Don't Trim All of the Fan Leaves?

See the before & after pics. Okay, so I should have done a little more research before I got crazy with the scissors. After further research it seems that trimming a few fan leaves is okay but whacking all of them is a bad idea because they help with providing nutrients and flushing waste or nutrient buildup? I'm using CFLs and the fan leaves were blocking too much light so I decided to get rid of them. Did I just make a huge mistake or is it good to clear out the fan leaves. You'll notice in the pics that all that is left is the flowers. This is my first official grow so I suppose I'm allowed to make dumb mistakes if indeed it was a mistake. Thoughts?

LOL..... I'm not sure if this is meant to be funny or not? Honestly, is this really your first grow and did you really trim that many leaves off?

Oh my! you cut the branches off and all. Where do you expect to grow bud

Holy shit dude...You messed up pretty bad man, those fan leaves are like giant solar panels, they're the ones that absorb most of the light energy and converts it into food for the plants, the more the better...The occasional trimming or pruning is acceptable, but you went all the way man...

Yes, to my chagrin, I whacked all of them. D'oh.

You need to get a lot more light in there btw...They look like they've really been stretching

Okay, I feel like a moron now. I was worried about that. So, the question then is are these things now on death row?

Well.... you may get flamed by some.

But to me, I hope you've learned a valuable lesson. So just forget about it and move on to your next set of plants.

Thing is, that thing looked BEAUTIFUL before you trimmed it! Those leaves are food for your plant, and now you are going to be starving them.

If I may make a suggestion..... throw them away RIGHT NOW and just start over. If you try to keep those plants till maturity, it really will be a waste of time, and they are just taking up valuable grow space. They will never develop now with that many leaves removed.
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I trimmed a plant once, and I trimmed a looooooot less than you did, and I would have better used my grow space if I started over with a different plant. It was definetely a learning experience for me though, as I had another plant that I kept un-molested next to it and saw the huge difference in the way they grew.

If you start over now, you will have a shorter time to a usable harvest.

Probably...What I'd do is chop the main stem all the way to the bottom where the only branches are...Kind of like a really extreme topping. And be sure to add more light, and the spectrum of the light is also contributing to the stretching, use cool white or daylight cfl's and they should be nice and compact.

Wow sorry to say this but this is the most rookie thing I've ever seen. All you do is trim a bit of the tops off the leafs to help let the light through easily. Also if you do LST you can make the plant grow outwards to a point instead of higher thus letting your lights able to hit more of the leafs.

Here's some advice. If you spread the plants out far enough you can hang a light or 2 between them with out a cover on them to make the light it more of the bottom leafs.

pelt1 said:

Well.... you may get flamed by some.

But to me, I hope you've learned a valuable lesson. So just forget about it and move on to your next set of plants.

Thing is, that thing looked BEAUTIFUL before you trimmed it! Those leaves are food for your plant, and now you are going to be starving them.

If I may make a suggestion..... throw them away RIGHT NOW and just start over. If you try to keep those plants till maturity, it really will be a waste of time, and they are just taking up valuable grow space. They will never develop now with that many leaves removed.
.
I trimmed a plant once, and I trimmed a looooooot less than you did, and I would have better used my grow space if I started over with a different plant. It was definetely a learning experience for me though, as I had another plant that I kept un-molested next to it and saw the huge difference in the way they grew.

If you start over now, you will have a shorter time to a usable harvest.

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No please don't toss them "RIGHT NOW". cut the main stalk down and veg them for 3-5 weeks. They will grow out and bush out again. Its up to ya tho

suTraGrow said:

No please don't toss them "RIGHT NOW". cut the main stalk down and veg them for 3-5 weeks. They will grow out and bush out again. Its up to ya tho

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Ya, that's not a bad idea. I think the amount of stress from all that trimming, then that major top, it will take a while to veg out anyway. So just start some new ones. But I think your idea is feasible as well.

Pelt1, that's some good advice, thanks. I should have posted this question before I got overzealous with the trimming. I was going to keep one unmolested just in case if my "brilliant plan" ended up being not so brilliant, but then I decided to do the all for one and one for all thing like a crazy weed growing musketeer. They were some nice looking plants if I do say so myself. Well, on the bright side, hopefully other newbies will read this and learn what not to do.
Alright, so then I should just cut the stock about halfway up the plant and see what that does? These babes are autos and they're 38 days old. They only have about another 32 days left to live so maybe I should just let them run their course and not mess with them anymore? Perhaps, I should just start over. It really sounds like it may be a lost cause at this point. Maybe if I smoke the leaves as a consolation prize it'll make me feel better about the whole ordeal. I'm embarrassed to ask this but can you get high smoking the leaves also known as shake?

Just veg your plants till you get some long enough branches and take clones off the tops, root them and replace the ones that you hacked if you want unless you want to keep them since they are tall and can bush out again. If your lights are on a timer you can take them off and give them 24/0 light that way they can make as much energy as they can and can regrow faster compared to if you do the 20/4 or 18/6.

pelt1 said:

Ya, that's not a bad idea.

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I agree with ya on a couple thing but it really wont take to long. Its like rejuvenating a plant after harvest. You leave nothing but a couple leafs and more grow in no time. Some day its week but from my experience 2-3 weeks i had a decent amount of fan leafs grown. And since his plant is in veg mode as long as it doesn't die from the shock because he did cut all the branches off she should grow into a little bush in no time.

To the OP, if you do decide to do this you should start a journal. Be really interesting to see.

This is hands down the biggest facepalm moment ive seen since ive started growing. Surely this is a wind up! Why would anyone turn a lush bushy plant into a spindly twig? It's almost heartbreaking!

easyrider23 said:

.......... so maybe I should just let them run their course and not mess with them anymore? Perhaps, I should just start over. It really sounds like it may be a lost cause at this point..............

..........but can you get high smoking the leaves also known as shake?

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It's really up to you wether you start over or cut the stalk.

If you do cut the stalk, cut it down the the lowest point where you have leaves. I don't know how the auto will respond to this much tinkering?

Since this is a hobby and all, enjoy it! Maybe keep one of them, and use the other half of your space to start a new one that you KNOW FOR SURE will produce some good smoke by the end. And you will have some more experience under you belt.

As far as smoking leaves, it's a waste. There won't be much material on the leaves that will get you high. "Shake" is usually a bit different. When you trim your buds, you don't get ALL the leaves off. And the leaves you do leave are so close to the bud that there will be valuable THC on them. So the 'Shake' you usually have in your cure jar will be both leafy and bud material that has 'shaken' loose from the bud, which will have a decent content thc and worthy of smoking.

^ I wouldn't trim the top leaves off. Let them get big and fat and supply your girls with nutrition. But yeah, you butchered those poor girls. Lesson learned.

If your using CFLs I would say ditch them and get some low wattage MH and HPS lights. You can get them as low as 35w. Get a couple or few HPS and Mh lights and ballasts. Run a cool tube and slam the lights right down. If I was running a cool tube on my MH light I could possibly get it as close as I can with a 45w CFL.

You fucked up so bad!