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Trimming the buds during flowering

Discussion in 'Indoor Cannabis Growing' started by nizmo, Nov 28, 2006.

  1. #1 nizmo, Nov 28, 2006
    At the recommendation of DierWolf, i trimmed the very tip of the top bud off my flowering plant at about 3 weeks into flowering. As a result, at about 4-5 weeks, the very top bud is now thick and full, and not spread out and airy like it previously was, its filled out nicely and has stopped growing vertically.

    My question is, should i do this with all of the other buds on the plant? Is it too late? They are doing the same thing as the top bud was (namely growing up and not getting very dense). I would assume yes but would like a bit of advice from someone who knows what they are doing... Cheers.
     
  2. #2 osiris0901, Nov 28, 2006
    NO! dont trim of all the leaves. maybe a few large fan leaves that are blocking alt of light. The leaves are what absorb light and supply energy to the plant.
     
  3. #3 nizmo, Nov 28, 2006
    Im not talking about leaves im talking about the tops of the buds. Read carefully :p
     
  4. #4 GrowBot, Nov 28, 2006
    at 3 weeks of flowering the tops of the buds normally will not be big/dense. it kind of depends on what wattage light your using and a couple other things. i wouldn't top the top of my buds. i never top/fim. i just don't like things getting slowed down. now you want to cut the rest of the tops? i suppose you could. i wouldn't cut too many at any one time. sounds like you're getting impatient and want to artificially speed things up. i wouldn't do it. what's your environment like? you might try fine tuning that instead of cutting up your buds.
     
  5. #5 Cornflake, Nov 28, 2006
    I've never done this myself, infact I was under the impression that no chopping/trimming should occur after the first week of flowering though it seems like this is something to experiment with.

    It sounds like what you're doing is causing the tops of the buds to knuckle so they don't grow upwards and all the budding activity is forced to occur in a smaller space. If this assumption is true the actual yield of these tighter buds will be the same or less than that of the airy buds. You're decreasing the ability of light penetration by compacting growth. Unless the energy that would have been used to grow longer stems is going into growing the buds, but I don't really know how that works.

    Really whether you want to do this or not sounds like an issue of space, if you're finding that the plants grow into your lights than by all means do trim them. Otherwise I wouldn't reccomend doing it at this point.

    Also, I'm certainly not as experienced in growing as many of the users, so if someone contradicts my advice just consider it null and void.
     
  6. #6 nizmo, Nov 28, 2006
    Well its not that im impatient, i understand that if anything, trimming the tips of the buds will slow things down. The purpose for chopping the top of the buds is to prevent them from growing vertically and to instead focus on existing growth.

    I already went ahead and did it, every top bud on both plants. What i mean by that is the head of each stem branching off the main stem, i did not cut the buds below the heads because all i want to do is prevent vertical growth. The theory being that the plant doesnt waste its energy growing bigger and taller, it spends the energy on what it already has, and makes the buds thicker, larger, and more dense and from what ive seen with the very top bud, its worked damn well. The amount of bud i cut off is also very small, i just grabbed the white hairs and chopped less than 1cm off each bud.

    It may be a gamble given the fact that im not an experienced grower, but ive just seen what its done to the main cola and i dont see any reason why it wouldn't work for the others. I have no issues with space in my grow room, the one and only purpose for what im doing is to get bigger thicker buds. I dont know whether its going to work, but surely it wont harm the plant, i only cut a very small amount off.

    My setup is pretty simple. I have a 600 watt HPS providing light for 2 plants in a room roughly 11x5. I have a reasonably large pedestal fan running constantly. During the light period i leave the door open about 1 inch to let fresh air in.
     
  7. #7 GrowBot, Nov 28, 2006
    you have 1 light in an 11' x 5' room for 2 plants? are you using anything to reflect the light back on the plants from the sides? you can really get some growth if you don't let the light run all over the room where it's not needed.
     
  8. #8 nizmo, Nov 28, 2006
    Yep I have sheets of mylar lining the room, sorry i should have mentioned that...

    Its not the best though; since the room is so wide there is one wall which is not covered (and ive been meaning to get around to it but the plants are so big its a mission to get in there now), but it seems to be doing alright as it is
     
  9. #9 ISTANDALONE, Nov 29, 2006
    dude get some plywood or large cardboard and some 2x4's or what-have-you and make a partition or a kind of "moveable wall", line it with mylar and position this within a couple feet of the plant. it'll act like a smaller room and reflect alot of otherwise lost light back to the plant. i guarentee you'll notice the difference in growth.
     
  10. #10 GrowBot, Nov 29, 2006
    hey istand, that's what i do. cept i use astro-foil/reflectex. i hang a couple strings from the ceiling and adjust as the plants grow. it really helps! there's a lot less wasted light.
     

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