How much foliage below the canopy should I remove? Pics included

Hi ppl, it's one plant under a 600w HPS
120 x 70cm area (ish)
7 weeks veg, 31 days into flowering so far
Canopy's somewhere between 1.4m and 1.6m tall now

I've already pulled off a lot of lower branches and leaves but should I remove more? May have to look close to see the lower foliage remaining



The lowest foliage looks like the first of the two below. The 2nd is a little higher up, where tiny amounts of pistils show.



Some of the lower branches that extend up to the top of the picture are well developed but show little sign of developing any significant bud sites at all.

If anyone wants to give yield estimates I'd like that too. The largest colas atm...



The others are smaller than the 2nd pic, there's maybe ~15 of them I guess + popcorn.

Thaaaaanks

Nice plant amigo, looks like it might reward you with a nice yeild - i see nice thick stems. I'm not sure you really need to prune anything, a 600w has good light penetration and unless the extra leaves are covering juicy bud-sites, I'd leave em on. Remember the extra leaves will provide a buffer against nute levels and slightly increase overall yeild so they are usefull. Just my own thoughts, good luck.

Thanks a bunch. I'll keep it as is, but do you think cutting off all of the less developed branches would redirect more growth to the big ones where the magic happens? That's all I was really speculating

ahh i see, I dont want to mis-lead you I'm not totally sure. I'v lollypopped in the past and was never blown away with my results. Some swear by it though so its kind of a hotly debated topic. In theory by taking away poorer growth (stems and leaf) the remaining energy will go to the decent tops. However, you risk a few things - firstly shocking the plant a bit, as it heals from the loss of leaf material. Secondly, by removing leaf mass you dimminish the overall energy producing potential of the plant, perhaps making the redirected energy a sort of moot-point. And thirdly, you loose that buffer of extra leaf to either absorb execess nutes, or to later shrivel and send its stored nutes to the rest of plant.

Hehe, you can probably see why its a debated topic, hopefully a more learned person can jump in and correct me a bit.

Well it's enough to convince me from messing with the plant now lol. I'll look up some info on it but in the end I think I've pruned enough

Thanks again!

remove as much as you like, experiment there is no correct way to do it
personally if the growth is receiving good light i will leave it, if the growth is not in direct light but is solid thick growth i would leave it also
and bend it towards an open space where it can receive better light
the thin stretched skinny growth that is at the bottom and also develops in the center of plants later on as side shoots i remove most of that and keep the main thicker branches

I personally cut off at least the bottom 1/3 of the plant that isn't a main branch obviously. I go up each of the main branches I've made and cut them till I get to the top 16" or so, and you end up with mega colas.

Anyway way you do it, nice shit.

Just remember that the plant uses energy to grow those popcorn buds that can be directed to your big buds, and it does make a big difference. I've tested and tried it all......

Looking again, I can see at least 30 little popcorn branches that should go IMO. Waste of energy for sure.