Pruning

[dwyndorf]

Hello,

 

My plants have massive leaves which are blocking light to the lower branches, is it cool to prune these big leaves off to allow more light to get in under the canopy?

 

dwyndorf

[chief23]

Yes you can, but the fan leaves supply all the goodness to each bud site, so you will do more harm than good. Use your judgement.

 

Chief

Edited April 30, 2004 by chief23

[Tom]

If you can't tuck the leaf out of the way then just trim the offending part of the leaf where necessary.

 

[Luke Skywalker]

Personally, I don't remove leaves or branches unless they're more than 50percent damaged, be it insect, nutrient burn or whatever, and won't recover, and only prune out lower branches in my cupboard growing area when it's obvious that these will never receive a decent amount of light and are tiny and stunted.

 

But leaves in the canopy are there to catch light, and use it to full efficiency, if you're moving leaves, make sure you can move the leaf which is blocking out light to the lower buds in such a way as it can receive light itself still. It will move over time, which is called phototropism, and get into the position where it catches the most light to convert the energy into food. Removing leaves to feed other leaves lower down, where the light strenth will be low, and perhaps any benifit would be marginal, is not the way to go IMO.

 

There's also this to think about, only 15 or so % of the light is actually caught by the leaf. The rest goes straight through. So it's not really shading that much until 2 or three leaves are in the way, and by this point it's quite a ways down in the canopy anyway.

 

So yeah, in my most humble opinion, leaves should not be trimmed, particularly bud and bud axil leaves, as these will be the most direct food source for developing buds, not the buds themselves. They're reproductive organs, and whilst they're photosynthetic, and somwhat affected by light levels, it's more about the leaves and the whole plants exposure to light than just the buds to get big colas and nice fat buds.

[Skunkxxx]

IOW Pull leaves,get smaller, skinny buds....Been there and done that...I wont do it again. .Luke is 100 percent correct on that. And you really would not notice unless you compare two plants of the same clone. That is how I tested the difference. Same Light Same setup. Small buds,maybe more of them, but it just wasnt right,not very dense at all. Just my findings on this.As all the folks around here have been pulling them on all ouside plants,But I still cant get them to stop. O well ... Edited May 4, 2004 by Flopeye

[BULLET]

a different point view:

 

pruning; this is something a friend has tried in the past with great success.

 

this was tried with a "jack herrer" cross, that wanted to (and did) grow to the ceiling and bend over the first time he grew it, ( he didn't know better).

i wouldn't try this with smaller skunk type plants, although i haven't tried so it might be possible :mellow:

 

so the next time ( in a fit of pique really) he did this; :angry:

when the plant got to 2ft on veg he pruned it back to 18in. after a week to let them recover , put them over to bud. when they reached 2ft he pruned them back again to 18in and let them go. they eventually reached just over 2 ft. he thought he had overdone it! but they soon recovered!! ::

 

result: the best weed any of us has grown; 2 oz a plant, 2-1/2 off one, of the firmest, tightest, most potent bud we have seen. using normal canna veg & bloom and pk bloom booster only. no other magic additives. everyone still talks about it.

we have tried many methods between us and this is the best so far.

the result was plants that were small, managable, light penetrated right down, used less nutes etc. took up less space, no need for string or stakes everywhere

i have become convinced after some years of experience that this is one of the best ways to produce for anyone, whatever their circumstances.

[Skunkxxx]

What type plants? Very interesting.