SOIL A Question on Late Flower Pruning

[TheKieftan]

So this was my first grow and things have gone pretty good actually too good you could say I did research before doing anything but unfortunately I don’t think I was aggressive enough with pruning at the end of veg to compound this problem I think I topped too many times and my plant has become hard to manage spent most of the morning yesterday trellising it because it was becoming a mold hazard collapsing in on itself like a brush pile after digging out all the colas I think I honestly did too good growing I have 9 colas that look like corn cobs and another 5-6 that look like smaller cobs my state has a limit of 8 ounces of flower which is dumb because they allow 6 veg and 6 flowering plants I haven’t heard about any strict enforcement but my anxiety likes me to keep as legal as possible so I’ll just turn extra into butter but this brings me to the subject of the comment I’m looking at my plant now with more a quality vs quantity eye and I’m seeing some very flimsy limbs near the bottom I want to cut off they honestly aren’t doing great they have nugs the size of ping pong balls at the end but their branches are thinner than toothpicks so they’re leaning over the edge of the pot like a vine almost my theory is my excessive topping prevented the plant from having energy to thicken branches but I’m curious if removing these branches will hurt the plant in this late flower I believe I’m 3 weeks from harvest

 

[MrPNW]

You sound just like my first grow and your state laws the same. I just harvested last Sunday.

All strains are different, but the breeder of mine said to top once, which I did when they were about 10”. After that I let them grow. I started defoliating the largest fan leaves about 2-3 weeks into flower and kept removing any fan leaves that got large after that. I did leave the top two fan leaves on the highest colas until the end. I read to do that here on the GWE info pages. They didn’t start to topple from weight until the last few weeks so I staked them with a single stake up the middle. One of the 3 sort of started laying over and I gave that a little more support with rubber coated garden wire.

 

[Cloud]

Tie up the bigger colas and let the small stuff hang. It won't hurt them unless stem snaps and if they do snap dry and smoke lol.. Ping pong size buds can still be good.

 

[Cloud]

Oh and final 3 weeks you don't really want to shock plant by cutting off branches. Last few weeks is when they put on the weight amd trichomes.