Okay, so I'm in the Beginners Section with a true beginners question! When I've seen folks grow outside, they prune the big fan leaves off the plants. Mine, being grown indoors, are getting some really HUGE fan leaves...some the size of my hand! Should I be pruning these off? I apologize if I'm asking a question that has been answered previously, but sorting through all of the posts is giving me a headache! Lost a great guy that I was following on another forum, he says there's too much mis-information out there. Too bad really, he was a botanist and has been studying the growth habits of MMJ for a few years. Anyway, my question remains! Should I be pruning the big fan leaves from these girls? Thanks all!
This is definitely a conflicted topic. I say check out some results of people who prune vs those who don't. I grew out indica dom strains in my last grow and didn't prune anything really. I would only remove leaves that i could "flick" off. My logic was that the fans create horsepower for growth so even if they blocked light from some nugs it wasn't a big deal. I'd just tuck shoots through the fan leaves when they were tall enough and removed leaves that shaded at the end of flowering when they flushed out and fell off anyway (think of the season fall, this is what nature does). All of the buds matured just fine and there were a few frosty monsters that lived in the shade. Check out my journal if you want to see the results or whatever. Just my 0.02!
Welcome to the community! It sounds to me like you will be quite successful in this venture . Detail oriented and emotionally invested in the plants = success. Best thing you can do is remove all worry though. You will learn with time that they are hearty little girls and, depending on the strain, will take quite the beating. I'd remove the scraggly leaves if they look unhealthy. Sounds like they might be past the point of doing enough good to outweigh the shade they create/airflow they block. Everything else sounds great honestly. I run 1k watts over six plants myself with t5s for veg also. Solid setup. Feel free to post more info on your grow and I'd be happy to give any input I can provide. What stage of growth, medium used, pot size, training methods/topping, strain info, etc... Good luck my friend!
I am always for pruning, not so much during veg but I definitely take off anything huge or that is clogging up the middles of my plants. During flower I always prune, but nothing drastic. Take like 5-10 off at a time and clear paths for light to get in through the bottoms of the pants. Pruning will make your plants take up less space = more plants per light and more light getting to the bud leafs which is what you are really concerned about keeping healthy.