Short background: started with 4 dark devil in my rdwc system. One dies and is replaced by Herijuana Jack 33. All grow in harmony. Dark devils are gone and now it's just her big ass. Just flipped to 12 a week ago. She's taken the whole bucket to root and relies on the other three plus the control for water lol its pretty impressive. Her lower 1/3 looked stringy and sad so I chopped most of it off.
So your wondering if you cut off to much? It will be fine... By the end of week 2 whichever branches dont reach the canopy height I chop em and either clone it or throw away... Its called lollipoppin... Look into it, alot of people practice it. Supposedly done because the lower branchs will make little buds that wont be worth trimmimg and the plant focus's more on the colas... Also allows a breeze to travel better down their... Seems like I never chop enougj though so dont be scared just dont do it after week 2.
Thanks, Glitch. I was pretty sure it'd be fine but some of those lowers that I chopped were pretty thick and fans wider than your head. There are still some sickly and stringy looking lower branches and I may take them tonight.
In my experience you can really take up to 10-15% of vegetation if absolutely necessary. With a plant like that I'd be very pro-active and aggressive at making sure as much of the plant gets light as possible.
The crazy part is, she lived in veg with the auto dark devils and got full bloom nutes and spectrum and 20 hours on 4 hours off
You would be surprised how much you can chop off a plant without shocking it... Seems like some strains really like it. I chop off alot at week 2...only keep main colas and they seem to do just fine.... I used to be freaked out to cut a branch or crop a plant down but now i lollipop the shit out of em...dont be scared to do some cropping just keep it before week 2
Yeah changes your growing world when you stop treating them like china dolls and start slapping em around
would you mind sharing your personal method of lolipopping? I'm about to end week two and I figure one more go around with the trimmers could be good.
I never follow strict rules I just start at the bottom and if it gets no light or is going to node up but be too insignificant I clip it. Frequently stopping to access it as a whole. Like I said man, that beast will thrive however you do it but a slight focusing of energy may make her explode even more.