When and how much do you trim?

When and how much do you trim?

i.e. every 2 weeks I trim all large fan leaves...

-I'm using rockwool in hydroton in 5" net baskits in a Rubber Maid wick system.
-(I think the wick system does great as far as growth and is less expensive than Ebb and Flow.)
--(Of course I am a non-qual-dink-puke-newbie, what the hell do i know)
-ph is 5.8, ppm is 1500
-24 plants (6 per 2 week phase)
-under 2x400 HPS and 1x400 MH
-6 active mothers with 5 new mothers coming along (at different ages)

its been debated a fair amount. the down side, losing photosynthetic potential. while the upside, allowing greater light penetration and development of buds/nodes. as you're probably aware, some extremes include lollipopping and active management through LST. Those are all searchable on the forums to help if you are not familiar with these techniques. I supposev to some degree it matters the strain and "form" of your plant to maximize the potential for it to develop all the bud sites to their full potential. good luck!

well is there a for sure way to find out what kind of strain you have if you used bagseed?

regionaldragon said:

well is there a for sure way to find out what kind of strain you have if you used bagseed?

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Exact strain would be a stretch and a lucky guess at that. Guessing if its Indica or Sativa, definitely once the plant is nearly mature. Google for Indica vs Sativa and you will find numerous threads showing how to determine which plant is what (most of the time, mileage may vary).

I trim the bottom 1/3rd of my plant about 3 weeks into veg. After that, nothing gets trimmed unless its more than 50% dead

loads of people on here say don't touch them i trim a few, dna genetics recommend thinning a few fan leaves around the 5th week of flowering to allow for better light penetration. wondering if anyone knows how the flowering boosts work, like canna boost, apparently it allows for more even growth so i'm guessing it makes the plant distribute nutes evenly, if thats the case, thinning will only hinder growth right????

cookin said:

... if thats the case, thinning will only hinder growth right????

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We are trying some Beastie in one of the trays. Right now it's been a little bit of a bastard project, in that this is our first SOG grow and the first of my 5 flowering trays was just using side light from a single plant grow. We cut the single plant and now have full light on everything, but it's hard to tell 'how much' it's helping.

BTW, I'm glad I posted this because we've been trimming the shit out of them...

Thanks in Advance...

Does any body have any experience with adding FLAVORINGS to the nutes to be absorbed by the plants ???

popeye said:

Does any body have any experience with adding FLAVORINGS to the nutes to be absorbed by the plants ???

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You may want to do some searching, your inquiry is mostly unrelated to this persons original question.

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I'll also trim a few things now and then depending how much crowding is going on. Toward the later end of flower I may lop a few more off.

What I have become very good at is the fine art of fan leave folding and positioning. Without much trimming at all I can maneuver the fan leaves around in such a way that I get to keep them for food factories but have them mostly out of the way to allow great light penetration into the canopy of plants. Now having said that if its a growing branch that is located near the bottom 1/3 that will come off as to not exert unnecessary effort to that branch node for a pop corn bud. I do not shear the entire 1/3 off though, its a hand selected choice depending on its strength, not just to do it to them all.

Trimming 1/3 of the plants off in my experience is really only a node or two and there aren't many big fan leaves in that instance by themselves.. but rather attached to growing nodes with bud sites on them so I don't really get too concerned with single fan leave growth at all. Besides, if you did that all the nutrients stored up are now gone and the plant itself has to work harder through the stem only.. Leaves are very important to any plants growth, especially flowering.

Thanks for the info!

What do you mean by 'leaf folding'?

I'm doing Widow right now and I just took a shit load off of them about an hour ago. It was over-crowded in there and it stressed me out, I couldn't imagine how they feel. It's opened up the room to more light penetration and hopefully will eliminate the popcorn bud that we all hate so much!