I bought a phototron back in the late 80’s and sent to Amsterdam for skunk#1 seeds. The real neat part of this project after smoking for 20 years was all that I learned about the plant. They had you trimming sun leaves off the plant when they got to be over 3 inches long. They had you do this as it allegedly makes the plant start another branch on the side away from where you cut the leaf off. I have never seen a better plant than this skunk both before or after i grew it. The trichlorines (I think from reading on here, they were the chrystal looking bits on the plant ) were so thick that they were balling up into pea sized balls were incredible. Now thirty years later all I see in photo’s of systems is all the plants with what looks like full sun leaves left to grow. I will be using a mh or similar type bulb in my tent as I was talked out of LEDs. I wanted to use the same type of pruning but as with being talked out of LEDs I will change my pruning strategy if it is no longer valid. Any thoughts? I will be getting my 4x4x6 tent in a week or two and will start this new journey. btw, been smoking this fabulous plant for 50 years and I thank God that it is finally legal in Michigan.
I have spent the last couple hours looking around the forums being a noob and after looking at the pictures of when to harvest I’m not sure the little crystal balls were trichomes on my skunk plant. But that was then and this is now lol. Main question is, should I trim my sun leaves when they get to be 3 inches going for the extra budding sites for more branches, sooner?
Get you some help here mate @MattyBear @dbrn32 be great if you could load some photos on here of your plant 
I’m not familiar with that method, but there are several methods you can use to create more bud sites. Topping is one, in which you remove the top of your plant. You can do this once or several times. You can also apply bending techniques, which help bring lower branches up to similar canopy level as top of plant. The most popular method here seems to be running a screen and training plant into it. That’s called a screen of green, scrog for short.
I’m also not familiar with that method. Can I ask why you were talked out of LEDs?
The young lady here who has been growing for ten years as she has been part of the medical pot program here in michigan has not had much luck with them. because i have been out of growing for 30 years i am taking my lead from her. i will eventually have two tents and will put led in the second. I want my first grow to be somewhat successful so am doing it the way they have been doing theirs to get it to work. I will experiment later when i’m not spending 500 a month on buying pot lol.
But, I am surprised that none of you guys have read the original document that came with the phototron. The guy who did the phototron did his doctoral thesis on pot and that is where i got the pruning method he suggested. The skunk in the phototron had an eighth to a quarter inch separation between nodes. the hawaiian that i grew with it had a half inch between nodes. I am afraid to take the sun leaves at three inch growth size as the phototron was such a different way of growing. in reading around the site last night there was a lot said about having the sun leaves in to help with taste and growth, but his position was that you don’t smoke sun leaves and when you take it it makes the plant put more effort into growing more branches and growing the smaller leaves out.
i also read thru the pruning part of the “bible” and so know somewhat about the methods you talked about dbrn, but in my reading i saw nothing about what i was trying to decipher. It is too bad that i didn’t save the pamphlet that came with the phototron, but divorce happened a couple years after the phototron which is why i only had one grow with the tron and then lost the pamphlet in the separation.
My aim eventually is to have two 4x4x6 tents and LED’s on both using organic soil… because the people here use soil, so i am not wasting my social security checks on pot . They talked me out of hydroponics also because they said the flavor is better with soil and lord knows i only smoke for the flavor j/k lol
Does she, by any chance, have a vested interest in getting you to buy other lights? Perhaps it was the type of led she was using or her inexperience with them.
As far as LEDs go, there are many types of lights. I’m a big fan of quantum boards, cob lights and bridgelux light strips. I thumbs down Chinese blurple led panels.
That being said, cmh and hps lights have been successfully growing marijuana for quite a while. If that’s the direction you want to go they’ll be perfectly adequate.
I also think that taking the sun leaves might have stunted the growth in height of the plant which was necessary because the tron was only 3 ft tall. I only have room for a 6 ft tent so plant height is a consideration also. I do not like the idea of top the center shoot of the plant as that is the main bud. The young lady here said i would be able to bend them down if they got too high.
Read up on topping, fimming and lst methods. They’ll help keep your plant shorter and with more bud sites. For the ultimate in bud sites/plant at a manageable height look at scrog techniques.
I know exactly what system your talking about…
360 degree growing area with one 1000 watt hps bulb and all plants were on a double turn table and your turn around rate was super fast… I still have a few friends growing this way … it’s a self controlled pod for growing…
I really dont think anybody on this sight has grown like that or knows anybody that has…
Just me… lol
Your new… what do you want to know… ?
I love the way you mention the ---- tron… lol
Nobody grows this way… 
Just a few… 
Very effective if you know what your doing…
An 8 to 12 plant pod for growing big @$$ cola’s…
Super potaint buds…
Welcome mate I think wat yr going on about that is wat some of us do in Uk and dam I think I asked one time and I think everyone was thinkin I’m mad o well but I think it’s ok to do cause the stem that come out have sun leaf on them I jst leave the top 4 frm wen it starts buddin out but alway take all the bottom one off
And I also have been smokin about 20yr did grow in my teens and jst got bak into it frm last yr or so it so much fun blessd peps and again welcome
I searched the internet to find it also and the one i got was different than this one, but both are not what i got when i first got my phototron. thanks anyways though dvm
Hey peachfuzz, thanks for replying. The one I had was hexagonal with three “U” shaped twisted florescent lights and it didn’t rotate. It was about 3 ft tall and you started with 3 or 4 seedlings and then pulled out the lesser ones when they got bigger. I put mine in a refrigerator shipping box as they wanted you to keep the temps in the box around 90 degrees F which is different than just about anything I am reading the last couple of days. Talking to you folks has motivated me to do a bunch of reading LOL. The point of this thread was about pruning, I want to prune like i did with the phototron but am afraid after what I have read in the grow books. It worked great in the tron but might not work as well without the intensity of the lights going full height of the plant. i had two plant in it skunk#! and Hawaiian and it took me 5 mins to trim the skunk and 4 hours to trim the hawaiian each day lol. Tron definitely works best with indica. It was the only time in 50 years that I got a reward for throwing seeds in the ground. But I will try a little harder now as it was 15 buck an oz back when and you know the deals now lol.
Hey shuggz, thanks for the welcome. oops just saw the green box on the side saying to respond at once to keep posts down, sorry will adjust accordingly. Could you please post some pictures of plants trimmed in this style Shuggz. I suspect I will do at least one or two in this way, you start it early if i remember right, it’s only 30 yrs, i should remember lol. If i don’t like what i see I can always stop. I want to thank all who responded and wow this looks like a great site and hope to have lots to share with you folks!
Lots of extremely successful led growers here. Technology has changed in just the last few years. Both with LEDs & grow knowledge.
I recommend reading around the forum & putting that phototron guide down…unless you’re growing in a phototron. 
I highly recommend topping/fimming & scrogging for training your plant & increasing yield. Only remove fan leaves if they are as big as your head, if they are severely damaged, or they are significantly obstructing light/air. Leaves are your plant’s solar panels.
Some people defoliate, but they usually do this as part of a very specific plan.
I had both large and a small phototrons, they surrounded the plant with light coming from all sides and that would allow for different pruning methods, imo. While a tent has reflective walls it is nothing like the phototron and leaving the fan leaves large allows for better light absorption from the overherad light.
The full spectrum LED lights can save a ton of money for the casual/personal grower, curious what reasoning there is to not to use them aside from specialized commercial applications.
Thanks for the input Betty and geezer. I have decided to only prune one of four plants in the phototron style just to see how it works out. I’m pretty sure that the young lady who advised me against the LEDs here in town has legitimate grounds for suggesting HID lights as she didn’t have much luck with them in her only try a couple years ago. But as with any info I receive it is a part of my decision process, not all of my decision process. Because all my experience is 30 years old I have been doing a lot of reading trying to get as much of it as possible from “up to date” sources. My goal will be to have LEDs in both tents but will do the HID first as my local support group who is helping me set up my tents has the most experience with those and they are growing good buds doing it their way. After I get a harvest or two in doing it their way I will be experimenting and documenting adjustments i have made to try to get to better buds.