I am curious mostly about pruning my plants. I have read at numerous sites that its not good to prune the bottom part of the plant that it will cause stress and so on. I have also read that its good because it promotes more growth towords the top of the plant. I am looking for people with experience pruning to give me a little advice on what to do.
There are several trains of thought on pruning. Some of it is strain dependent....if you have a particular strain in mind, do some research on it. In general, mild pruning is fine, the key is to leave the large fan leaves alone as you enter the flowering stage. The big fan leaves are what the plant uses for energy to produce buds. Most strains will respond favorably to some mild pruning, particularly on top. For smaller indoor grows, I like to trim any yellowing or funky looking leaves as veg progresses. After that, I leave things pretty much alone.
I have no idea on strain. Just got these seeds from a buddy and one of them is purple and the other one is fruity. I have had one harvest and everything turned out ok but Im looking to force more attention to the top of the plant since some of the bottom buds were rather small. Right now there are 3 plants under a 400 watt hps in flower and 8 or so in veg under 3 4ft flouros and 4 small leds. I dont plan on touching the ones in flower more curious about the ones in veg. These plants were clones and are about 1 1/2 ft tall. Id like to get rid of alot of the bottom leaves but not sure if that would be alright. I suppose I should just try it on one of them and see what happends?