Suggestions on how/when/if to trim my plant???

Ok this is my first grow. My plant is in her 3rd week of flower...just a very simple cfl setup in my garage. I've read about cutting the plants in certain places in order to divert growth to the main kolas. Im new at growing and dont wana get into anythng too complicated just yet. But if there's any suggestions anybody has after checking out my pictures please let me know. Any ideas on making my plant produce more bud is what I need! Thanks:)

 ForumRunner_20120529_140434.png   802.14K   211 downloads

At this stage in the grow, the best I can think of that you can do is cut the smaller branches near the bottom. Their not going to end up producing too much bud anyway especially with the lights you have. So what I did in a similar situation was cut the small branches and i ended up with like 12 - 15 main branches that I left and it grew and budded nice.

Just my opinion man i am no pro by any means though

I usually don't trim mine much during flower, if at all. Maybe just pull off the brown dead ones

First things first, she needs a transplant....BAD. Once you got that out of the way, I would add a few more cfls if you can. May I ask what Watt the cfls your using are?

Edited by 365DaysofGrowin, 29 May 2012 - 10:39 PM.

if/when you trim, don't do too much at any one time. break it up to a 2 or 3 day process. cuts down on stress.

First things first, she needs a transplant....BAD. Once you got that out of the way, I would add a few more cfls if you can. May I ask what Watt the cfls your using are?

should I really transplant this late? And when should I have done this? Like what height or age or what? What benefit wil I get by transplanting now?

They are 23 watt...8 bulbs...12800 lumens total. And I moved stuff around to take the picture so thats why u dont see them all.

Thanks for ur input!

Edited by Candy Hightower, 29 May 2012 - 11:47 PM.

I usually don't trim mine much during flower, if at all. Maybe just pull off the brown dead ones

Would it be best to pull the leaf off the end of the little stem or the whole piece down to the branch its on?

At this stage in the grow, the best I can think of that you can do is cut the smaller branches near the bottom. Their not going to end up producing too much bud anyway especially with the lights you have. So what I did in a similar situation was cut the small branches and i ended up with like 12 - 15 main branches that I left and it grew and budded nice.

Just my opinion man i am no pro by any means though

If I do cut any off should I cut them next to the main stem or further out?

I cut them next to the main stem, it promotes more growth to the upper branches i believe. But like growbot said it is best to make the process over a few day if you are removing a lot of branches so that you can reduce the stress to your plant

should I really transplant this late? And when should I have done this? Like what height or age or what? What benefit wil I get by transplanting now?

They are 23 watt...8 bulbs...12800 lumens total. And I moved stuff around to take the picture so thats why u dont see them all.

Thanks for ur input!

I would most definitely transplant, a little stress early in flower is better than a reduced yeild IMO. The rule of thumb is a gallon per foot of growth, I had 3 plants each in a 3 gallon pot and When I harvested the tallest was a little over waist heigh(I'm 6 feet) I saw that I was very close to being root locked, any more vertical growth and I don't think they would have done as great as they did. If I had that plant, I would have transplanted to a 5 gallon at 3 feet then a 10 gallon for the rest of the grow...

Edited by 365DaysofGrowin, 30 May 2012 - 12:11 AM.

Ok this is my first grow. My plant is in her 3rd week of flower...

really no need to transplant at this point. at three weeks, there will be little to no more root growth.

You really don't think he has root lock? He's having leafs fall off from the bottom going upwards and many leafs are very droopy...she doesn't look that happy IMO........

You really don't think he has root lock? He's having leafs fall off from the bottom going upwards and many leafs are very droopy...she doesn't look that happy IMO........

This is my first grow so in the beginning I mixed in time release chemical fertilizer which I now know is a horrible thing to do...anyways, I overfertilized the plant and it caused a lot of damage and im thnkn thats the cause of the bad lookn leaves.
That was a couple months ago tho or at least a month ago hell I smoke a lot...but what I'm sayn is shes recovered frm the overfertilization, as u can see from the new growth on top.
I also thought the droopy leaves may b bc she needs more light? Or mayb needed trimmed bc it wasn't possible to get enough light to the bottom branches without buying more light this time around?

Got your message on my thread,

Here it is in a nutshell.

Transplant ASAP.
She's light starved, at least 2X more light needed.
TP will give her the nutes to finish.

She is a sad puppy. You need the HONOR SYSTEM.
Get 'on her' and stay 'on her'.

People say pot's a weed.
If you grow her as a weed.
Ditch weed is all you'll get.

Some good threads out here, will lots of stuff to learn.
Also takes some $$ to do things right.

Peace SG:smoke:

Got your message on my thread,

Here it is in a nutshell.

Transplant ASAP.
She's light starved, at least 2X more light needed.
TP will give her the nutes to finish.

She is a sad puppy. You need the HONOR SYSTEM.
Get 'on her' and stay 'on her'.

People say pot's a weed.
If you grow her as a weed.
Ditch weed is all you'll get.

Some good threads out here, will lots of stuff to learn.
Also takes some $$ to do things right.

Peace SG:smoke:

Thanks so much for ur response! So just in general how much space per foot or whatevr does a plant need? Like how big a pot should i TP to at least minimally?
And when I TP can u give me a suggestion as to what kind of simple soil mix would be good? Bc the mix I used when I planted her was 3 parts soil 1 part sand and then I put chemical fertilizer (time release) which I found out later was bad bad bad...so if u could help me out on that part please!
Also I will add more light today!!!

Thank u so much for seein what im not yet able to. And id nevr grow her just "as a weed" bc shes so much more to me than that...im just still learning and continuin to b amazed:) but thanks sincerely and look forward to more of ur advice!

Don't bother transplanting. The more root space makes for bigger plants not buds. One your two weeks into flower the most you can do is bend the top lower so you can get the lights as close as possible. The roots aren't gonna keep going in flower the plant is no longer trying to et bigger it's just concerned with filling what branches it has with flowers. IMO its a waste of time to transplant and it'll put a lot of stress on the plant which could lead to hermi action. Also anything you cut off now is just taking away places for the buds to grow. If you were in veg you could cut it all down and it'll still keep growing

A bigger pot won't help. You need as much light as possible to really fill in the branches. She is a little tall for a cfl grow. With cfls the shorter the better. Even with hps my two six hundreds only really develope the best buds to about three and a half feet from the light. Keep all that stuff on there and make hash with it.
All the "trash" can be dried out shook in a jar with isopropyl alcohol filtered onto a plate and when the ISo dries, usually within 24 hours you have hash oil left on the plate. TOTALY WORTH IT.

Got your message on my thread,

Here it is in a nutshell.

Transplant ASAP.
She's light starved, at least 2X more light needed.
TP will give her the nutes to finish.

She is a sad puppy. You need the HONOR SYSTEM.
Get 'on her' and stay 'on her'.

People say pot's a weed.
If you grow her as a weed.
Ditch weed is all you'll get.

Some good threads out here, will lots of stuff to learn.
Also takes some $$ to do things right.

Peace SG:smoke:

Hahaha... the honor system. Get in her, get on her... if you can't come in her, come on her. To honor. I haven't heard that since I was in Okinawa 11 years ago. So many good memories. Such shitty weed. Haha

Candy, some good advice here but I'll throw in my 50 Cents worth as well.
On trimming the lower branches, make the cut several inches away from the trunk as this tends to heal faster & will be less likely to cause other problems with the plant. If it's just a sucker right at the base, you can clip it carefully at the base.
And with your 8 bulbs, try sidelighting instead of overhead. Get the lights within a few inches of the plant, and rotate the plant 1/4 turn each day.
The easiest way to mount your sidelights is to stop by your friendly lumber supply and pick up a few 2"X2"X8' furring strips (cost a buck or two each), and a pack of wooden shims. You may need to trim the 2X2 so that it is SLIGHTLY shorter than your ceiling height (less than 1/4 inch from the ceiling). Place the top of the 2X2 against the ceiling and shove a couple of shims under the bottom. Tap them in further until you get a firm friction fit & the 2X2 will stay upright.
Those look like daylight fluorescent bulbs, which are around 6500 Kelvin (light color / spectrum rating). If you add any more bulbs be sure they are warm white; they should have small print on the package rating them at around 2700 or 2900 degrees Kelvin (can't remember which but in that high 2x00 range). Or if you have the coin, buy a whole batch of warm white to replace all eight. Or even better, get (8) warm white 42W bulbs, they will fit the same reflectors you have.
Bestaluck to you, you're on your way!

Cut of the bottom third of the plant. It will feel like you are cutting a lot or too much off. But like other people said that bottom growth won't amount to shit and would be a pain to trim. I wouldn't transplant now either.