I am wanting to trim this lower growth on my plants if it won't hurt them too much. The seeds were unlabeled from a Cali MMJ club that my son-in-law gave us. These plants are 42 days of flowering/52 days of 12/12. Will good things or bad things happen if I prune off the small branches that will never develop into anything? Here is the pic of the lower branches I am talking about.
At that point in flowering, probably neither. Some people might say you could stress it into hermying, but I've removed branches late on for clones and never saw a male flower. Maybe it's possible. who knows? With regards to the whole energy thing, ie the focus of energy on the main tops, that needs to be done early in flower for that to be a big factor. Once you get to a certain point in the plant's life that's not going to happen. Think about it like a body builder trying to cram all his energy and protein into his last two weeks of working out, the flowering process is a gradual one and all the factors, nutes, light, environment, trimming, training, have to be in place from the get go to facilitate a strong and healthy and consistent grow. You can put those factors in at any point, but when you do is relative to the end result. What you will achieve now is better airflow under the canopy, which is a good thing. But that's about it.
Yeah at that stage I'd say the benefit(s) of trimming the lower shite would be airflow as stated and less trimming (think popcorn) at chop time.. FWIW I trim lower branches in veg and early flower, or sometimes lil at a time all the way through with no bad things to speak of..As always, YMMV..
thanks for the replies. With little to gain I think I will just leave them alone. I have a real good oscillating fan, plenty of intake and exhaust. I got a good digital Temp/RH guage from my girlfriend on Sunday and my RH is good at 55% to 59% so I am not afraid of any mold forming. I guess that I will need to put up with what I produced.
You could trim a little at a time....those lower branches are going to produce airy buds so I'm all for sending the energy to the top and providing good needed air flow through the plant... I start in flowering and stop trimming before harvest. I was defoliating a lot but, have cut back a lot on that except for a few stubborn fan leaves blocking light. You will never know the difference unless you experiment.....
Yo! I agree with the watcher dude, i cut the lower branches of my first ever harvest kinda late into flowering only to havey plant stunt her growth, now i dont do any major trimming if is past the 2nd week of flowering, it does stress the plant if u do it to late.
I would not attempt to trim plants that have been stressed a lot, or are not healthy without giving them plenty of time to recover...
Today I spotted the calyx's starting to swell up on all 3 plants and the trichs are all clear at the moment. That is quite late isn't it? However there are only a few red/brown hair on each plant. I am thinking a trim this late could bear I'll effects. Hoping the finish date around Labor day weekend Sept 15 at the latest. I'll post some good pics tommorow.