7th of this month, and the stretch start. Think it’s okay to do now?

i feel like I’d stunt the development. No?
 
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wheelyman

Well-Known Member
Using Jack’s 321, been full strength all along. First time using Jack’s. However, this often happens when I get into flower. The leaves start bleaching, I see a couple rust spots which look like a magnesium deficiency if I’m correct?

I almost always have great plants up until flower, and then something tanks. If you guys can identify, diagnose, and get me back on the right track I would be so grateful. Thank you.

@Delps8
 

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Delps8

Well-Known Member
I didn’t keep track of the weeks this time; I got ill and needed to be hospitalized. Long story. Big mess.
I noticed pistils on the 7th of this month, and the stretch start. Think it’s okay to do now?

i feel like I’d stunt the development. No?
If they started flower on 7/7, you're about 2 weeks in so my thinking is that you'll be fine but use a light touch. And there's no reason to not continue to keep things tidy underneath. The big win is that you've got a great looking set of leaves - lots of leaves and branches. Those are signs of a plant that's been fed well (lots of light).

Re. hospital - glad you "walked out". I had quite casts and stitches along the way (US Army) and had my hips replaced as well as an MI (three cheers for stents!). I'll be 68 a couple of months and I run half marathons, with my first full marathon planned for December 2025. You can't keep a good dog down.
 

Delps8

Well-Known Member
Using Jack’s 321, been full strength all along. First time using Jack’s. However, this often happens when I get into flower. The leaves start bleaching, I see a couple rust spots which look like a magnesium deficiency if I’m correct?

I almost always have great plants up until flower, and then something tanks. If you guys can identify, diagnose, and get me back on the right track I would be so grateful. Thank you.

@Delps8
Jacks 3-2-1 at full strength is pretty strong. I get to 700 or 800 (500 scale) and then back down.

It does look like a mag def. Jacks is a well balanced fert and, if you've had this issue before, it makes me think that it's something in your environment.

Are you familiar with VPD?

VPD can be a big influence on nutrient uptake. If your VPD is high (high temps and/or really low RH), the transpiration rate increases and that can cause an imbalance. My opinion, with the biggest influence coming in the last year or so, is that a lot of growers get hit with nute issues because of VPD being too high. Bugbee and others have commented that they see that a lot when they're called in for consultation.

The key point is that a nutrient imbalance may well not be because of how your mixing nutrients but it is a symptom of something out of whack in the grow environment. Temp and RH (which can be expressed as VPD) are big factors in the grow environment.

What are your temps and RH values? While we're at it, what about water temp and wind speed/fans?
 

weedstoner420

Well-Known Member
Jacks 3-2-1 at full strength is pretty strong. I get to 700 or 800 (500 scale) and then back down.

It does look like a mag def. Jacks is a well balanced fert and, if you've had this issue before, it makes me think that it's something in your environment.

Are you familiar with VPD?

VPD can be a big influence on nutrient uptake. If your VPD is high (high temps and/or really low RH), the transpiration rate increases and that can cause an imbalance. My opinion, with the biggest influence coming in the last year or so, is that a lot of growers get hit with nute issues because of VPD being too high. Bugbee and others have commented that they see that a lot when they're called in for consultation.

The key point is that a nutrient imbalance may well not be because of how your mixing nutrients but it is a symptom of something out of whack in the grow environment. Temp and RH (which can be expressed as VPD) are big factors in the grow environment.

What are your temps and RH values? While we're at it, what about water temp and wind speed/fans?
Yeah, I think of it like at low RH/high VPD they transpire more water, but don't need more nutrients, so you end up having to feed at a lower concentration to avoid nutrient burn/lockout
 
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