5th week flowering... new/small braches, cut or keep? (pics)

Hello all..

My plants are now in 5th week of flowering and things look somewhat good, the plants are green and healthy and few hairs have turned amber-ish and everything seems to be on the right track. Still, I feel my buds are somewhat small and haven't grown that much for the last week or so, and already at week five, I'm having nightmares about the end results and yield. I'm growing in a fixed space, a fridge, the plants have been tied down much from the beginning and have grown somewhat strange and are very compact and are almost filling the whole fridge to the top and cause of that, light distribution at the bottom half is very bad at this late stage of growth and that is just how it is with this setup.

My question is... about new and small branches at be bottom.
I have much new growth and new-ish growth at the bottom half of the plant, little week brances, about 2-10cm long, they are getting very little to no light at all and will never mature to the stage of producing any flower before this party will be over and done with, so I'm wondering...

Shouldn't I just cut those little branches off close to the stem?
The plant must be wasting energy into this new growth that, in my theory, otherwise would end in the buds on top?
I'm kind of looking for a cause of the small bud growth, could this new shit be drawing energy from the bud growth on top?

What do you thing folks? Please elaborate on this with me..

Also, is it normal to have so much new/fresh growth in this late stage of flowering?

(some of the growth I'm talking about can be seen on the last pic.)

this is true but the plant will also take time and recover and energy will go to the recovery process. Its really up to the grower. Swim usually keeps everything on the plant unless it drops it it self.

cut them...
nice plant

I think you answered yourself. I would cut them, bottom 1/3 rd no light no need to be there. I have for the last 5 plants kept the bottom 3rd off and The Buds are big and tastie. Nice Growin by the way!

Like R1 said the plants will go into a bit of shock, will definatley stress them a bit, but in the long run the plant will direct all nutes and water to concentrate more on the active bud growth, if they were not so far into flowering I would, but thats just my opinion, having the same problem 2 weeks into flowering I just dont want to fuck up my plants, scared to prune me being a newbie and all

Allright, I guess I'll then just go in hacking and slashing.. will get to it tomorrow
Maybe I will post some pics of it when done... who knows?

Well, off to shave my ladies down under, not bad, lol!!

dont be scared, i prune almost daily, ive taken a ziplock bag of fan leaves and growth sprouts and my plants only 2.5 weeks into flower.. it is just wasting energy to leave them, all that you will get out of them is popcorn buds on bottom and lesser quality buds on top