Would You or Wouldn't You?

Into my 3rd grow and have a veggie question. With no problem with height, would you veg longer to get a larger yield through topping and pruning? Is 10 weeks too long for veg, or would you go longer still? They are filling out nicely and lots of green foliage, so should I prune the leaves that are blocking light from the lower branches and nodes?

Indoor grow with the following setup:

Northern Lights/Skunk Feminized seeds
Grow room is only 2'X5'X8' tall
Auto-Pot grow system (wicking system)
Coco Noir (coconut husks) medium
Ionic "growth" formula nutes (bloom for flowering time)
Fan for building up stalk strength
Fish tank air pump to bring in fresh air
Veg stage is 24/24 lighting
Sunblaze fixture w/4 T5 24" bulbs
Ph level set to 5.5 (approx)

Here are a few links to what I'm using. Simple and low maintenance system.

Autopot-- http://www.futuregarden.com/hydroponics/autopots.html
Sunblaze-- http://www.botanical.com/hydro/lightsys/t5.html
Coco-Noir "Crop Circles" (Coconut Husks)-- http://homeharvest.com/hydroponicmediumorganic.htm

Thanks in advance with your pro input.

i always veg for 60 days or till my plants are 3ft tall. thats cuz i want the biggiest yield i can get.

Yeah prune before you flower for sure. I vegged seven weeks usually and I had to top my plants cuz they were going to out grow my box. but yeah no problem vegging to long infact it lets the plant reach its maximum size with a ton load more node regions. I would prune at least 40% of the leaves that are covering the rest of the plant. Just the fan leaves though. or you can even just cut the fan leaves in half that way you still have a lot of fan leaf surface. just cut half of the fan leaves in half equally on both sides of the plant. Then after another 4,5 days I would put it into its 12/12 cycle.

just one little thing i do is veg for 30 days under my 400wtt mh and the last 30 days of veg i through them under my 1000wtt hps. ( i change the buld to a 1000wtt mh bulb) and theim girls flat go crazy. they strait bush the F~CK OUT.

AK47StEvY said:

Yeah prune before you flower for sure. I vegged seven weeks usually and I had to top my plants cuz they were going to out grow my box. but yeah no problem vegging to long infact it lets the plant reach its maximum size with a ton load more node regions. I would prune at least 40% of the leaves that are covering the rest of the plant. Just the fan leaves though. or you can even just cut the fan leaves in half that way you still have a lot of fan leaf surface. just cut half of the fan leaves in half equally on both sides of the plant. Then after another 4,5 days I would put it into its 12/12 cycle.

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What? Wait, why on earth would you tell him to cut 40% of the fan leaves off? Thats some bad advice right there. Don't cut any fan leaves off especially 40% of them.

Because that is how you prune for yeild the plant is not effected unless its flowering. The reason for this is to allowmuch more light to reach the bottom of the plant to promote base plant growth.

I've heard (read) that you can cause problems by pruning the fan leaves. Something about the fan leaves producing sugars. But I also read what you said, AK47StEvY, cutting fan leaves to get light to the nodes underneath. Can this be done during veg, or just before flowering? I feel like a newbie with this inquiry, but I got nervous about cutting (pruning) too much.

trust me cutting the leaves off at the base of the stem(NOT the secondary stems but primary fan leaves)is called pruning for yeild. Its professional advice i gave you from the cannabis grow bible.

AK47StEvY said:

Because that is how you prune for yield the plant is not effected unless its flowering. The reason for this is to allow much more light to reach the bottom of the plant to promote base plant growth.

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i normally trim all my fan leave off 1 week b4 flower and a week in2 flower for that reason. but cuz all the controversy over cutting them off i have choosen not to cut any off this time. just going to see for myself what the outcome is. TO CUT OR NOT TO CUT MYSELF, I SAY CUT

AK47StEvY said:

Because that is how you prune for yield the plant is not effected unless its flowering. The reason for this is to allow much more light to reach the bottom of the plant to promote base plant growth.

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if you look at any gardener and espeshly rose gardeners always prun to get the best and beggiest flowers, and the same with vegatables gardens, thay prun slah trim for the best yeild. now it may not be the biggiest yiels but alot better.

You need at least 50% of the fan leaves for the plant to grow during vegetative growth, the fan leaves poduces needed sugars for cannabinoid production during (flowering). Not during vegging, pruning should be done any time during vegetative growth, the earlier the better but when the time comes for flowering you need all the light to be shining on the leaves on the bud not the fan leaves but you do need at least 50% of you fan leaves, cutting the leaves in half is an excellent solution to not cutting the laeves off but over all it does not matter because in flowering all the light has to be on the nodes for them to get all the energy in the little fan leaves they produce around the bud to produce the crystals or THC. The remaining large fan leaves help produce more sugars for the buds, but the buds absolutely need light energy to produce more bud matter and THC rather than leaves and stems.

You dont want to smoke leaves or stems that have no crystals on them, there for the fan leaves and stems away from the bud are not recommended for smoking. Ill personally smoke anything thats covered with resin crystals. mm mm delicious, and the way to get alot of crystals is to have as much light touching the plant everywhere.

Thanks for the quick replies people. I didn't mean to start a rowe though...LOL. I guess I should try it on this grow (cutting & pruning) and see what happens with the next grow without doing it. Just to get a comparison grow. Thanks again folks... MMMMMMM Ganja.

Jarhead said:

Thanks for the quick replies people. I didn't mean to start a rowe though...LOL. I guess I should try it on this grow (cutting & pruning) and see what happens with the next grow without doing it. Just to get a comparison grow. Thanks again folks... MMMMMMM Ganja.

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i will have pic.s of a plant that i trimed the fan leaves and after this grow, ( 6 more weeks ) then i will have one that i did not cut fan leaves off. good luck

Yeah man good luck man. It should be good no matter what unless you kill it off of coarse lol, ganja gods bow down to me

I just read (Cannabis Grow Bible) that it's NOT recommended to remove fan leave DURING veg, but another site (Green Man's free library--Marijuana Grower's guide -- http://www.greenmanspage.com/guides/) says OK DURING veg but only the dead ones and yet another site -- http://www.weedbay.net/overgrow-thebook/Vegative Growth/VegativeGrowth.htm says nothing about cutting fan leaves at all. I guess it's a decision as to WHOM do you listen to and just trust your instincts. Or, trial and error...grow & learn I guess. Thanks again for your input folks. I've already cut the fan leaves with this grow, so I'll keep you all posted on the results. mmmmmmmore please.

It's only been a few days but I've noticed that the girls have slowed a little in growth. Both in rapidity and foliage growth. They seem to be starting to pick up speed a little bit, but I've come to the conclusion that it's maybe not a good thing to remove so many fan leaves while in veg . Like I said, trial and error and in this case, error. Maybe if I'd removed half as many fan leaves it would have helped...but not sure. We'll see if it affects the yield.