When is the best time to prune.

Hey there I am not really a person who has many grows ( on my first have it documented)-however- I started topping within the first few weeks following germination and transplanting from their initial seedling cups to one gallon pots. At this time is when I first did the topping, and after the initial three or so day stunt they suffered, all survived great and some have two tops, some are F.I.M and one looks to have about 6 or 7 for sure...they are now entering their 6th week veg however I plan on letting them veg a little bit longer than 8 weeks.. they are VERY tall and bushy. One thing I made sure to do with the topped ones and the branchy ones that have been pruned is to "tie" or really train them... I cut holes in the pot and gently use soft thread to train or tie certain ones down or on angles to allow areas that wouldn't normally get light to get full light. This has made the extra colas from topping really really grow.

As for pruning as soon as I took clones I pruned what I could but never more than 50%. I made sure to prune whole branches in some cases if they were right on or above the soil bed and cut any tiny leaves or wilty/yellowed ones that were usually old or had been there since the very beginning. NONE of my plants of clones have suffered, but instead improved their growth greatly because of this. I think you need to be well into the first month of actual vegitation, not counting the first two weeks of seed germination and starting, and then in general it seems safe.

I am also guessing it depends on strain too.. I could be completely wrong though so I am not trying to pretend or think I know any of this for sure. I do have my garden so that half the plants are NOT topped and the others that are topped SEEM to flourish much more than the non- topped after the initial stunt.

JUST my first only experience though!!

 

You can top anytime during veg after the 4th node or so. I wouldn't top during flowering or in the last two weeks of veg before flowering. On the other hand, I don't like to prune anything other than dying leaves in veg because the plant needs the leaves to grow big and make bud sites. I recommend any pruning be done a few weeks into flowering. You can tell what branches are going to be nice buds and what is just going to be bottom fluff by then. I would only prune leaves on really bushy plants to allow for air flow and light penetration. If your plants don't have a high leaf to bud ratio, then I wouldn't bother trimming leaves.