Early flower: pruning fan leaves

I recently pruned down my two photo plants to allow for more airflow and light getting through in limited space. Was it a bad idea to remove 80% of the fan leaves? I know light means energy and you want surface area to absorb the light but there is plenty of leaves on potential bud sites and the remaining fan leaves should get plenty of exposure.

Did i just screw my plants over? They’re blowing up so fast it’s gonna be a fight for space. See the before and after.

8 Likes

Top pic is the after and the bottom is before.

1 Like

nope you didnt screw nothing.she will be fine

3 Likes

Looking good. They should respond with more vigorous growth. :ok_hand:t2::partying_face:

3 Likes

Agreed, she’ll be fine


:yum:

My plants over here all bald and jealous.

7 Likes

Looks great to me to I’ve been leaving fan leaves on until I perfect the organic feed schedule I created but I’m confident enough to do defoliating this time around on my autos with aggressive LSTing (I was way to gentle on my 2nd grow)

3 Likes

Plants look great, two weeks you won’t be able to tell you took the leafs. It’s kind of a balancing act as you mention light penetration an airflow.

2 Likes

I Lol’d!

2 Likes

Thanks for the help, everyone. I was scared I murdered them.

Can I keep pruning them? Should I wait until I see buds developing and then stop? Obviously I prefer the girls put all their energy to the flowers and not vegetative growth.

1 Like

I wait until stretch is over and little pistil balls start to form. Then let her have it. I’ve also done it pre stretch. Killed stretch but plant lived and budded fine. They are quite hardy!

1 Like

I’ll probably let them rest a couple weeks then shave them down like one of Hugh Hefner’s girlfriends.

Thanks @Eagles009 !

2 Likes

Update

2 Likes

They are looking good.

Though some questions arose…

Will this big difference in canopy hight affect the buds? Will the upper buds get light burn or the lower not enough?

Do you plan to bend the main bud?

Is there a general plan behind your setup?

Honestly I’m not completely sure on the affect on the buds, I’d think the minimal diff in height will be ok. The concern was more for increased light penetration. The whole plan is to flatten out the canopy a bit…I won’t bend the main bud but I may try tying the root stem down to provide more growth area. The tent is 2’x2’x4’, so I’m trying to maximize the minimal room I have. I left the plants in veg. longer than I probably should’ve and now they’re stretching incredibly fast from flipping them to 12/12.

As of yet I’ve had no issues with light burn, with my LED. I still have a good 18’ to tinker with but would prefer to leave space if I can.

1 Like

Experiment time. One shaved and one hairy, what will they produce, it may be scary.

2 Likes

In the picture plants look wet , be careful with wet plants under light can burn the leafs. Looking good

1 Like