To Prune or Not to Prune Autoflowers

Hello friends, newbie here. I am on my very first grow. I have two autoflowers in my tent. I have a gorilla glue and a Pineapple Express. The gorilla is on the left and the pineapple is on the right. They are both on week 7 on day 50. My question is whether or not to prune. The gorilla is fine. It is the Pineapple Express that has exploded in the last week and a half. She is literally producing new branches with flowers almost every other day. I have a couple pictures of these branches on the bottom. There’s really no straight answer on this. Some say you should not touch them at all while others treat them just like photos. I am just wondering if my yeild is reduced because the plant is still focusing on those lower branches as well as all the leaves.






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Some light pruning is perfectly acceptable with an auto.
I’ll only take an upper fan leaf if I can’t tuck it out of the way and it’s blocking a bud site.
Only take a few at a time so as not to stress the plant.
Underneath if it looks like it’s not going to make it to the top then I’ll remove. Also a bit of clean up on the lower stems will aid air flow to help prevent mold. Good air flow and humidity levels are key.
And welcome to ILGM @Jdoobee. :wink::+1::v:

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As a back I agree with every thing he :point_up_2:said.

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Nice healthy looking plants welcome to the community, I mirror the @Oldguy to the north. Keep up the good work.

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Thank you friends. I just did some very selective pruning. I tucked what I could and clipped what I could not.

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I would have to agree with all of the above. Good sound advice. I am a little more aggressive with my plants but, then again, I like to experiment. I do know that personally, I will no longer top autos in the future :v:

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How did your plants do after the selective pruning? Thanks for your post, as I’ve had the same question. I’m at day 49 and wanting to do a small amount of pruning on my White Widow Auto. This is my 2nd grow, and early on in veg I did cut off the very lowest larf area, but the last couple weeks or so I’m just wanting to cut off the lowest bud areas that are barely doing anything.

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Hello friends. Hey how did you do with your white willow auto? I have the same and am now growing 2 through germination. Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Your friendly neighborhood grower

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@Jdoobee BRO those plants are amazing, nice work!!! I’m glad you asked this question it is perfect for my pruning research :slight_smile:

@Lmckenzie0322 I’m growing Auto WW atm in RDWC at day 33 so I started germ abt the same time as you. I had some troubles with PH pen being out of calibration (so very low PH) and not enough CalMag, and these guys helped pull me out of all of that in just a week!

I can tell you what I’ve learned from the amazing folks here but I’m in no position to give growing advice yet :slight_smile: first, be patient, although the plants grow fast they can take a week to show signs of change. second, don’t overthink things, ask for advice and you’ll get great information! third, keep a good log of actions and measurements, I use Google Sheets and I find myself looking back often.

You should start a thread about your grow! If ya do, invite me I’d love to see. Here is the thread I started to ask for help.

Happy growing :vulcan_salute: :smiley:

I am in the 3rd week of flowering and I have two bushy girls. Can I cut off a few fan leaves and how many would be a few? Thanks

I’m a newbie too.

Just finished my first harvest, 6 autos, 3 granddaddy purple and white widow.

I pruned a lot, five out of six plants I pruned quite a bit until around day 50.

I pruned at the base because no light was getting those tiny popcorns. And I pruned those really big fan leaves.

In the beginning I didn’t know that most people don’t recommend pruning autos but a few do.

The five pruned plants yielded the same as the one plant I didn’t prune, all about 3.5-4oz

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