After pruning all the flowering side branches off of 3 of my 8 plants to increase yield, I came home the next day to find most of the lower leaves rapidly turning yellow. I know this is natural and is caused by the usage of blah-blah in the leaves for the flowers, but a light went off in my head.

By trimming off those side branches I took off a lot of leaves along with it, so I was wondering what if you just trimmed the flowers off, and left the side branches full of leaves. It was obvious that the plant was demanding a lot of energy from the leaves, and by cutting them off, it caused more strain on the leaves that were left. Ans this way all the sugars from the leaves that would normally be cut off would go to the main cola, instead of the trashcan.

Anyone heard of or done this? I have 5 other unpruned plants and I am going to set up an experiment to test it, but would like some input first.

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I am not sure on this one what exactly happens if you cut off just the flowers. I dont think if you left the branches and leaves that the flower power is rerouted to the next highest buds. I think it will keep using those hormones and energy to get a flower started again. I would advise to just whack the whole branch you dont want right at the main stem. I hate when leaves start changing colors like they are supposed to, it always throws me off! but looking at the plant... you notice that as you climb up from bottom to top we have a fan leaf, then a growth chute, fan leaf, growth chute, etc. It seems as if each combo of fan leaf + growth chute have some direct correlations , when you chop one, either the fan leaf, or the growth chute, the other is plagued by it now being missing. so when pruning, take them off at the main stem and take them both together. does this make sense?? This is what I do and it seems to work fine, I am sure there is a better explanation or method though, it seems there always is!