Cutting off all branches except a few?

[Relentless999]

Im just finishing drying most of my first crop and Ive noticed a good bit of popcorn buds that dont amount to much.. On my second crop, which is just completing its 4th wk of flower, I trimmed the lower third off the plant, and used those for clones for future mothers(ALREADY ROOTED! ), but still I can see where some branches arent going to produce much.. I probably should have cut those.

What are your opinions on cutting most branches and just using LST or topping to get several main colas and just go with that..

tell me what you do!


In the future I would like to use my mothers to get clones and just lolipop the clones and do a sog with a high number of plants, vegd for a very short period like a week.

Until then I would like to maximize my yield with my 3rd crop, so I would like some suggestions.

 

[2Dog]

u could reveg her...

 

[Tater]

Nice post count haha. Anywho, this is a pretty controversial issue and I'm sure you will hear all kinds of crazy stuff but the most effective way and time consuming method is to take a page out of world record pumpkin growers books and just remove the fruit sites (marijuana is a fruit just so you know, any plant who's seeds are wholly contained within the flower is considered a fruit cool eh). Leave the leaves intact as this is essentially where all the sugar production happens that the plant needs for food, known as photosynthesis. This is a time consuming method and lollipopping has proven to give good results, whatever you choose to do try to leave as many leaves as you can while removing as many bud sites so that the plant can focus its energy on producing a few large fruits rather than wasting energy trying to replace leaves.

 

[jmansweed]

In a vegitative cycle, I will frequently trim lower growth training for a solid flowering structure. Anticipating future growth can be an art unto itself and minimul trimming should be done in 12/12. In saying that I think your on the right track. After working with a familiar strain for a while you will gradually be more prepared each time and eventually develope trimming and training methods that best suit your needs and more specifically, the plants needs. It's important to trim and train early and only two weeks into flowering if at all IMO. Best of luck..........

 

[BBFan]

Nice post count haha. Anywho, this is a pretty controversial issue and I'm sure you will hear all kinds of crazy stuff but the most effective way and time consuming method is to take a page out of world record pumpkin growers books and just remove the fruit sites (marijuana is a fruit just so you know, any plant who's seeds are wholly contained within the flower is considered a fruit cool eh). Leave the leaves intact as this is essentially where all the sugar production happens that the plant needs for food, known as photosynthesis. This is a time consuming method and lollipopping has proven to give good results, whatever you choose to do try to leave as many leaves as you can while removing as many bud sites so that the plant can focus its energy on producing a few large fruits rather than wasting energy trying to replace leaves.

:yeahthat: My only comment to that is to wait for trich development to begin- and use those popcorn buds for hash!

 

[Gagneezy]

Ur lower bottom branches are called sucker branches fer a reason lol.

 

[Gagneezy]

Use them small lower branches fer clones!

 

[OldSkool]

Relentless, take a page out of Mel Rosenthals' marijuana growers handbook, page 293, and take the majority of your harvest when it is ready. Leave the side branches alone for now, unless they are popping buds you want to take also. Just leave the branches.
Just be sure to leave all but the smallest buds and take most of the leaf. Leave a few.
You can induce the plants to flower for a second and even a third time if you leave enough leaf on the plant to sustain growth. After taking the majority of the crop give the plants a thorough watering and feed a soluble complete fertilizer with a good supply of N and P. This will encourage new growth and continued flowering.
Treat the plants like a hedge,. Cut back all plants to the same height, 2 to 3 feet. Be sure to leave enough leaf to support new growth (a few fans or more).
DON'T remove lower branches even if they are leafless! They will sprout again.
Lower the lights down as needed and keep the timer to 12/12.
The second crop will be ready in 4 to 8 weeks. If they come in quickly, you should try for a third crop. Keep fertilizing and watch for Mag deficiencies which often show up in older plants. Double and triple harvests are a benefit of indoor growing. Most growers nowdays don't take advantage of the fact that your original harvest can conceivably be tripled in the four months after first harvest!

Good luck with whatever you decide bro!

Oldskool

 

[Growdude]

Relentless, take a page out of Mel Rosenthals' marijuana growers handbook, page 293, and take the majority of your harvest when it is ready. Leave the side branches alone for now, unless they are popping buds you want to take also. Just leave the branches.
Just be sure to leave all but the smallest buds and take most of the leaf. Leave a few.
You can induce the plants to flower for a second and even a third time if you leave enough leaf on the plant to sustain growth. After taking the majority of the crop give the plants a thorough watering and feed a soluble complete fertilizer with a good supply of N and P. This will encourage new growth and continued flowering.
Treat the plants like a hedge,. Cut back all plants to the same height, 2 to 3 feet. Be sure to leave enough leaf to support new growth (a few fans or more).
DON'T remove lower branches even if they are leafless! They will sprout again.
Lower the lights down as needed and keep the timer to 12/12.
The second crop will be ready in 4 to 8 weeks. If they come in quickly, you should try for a third crop. Keep fertilizing and watch for Mag deficiencies which often show up in older plants. Double and triple harvests are a benefit of indoor growing. Most growers nowdays don't take advantage of the fact that your original harvest can conceivably be tripled in the four months after first harvest!

Good luck with whatever you decide bro!

Oldskool

How can one get another harvest without another vegg period? It is true you can revegg plants by leaving enough leaf and bud but it requires you to put the plant back into vegg cycle.

 

[Tater]

Bang on grow dude not only that but the turn around time for clones vs reveg is way in the favour of taking clones and having them ready to go for the next cycle. Reveging is for when you find a plant that you want to keep but failed to take a clone before it was to late into the flowering cycle. Also, and this is just my personal opinion, harvesting your plant in stages and waiting for the popcorn buds to mature is wasted time that could be devoted to flowering the next crop in the same room, this is a matter of personal preference and not a hard and fast rule.

 

[dirtyolsouth]

HI R999...

You could get some bubble bags and make hash out of the scruffy fluff... But I think it makes a lot of sense to develop canopy mangement techniques for each strain as you grow it and learn more about it's structure and how it likes to grow. The more bud surface that you can expose the the light the more top quality buds you're going to harvest. Some plants do extremely well lollipop pruned and limited to 4-6 main colas and some don't... It just takes some trial and error and eventually you find what works best for that strain in your environment. One major concern to me when encouraging either one main FAT cola or even concentrating all the flowering to 4-6 fat main colas is bud rot. Remember... the more dense the buds are the greater the danger of bud rot, especially around here in the summer til around now when the humidity breaks for the season. In the summer I don't do lollipopping. True lollipopping is when you pick 4-6 branches to develop when the plant is very small and then remove all lower sucker shoots as the branch develops, leaving 4-6 nodes at the tip of each branch to grow. You then keep removing lower nodes every few days to a week and I do my last removing of lower nodes about 10 days into 12/12. imho you should be careful to save all the fan leaves when you remove the suckers....

What I like to do with some strains in the summer is what I call a lazy lollipop... I LST my 4 main branches to the sides of my 10 gal pots and spread the canopy open... then I remove much of the lower nodes but leave a good distribution of nodes for bud development throughout the opened up canopy... What I end up with is four main colas that are pretty decent - about 10" colas that aren't as thick and a nice canopy full of medium sized buds that get plenty of light and finish up very nice with a great yield and less chance of bud rot.