To trim or not to trim, or LST gone wild

[Emilya Green]

Do you clean up your plants before going to flower? I have found it to be very beneficial to drastically clean up my plants and remove anything that will not make it to the maximum penetration level of my lights. It also makes sense to remove growth that will never really amount to much, but still steals nutrition and energy from the top buds. I know this practice is common knowledge to most experienced growers, but the goal of the following pictures is to show new growers of weeds, just how drastically some of us clean out these plants. Don't be shy... it really does work well. I try to do this before flowering starts. I have a theory that while vegging, a plant will simply try to adapt to whatever you do to it, as evidenced by some of the crazy formations we can create with LST. I also believe that once the plant starts to flower, it has one goal in life... to reproduce. Anything that we do from that point on to interfere with that can annoy the plant. Plants in veg adapt... plants in flower react.

Here we go... Nudie shots:

 

[Pigeons420]

Yup, this is a great practice. I perform a big clean up the week before the trip into the flower room. It also gives me a chance to take a few clones.

After a few harvests we all get a little fed up with dealing with small buds. Not to mention they are just suckers from the big nugs!

Great post Em!

 

[DeanB]

My summer grow I did trim and my current winter grow I did not. I wanted to compare the two and I do agree that to trim is better.

 

[electro gypsy]

each plant is case by case for me. in most cases i don't have the time to do it right so i can certainly vouch for what slacking can do. it rolls out the real estate for pests! pests of all sorts love those cramped areas where the air doesn't move. usually, if i am on top of things, i do a trim in late veg like said above, but i may follow up with another in early to mid flower. really just depends on what kind of a mess i am dealing with.

 

[Timmo]

Out of the dozen or so plants I grew last year, I trimmed all but one. It was the one in the hardest-to-get-to corner in the room, and by the time I'd finished all the others, laziness won the day, so I convinced myself that leaving it would be a scientific experiment, even though I knew perfectly well what would happen. No colas whatsoever, just a bunch of crappy little popcorn. Granted, it was seriously overgrown and over-branched. I grew three plants of that strain--Cactus--and one of the others had the tightest, densest colas of all my plants. So no question--trimming is the way to go.

 

[MaRS3891]

Hi Emilya
Other great thread!! Keep up the good work, i'm learning a lot with your posts!!!!!
I'm in my first cycle, want to see at least a plant growing without intervention, but its easy to understand how important are these techniques!!

 

[Emilya Green]

Hi Emilya
Other great thread!! Keep up the good work, i'm learning a lot with your posts!!!!!
I'm in my first cycle, want to see at least a plant growing without intervention, but its easy to understand how important are these techniques!!

I was given the advice on my first grow to do exactly that... see what a natural vertical grow looks like. Of course I didn't listen with my brand new T5HO lights, and I went SCROG for a while. But, as soon as I had a chance under a big light, I did exactly that... I grew out a plant without any hands on, just to see what it normally would look like. It is time well spent. Good luck!

 

[Timmo]

Growing some Christmas trees is on my to-do list this year...

 

[MaRS3891]

I have a question

When can i start to topping?

 

[Emilya Green]

I have a question

When can i start to topping?

This is a weed. Because it is a weed, there are no rules. Weeds do not follow rules, and would break them if they could. They are some of the most stubborn and most resilient plant on the planet, and it really doesn't care what you do to it... it will keep on keepin on, because that is what weeds do.

So, you can start to top or pinch or LST or just about anything else you can think of at just about any time... but the earliest I have heard people starting this torture is at around node 3. The nature of the plant that results will be different, depending on if you start topping or pinching at node 3, 4, 5 or 6... and I recommend over your growing career of trying each of these points to start on, and see what happens. Depending on the size and shape of your grow room, the type of lights you are using and many other factors, you will find the method of early training that results in the best and easiest to manage plants for your situation.

 

[hydro1000]

I have to agree, although I do it cause the all the pro growers do it

 

[Timmo]

I have a question

When can i start to topping?

For me, the question is always when can I bring myself to do it? I love watching them get visibly bigger every day, and I know that topping them will slow things down for a bit, so even though my brain says "do it," there's a serious emotional reluctance that I have to work hard at getting over. Otherwise I end up having to cut a bunch of branches out later when it's obvious that I have way too many, which is still emotionally wrenching but also pisses off the brain because it's just wasted growth energy.

One could say that I'm overly attached to my plants, I suppose.

 

[Emilya Green]

For me, the question is always when can I bring myself to do it? I love watching them get visibly bigger every day, and I know that topping them will slow things down for a bit, so even though my brain says "do it," there's a serious emotional reluctance that I have to work hard at getting over. Otherwise I end up having to cut a bunch of branches out later when it's obvious that I have way too many, which is still emotionally wrenching but also pisses off the brain because it's just wasted growth energy.

One could say that I'm overly attached to my plants, I suppose.

lol, yes, one could say that.

Let's be clear, these are plants. They as far we know do not experience pain or sadness, and the only thing that happens when you top them is that they switch gears and do what they need to do to survive the attack.

I wish to allay your fears of "slowing things down" and advise you that actually nothing of the sort happens, even when you do the most destructive topping imaginable, cutting into the main trunk. As soon as you make that cut, the plant immediately seals the wound by moving a thick resin to the wound site. Within minutes the plant seals off this wound, because without doing so, zero transpirational pressure can be achieved to keep the plant upright, it is that water pressure in the main trunk, the xylem, that allows our plants to stand upright.
As soon as this happens, the plant gets back down to business, and although it may look like the plant has been stunted as far as vertical growth is concerned, activity continues within the plant. When you pinch or top the top growth, the plant responds by accelerating growth on the sides and the bottom nodes, without skipping a beat. There is no slowing down... the plant actually speeds up in order to deal with the damage. Get out of your human mindset of thinking that the plant will respond in ways that make sense to your human brain... plants do not respond as we do to stimuli. They simply respond to their prime directive, to grow. A happy plant does not slow down.

 

[Timmo]

I want to be you when I grow up, Emilya.

 

[MaRS3891]

Yeah Timmo, emotional reluctance.
After reading about a couple of days think i can start tying down some braches. My plant is growing tall and thin, would like to see it more bushier. I'll wait a little more to trim it, yes, its just a plant and i'm just a human who loves a plant, so this idea has to maturate in my mind.

Thank you for blessing the thread, Emilya.
You are teaching me how to be brave, as you write, learning how to be smarter than my plant.
I think with my human brain. But i have a weed brain beginning to turn on!!!!!!

 

[Emilya Green]

Tonight I had the third major trimming session in the tent. At this stage in the grow, trying to fill out the 7 gallon containers before flipping the switch, I am trimming the growth tips every time I see one take off trying to go stretchy on me, leaving two bud sites to be secondary. I am doing this to keep the canopy as even as I can, work the stretch out of the plants so they stay short, and to increase the number of bud sites.

Let's just say that I anticipate major production on this run.

 

[Pigeons420]

you sure have a way with the girls Emilya!

 

[Lisaalexstark]

hey Emiyla what are those your using to train the plant, i havent found anything like that. i was using bread ties- not long enough or durable enough

 

[Emilya Green]

Garden Wire Heavy Duty Green Coated Plant Twist Tie Garden Training Wire

 

[keith1975]

I just did my first grow and my photoperiods have been flowering for about 3 weeks or so. I did LST but I never pruned or removed anything extra at all. When I got to flowering, whole sections of the plant would just die because it did not get sun or branches grew into weird meshes. When I pruned (IN FLOWER), the whole plant got healthier. I removed all the dead leaves and anything that would become "popcorn" buds. I did this now, because with my autos I didnt, and it was a nightmare to harvest the tiny popcorn buds of the autos. So IMO, definitely trim and get rid of small popcorn buds. You just want the buds that are the top left behind. When I did this I thought I was destroying my yields, but I 2 days later I couldn't be happier I did it, even though I chopped in flower, which is generally not a good idea. If you have a week before flower, certainly go for it!