Small buds, A waste of energy?

Are the small twig looking stems with small buds on them lower on the plant a waste of energy? Would the other buds benefit from lopping off all the low down small buds? If it won't noticeably improve the other buds growth then leaving them on would mean a bigger yield over all.

It's hard to say, on a smaller plant yea I think it would make a difference, on the monsters I grow I have never noticed a difference. I just leave mine on and use them to make hash or cannabutter.

[video=youtube;Hp9xPEoW6a4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hp9xPEoW6a4[/video]

In my opinion, the energy that would go to the lower sucker-buds will be redirected to the other buds- if you were to remove the lower bud sites. How far into bloom are you?

Some people do it but you haven't really got much on the bottom by the looks of it anyway so I don't think it would matter really. I'ts up to you though.

I think it's a bit more of a beneficial practice for hydro growers when you would get a lot more of those suckers around the bottom due to higher nutrient uptake.

Moon Goblin said:

In my opinion, the energy that would go to the lower sucker-buds will be redirected to the other buds- if you were to remove the lower bud sites. How far into bloom are you?

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Well ya that is exactly what happens but I am wondering since they are pretty small is it even enough energy to make a difference in the colas or can the plant support both the colas and the small buds since they are not very big in size and don't need much energy. If the plant can support both then cutting them off would be wasting bud.

dimebag87 said:

Some people do it but you haven't really got much on the bottom by the looks of it anyway so I don't think it would matter really. I'ts up to you though.

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Ya I lollipopped some huge lower branches

mr2shim said:

It's hard to say, on a smaller plant yea I think it would make a difference, on the monsters I grow I have never noticed a difference. I just leave mine on and use them to make hash or cannabutter.

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I can see how that might work. Monster plants seem like they can shovel in the food fast enough to grow everything without needing to trim buds off to help sustain other bigger buds

Your right, sucker branches suck resources from the plant. Trimming is a road you need to cross atleast 2-3 weeks before you decide to flower the plant. There's allways options with everything. You can trim sucker branches, along with the first couple of branch nodes from the bottom. You can just trim the buds starting to grow on these branches pinching them off as the grow leaving the end of the branch flower set. You could trim nothing and do a 1/2 harvest harvesting the biggest buds leaving the bottom branches in flower a couple more weeks. It's a fine line to say what to leave and what to cut, cut to much and the plant suffers. Don't cut enough the plant wants to spread the energy to all branches taking away from all buds to support sucker branches.
look on life for tomatoe pruning, there's alot if good info you can apply to cannabis .

i would keep them, it's not going to make a huge difference, you will probably gain more from the popcorn buds then you will by getting fatter colas.

Well honestly what the hell do I do with this....?? It is One Branch, It looks like theres a whole new freaking plant growing off the plant it is attached to. Let it do it's thing and hope for the best or give it a hair cut. it is alrady flowering so I am worried about chopping at it too much.

This one isn't as bad

I would say, "when in doubt, leave it." OR, as Topfuel29 suggested, you could do a second harvest.

Those plants are just really viney anyways, but I think trimming it all up is way better than trimming all those tiny nuggets at the end of the flowering.