There are some fanleafs blocking the light thats supposed to be hitting the stem and causing my plants to branch out and upward. If I cut off the fan leafs will it still branch out and by removing these fan leafs will my plant branch out faster? The first two little leaves that start the branch are already there can I cut off the fan leafs?
No......do not cut them off. Fan leaves are what absorb light. You can cut them in half if you want but not all at once and it you cant just go around cutting them all. Are you in soil...if yes you can go get some kabob sticks and put them in the dirt in a way that seperate the fan leaves and the branches. You can also use some string and tie them away if your not in dirt. How high are your lights off the plant. if they are close then it wont streatch for the light and most leaves wont cause a problem.
DO NOT CUT THE FAN LEAVES!!! They are the "food factories" of your plant! Cut them and the plant makes less food! Less food, means slower growth. OK, you want your plant to branch out? Cut off the top. (I was a bio major the first time around in college. Psych for the second). Removing the lead tip will prevent the tip from making the chemical that slows the growth of side shoots. With the top shoot removed, all of the side shoots take off trying to be the favored top bud that gets all the light and grows fastest! You guys want MORE decent-sized buds and fewer "popcorn" ones? Here's how Granny grows! First, the seedling needs 4 sets of true leaves below a cuttable top (2 to 4 inches). Then I cut the top to make a clone. Strip off all the leaves bigger than an inch or so and put it in water to root. I get a free plant this way! (Other posts cover cloning quite thoroughly. Run a search) Back to our poor mutilated baby. Give it a couple days to sulk, then get one of those bamboo skewers you put veggies on for barbecuing and a twist tie. Fold the tie over the stick, so you have a long and a very short piece. Hold them together while turning the stick over and over a couple of times. You should have something like a flag on a stick. Stick the stick as close to the wall of your pot as possible. Now bend your plant gently over and tie it so the plant's top is a little bit lower than the middle of the stem. This makes all 8 shoots hiding next to those fan leaves "think" that they can be "top bud"! All will shoot up and form larger buds than they would have with leaving them upright! If you are into hydro or some other odd style*, you can get the same bending over by using weights. I've used rusty bolts and screws and twist ties to bend branches that were too tall for the skewers. (*The further away from nature you get, the easier it is to get in trouble! This holds true for a lot of things besides growing.) No, you won't get that "bragging rights" huge bud, but the 8 buds that you do get will be quite respectable in size, and the total weight will be more! Granny
hmmmm. no to sure i agree with that long post of why it is not good to cut them off... first off a simple no would suffice. 2nd. i cut off so many leaves it wasnt even funny... and my harvest was around an average time.. you get to the point where u have so many cutting them off becomes a game... Whenever they were covering my light.. snip snip.. and guess what.. no more light blockage.. and no slower budding time. right around 8 weeks or so. and i pulled damn near close to 2.5-3 oz. and got dank, dense, crystally buds with no issue... the plant never seemed unhappy.. and never seemed to even miss its snipped leaves... So in reality... as long as your plant has a good amount of fans.. its not going to mis one or 2.. no matter how in depth someone tells u its a bad idea. this comes from personal experience.. 1. because i tried it.(which no one else wants to do because they read somewhere that its a bad idea) 2. Its your plant... its your grow.. the only way your going to perfect your style is by using the material u learn on here to make up your own decisions about what is good for your girl. 3. Have fun with her. she is a plant.. and cannabis is a strong one indeed.. So do what u will homie.. im just saying.. dont cut off every leaf. but every week or 2. i would literally cut off about 10-15 big leaves. ONE LOVE. KEEP ON BLAZING MY FRIEND.
I did this. Just to test it out. Your answer seemed logical as well. I mean it is going to be producing more leaves when the branches start coming out and still has almost all of its fan leaves except the ones blocking the light from hitting branches and main stem. We are going to find out whats going to happen. I mean the point of lst is to get more light to hit the main stem and side branches as well as to get them to grow as smaller fatter lookin colas. How much did one plant yield? Im shooting for atleast 2 ounces off of this plant.
If big fan leaves are blocking lower branches/nodes, removing those fan leaves will cause those branches to grow more, that's fact. Anyone can prove this to themselves if they want, it's clearly true just do it on yours plant and see for yourself. The only valid counter argument is that the node that you took the fan leaf from may slow in growth for a little while, but it's minimal and the lower shoot growth, if done correctly, will compensate for it.
Nice follow up lay low. forgot to mention that. I have almost 2.8-3oz. off of one plant. pretty damn close. and thats not including trim.
This is very true. I have at times, with some stretchier outdoor sativas, pulled every primary fan leaf off with just the start of the secondary branches barely showing. It not only forced the secondary branches to pop faster, but all of the stems, including the main became larger/healthier. Branch nodes become fatter quicker without the shade leaves attached as well. The main advantage, is it cut way down on the amount of those ridiculous skinny popcorn stems that end up trying to poke thru the bush with one tiny nugget on top. Some plants don't need such pruning but I have never damaged a plant by pruning them. Some older Sativas have small root mass to veg mass ratios. This was one way to let the root mass catch up with the veg and end up with a balanced plant. Next time you have a plant that you don't care much for or just want to experiment, try pulling all of the primary fans off just as the secondaries start to show and see what happens. You may end up with smaller leaves overall, but this sometimes is not a bad thing.
When you take off the primary fans, the side branches have to erupt sooner to feed the plant. The secondary branches will always erupt eventually not pulling them, but not with the vigor that they do when you strip the fans. There is also something to be said for enabling a plant's healing mechanism early on in life for long term health. Whenever I see grows who's buds need to be supported for the branches not supporting their weight, I know they would have benefited from an early pruning. The only real problem from early pruning (this really pertains to healthy plants) is that some strains will become highly resistant to supercropping and LST. You may have to LST your supercroppings to make them effective if you are using these methods to shape a plant for a target shape.
Heehee you would, too much work. But Yea I vegged for 3 weeks in a gallon pot, every node was bursting already at this point, without touching it, feeding just neptunes harvest seaweed. Then transplanted to a 7 gallon smart pot with my own mix, tied 90 degrees, Now at the start of flowering I have a giant bush with too many tops, I took 8 clones last night. Strain is Big Buddha Cheese. I wasn't making it up if thats what was implied?
I have a plant in flower right now that I topped only once and defoliated heavily during veg. I haven't counted but there is a minimum of 15 colas at close distance to the top. As for the very top colas there are about 6 or so. An interesting result that happened as a result of heavy defoliation was that the actual top colas of the plant, there are 2 since I topped once, are not the tallest ones. Side branching off of the 2 main stems actually grew taller and just as fat as the main ones. Genetics definitely played a part in that as well though.
Yes, it forces side branching and balances some plants. In just about every other type of gardening, suckers are removed to promote fruiting stems. It's more of an option as some like the single massive main cola. We used to have to do it to keep our then landrace types from becoming 13-15ft tall. I also used to remove the first one or two sets of bottom secondaries and root the trunks further up. This is one of those things that growers always argued about the pros and cons of and was really a matter of growing style. I preferred the bonsai training methods, some preferred the more wild natural grows with most growers being somewhere in between. Everyone should try it at least once. I admit it was somewhat hard to do to strip a plant like that for it looking so sorry initially, but it sure will show the resilience of the MJ plant and those that are stressed early will become more stress resistant. I hear way too much emphasis on the hermie factor. 'Don't dare stress the plant or it can become hermie.' I think the opposite to be true. Plants treated with kid gloves are more susceptible, I think. If a plant is accustomed to average (take insect, animal or weather damage in the wild for instance) stresses, it will be able to handle them as a way of life provided they are healthy to start with. It is nice to be able to prune shades on limited light, indoor grows without worry of the plant freaking out. The child who is pumped full of care and antibiotics growing up and never allowed to heal themselves via their natural immune system, is more likely to grow up into a sickly adult, genetics be damned. This holds true for just about every living thing on the planet.