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Nervous about trimming!!!

LuckyAcres

LuckyAcres

New member
I can prune just about any plant of any size for aesthetics or health but don't know much about pruning for yield. So far I did some lst, pinching, bending and squeezing. Minor defoliation to remove decaying leaves or overcrowded crown or expandable lower growth.
i know some of you have different ideas about what to remove and when so hit me with all you got please I'm here to learn and I can't stop!!!
i flipped my 6 grape ape yesterday. Along with their nutes I gave them some bud blood yesterday in case it matters. Leds and fluos.
 

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That is one beautiful SCROG you have going there. It does look like there are bud sites being overshadowed by fan leaves. But WOW really, really nice setup.
 
Thank you! So should I focus for now on keeping those bud sites uncovered? How about the bud sites in the shadows? Part of me wants to leave them until the stretch is done and see what I'm left with then trim the stuff in the shade. The other part wants to wait until they show up then remove everything not attached to a bud.
 
I think that as the transition to flower proceeds and buds starts growing out of the nodes, you will get a better idea on defoliation. It seems that I get better cluster formation vs individual puffs when there is good light penetration. This is true both indoor and outside so I attempt to remove all of the smaller 'sucker' branches that form and force the plant to concentrate all of its growth in the cola's I want it to produce. You have enough plants in your grow that you could experiment different techniques on several plants and see what happens. If you don't like the results-grow more.....
 
The only problem I see with waiting too long to thin out those fan leaves is that the buds will develop at different rates. If you are looking to do a complete harvest, you want to try to keep all buds at maximum exposure to light. You also have the option of harvesting the biggest, ripest colas first and allowing the others to continue to grow and fill out.
 
If this is your first run on these ladies you should try and do a half half test.or 2 plants with 3 diff types of defoliation. Pluck/ defoliate at start of wk4. Maybe 2 plants defoliate all leaves except the sugar leaves. Another 2 just the fan leaves and any ones blocking the light. And other 2 you just let it grow without no defoliation. Basically do at start of wk4 and start of wk7. See results for each. Careful with first one, plants react differently so they may either like it and there won't be a problem or you may stress it out and worry about the effects. See results.
 
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Regardless of when you start/stop defoliation- you can take the middle ground on this and only remove 1 leaf from each node/bud site- playing it safe and letting the plant recover. Since the plant no longer produces leaves after the 3-4 week of flower it's only necessary to remove leaves blocking/shadowing the lights at that point.

Generally defoliation is started very early in the veg stage- and the plant adjusts well to it. Only defoliate a healthy/growing plant!

It's best to be conservative at this stage, but I'm sure Green75 will chime in having much more experience defoliating than myself.
 
That's the thing about scrog....you are limited now as to what you can do....take every big fan leaf you can lean in and cut off....you will never get to them all now but I believe it will help dramatically....let the light in
 
At least give them one good stripping...make them work a little...you ain't runin no flop house over there
 
Damn right this is no flop house! Green you know where I'm going with this thing. And no leaning needed just as long that is as I can fit within the 1' I left between wall and scrog!! Thanks to y'all for weighing in, much much appreciated! Not as nervous anymore. Alright, so I'll go after those fan leaves blocking the light for now. Another question. Because of the scrog I'm getting all these younger branches growing straight up, should I bend them under the scrog or just let them be and grow upright? Really don't know what to expect with this stretch business...
 
The best way I have found to use a net is to first start out with major lst...keeping them low...install net at the height you want your plants to get no taller...then supercrop everything to stay under net...works well...

Just my $.02
 
Wow indeed an increasingly beautiful set up! Fan leaves coveringbuds=no light to buds=needy buds. Let the light in as Green75 says and pinch a few each day as Royal had said. You will ultimately build your own intuition about the process.
beautiful Work!
 
Thanks tika! Wait?! pinch ? Who what where? Gonna hire me couple of helpers to keep track of everything green royal you and king might say or even think...
 
Well said Tika. Learning from experience is a lost art anymore. It's so convenient to have instructions in front of you. Understanding why the instructions are designed the way they are is critical for understanding the process itself. This leads to out of the box thinking which leads to a unique skill set.

Love the setup Lucky!
 
I fully appreciate your insights royal, I'm self employed and I've taught myself the bass guitar, construction, horticulture and many other random crap so I'm totally aware of the benefits to learn via trial and error. Unfortunately I'm in a time/yield crunch. I'm not a greedy bastard so didn't want to bring this up and sound like one. I started this thing as my tentative retirement plan from my current business. The body can't take it no more, another 10 years landscraping is all I got tops, and I'm 42! Already sunk a few grands on this operation since July and while my adorable loving spouse is 200% behind me on this I need to drop some cash on the table asap! This batch will be my 1st real harvest and it needs weight! And quality obviously. Once she realizes the potential profit then I can learn and take the time to make mistakes.
 
It was a general observation, not directed at you. Sorry for making it seem that way. I'm getting very outspoken about grasping concepts instead of putting part a into part b.

You, sir, are obviously on the right track. While we may have suggested some things, this grow is 99% you. Be proud!
 
No worries royal , didn't mean to come out as strong either, I'm sure it might get tiring babysitting us newbies all the time! The communication format isn't the most reliable anyways. I'm betting a lot on this and gave myself 2 years to succeed. So I'm still on track and while the marriage isn't threatened (yet!) i need good results. My hopeful plan is to be on bi weekly or weekly harvest schedule eventually. Next big step will be adding a second shed, crossing my fingers for breaking ground this summer. So what about this pinching business tika mentioned? Is it for the buds?
 
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