Newbie Pruning Question

Serpentz

Serpentz

Well-Known Member
Hello - Some of you probably hate me by now and that's OK :smile:

I am growing my first Deep Water Culture plant and it's massively out of control. I've already lollipopped it once but it's totally unruly on week 7 and wants to grow out of the closet.

The plant grew more bushy and flat than the same strain did in soil, which to me is interesting because the only difference is now its hydro. So therefore, I didn't put my scrogging screen up because I see a ton of flowers up top. However, some flowers are being covered by the big fan leaves up top. I did look on the forum first but didn't find what I was looking for.

What I want to know is...can I cut off these fan leaves up top? I've read that since you are feeding a plant all the nutrients it needs, there is no need for these leaves, and I have also read that you'd be a fool to cut these leaves off because these also feed the flowers apart from your direct nutrients.

With that said, I am hoping that someone here with experience will reply to this and let me know - yes or no...I should not remove them and why. One post I found said that you can bend them under. But the leaves will get no light so why have them at all?

I pointed to the leaves I am talking about in one photo....the other is my newbie lollipop. No one better tell me how bad it is :grin:

Discuss please and thank you in advance.
 

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Im with air on this i to snip off 80 to 90 percent when plants get to bushy from topping mostly. Usually every 2 wks, Just leave at least 2 fans on top of stem. So you can help power growth you do need them for that. Youll know just look at it.
 
Thanks for the replies. I wonder if I am getting too greedy because this plant is really bushy and has a lot of bud sites. I do want to try and expose more though.
 

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Greybush7387 said:
Im with air on this i to snip off 80 to 90 percent when plants get to bushy from topping mostly. Usually every 2 wks, Just leave at least 2 fans on top of stem. So you can help power growth you do need them for that. Youll know just look at it.
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Funny thing is I didn't top this one. I have done this before though in my soil grows.
 
Airwalker16 said:
They just come back up unless your physically tying them down. Just snip off the ones that need to go.
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I trust you, which is a hard thing to do around here ;-) I went ahead and cut off some of the leaves exposing more of the bud sites. It's really incredible how this plant grew so bushy and flat. I'm really pleased. Can't wait to see what happens by the end of this month. Got my nutrients dialed in, and I fixed my calcium/magnesium deficiency which I spotted early. I've got nothing but healthy leaves and explosive growth. I also just installed my carbon filter system because the smell was strong right outside my apartment door :eek:

It's a pretty trick setup I got going but I'm going to invest in a tent next...not that I need the closet space, I just think its more controlled.

Thanks for your help Airwalker, I really appreciate it.

P.S. I'm turning down the light to lowest when I take photos. That Hans Panel is super bright 8-)
Also - Plant getting ready to sleep in this shot...it's about time for the light to go off.
 

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Serpentz said:
I trust you, which is a hard thing to do around here ;-) I went ahead and cut off some of the leaves exposing more of the bud sites. It's really incredible how this plant grew so bushy and flat. I'm really pleased. Can't wait to see what happens by the end of this month. Got my nutrients dialed in, and I fixed my calcium/magnesium deficiency which I spotted early. I've got nothing but healthy leaves and explosive growth. I also just installed my carbon filter system because the smell was strong right outside my apartment door :eek:

It's a pretty trick setup I got going but I'm going to invest in a tent next...not that I need the closet space, I just think its more controlled.

Thanks for your help Airwalker, I really appreciate it.

P.S. I'm turning down the light to lowest when I take photos. That Hans Panel is super bright 8-)
Also - Plant getting ready to sleep in this shot...it's about time for the light to go off.
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Ya man you'll be just fine. Next time try to do it all a week before flip, then again a week after, and finally once more at the 4th week mark. Then you'll be able to gain a lot of weight. You gotta not worry about being too gentle. You can really get in there and clean it up. It looks like a damn skeleton afterwards.
 
Airwalker16 said:
I'm curious to see what that Hans panel does. Haven't seen one of them in a long time. How many watts does it pull?
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It's the 180-watts panel with Veg/Flower switch. I grew two of my first plants in soil under the Hans Panel, an Auto White Widow and an Auto Blueberry..like I am growing now. I got 85 grams out of the White Widow and 64 grams out of the Blueberry. I bought the Hans Panel to replace a 250-watt HPS that really cranked out a lot of heat in the closet. It also ate up a lot more electricity. So far I'm really happy with it.
 
Serpentz said:
It's the 180-watts panel with Veg/Flower switch. I grew two of my first plants in soil under the Hans Panel, an Auto White Widow and an Auto Blueberry..like I am growing now. I got 85 grams out of the White Widow and 64 grams out of the Blueberry. I bought the Hans Panel to replace a 250-watt HPS that really cranked out a lot of heat in the closet. It also ate up a lot more electricity. So far I'm really happy with it.
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<0.5G per watt. You can do better. I'd add some strips in there with it and get more photons in there. More White Light.
 
Serpentz said:
I trust you, which is a hard thing to do around here ;-) I went ahead and cut off some of the leaves exposing more of the bud sites. It's really incredible how this plant grew so bushy and flat. I'm really pleased. Can't wait to see what happens by the end of this month. Got my nutrients dialed in, and I fixed my calcium/magnesium deficiency which I spotted early. I've got nothing but healthy leaves and explosive growth. I also just installed my carbon filter system because the smell was strong right outside my apartment door :eek:

It's a pretty trick setup I got going but I'm going to invest in a tent next...not that I need the closet space, I just think its more controlled.

Thanks for your help Airwalker, I really appreciate it.

P.S. I'm turning down the light to lowest when I take photos. That Hans Panel is super bright 8-)
Also - Plant getting ready to sleep in this shot...it's about time for the light to go off.
Click to expand...

That's looking pretty good. I'd continue to defoliate the fuck out of her, though.
 
Well I've got more of the leaves down...it's an ongoing battle :mrgreen:

There are a lot of bud sites exposed and I've removed a lot of the smaller lower branches by lolli-popping. I also did a little super-cropping a few days ago up top because the main cola was reaching for the sky, now it's even with the rest of the plant.

But I gotta say...every time I start cutting off more leaves I get a bit apprehensive that I'm doing more damage than good. I understand that getting light is important but those leaves do store some food and energy... I'm watching some videos and some guy is saying remove 80-90% of fan leaves. Another guy is saying that if the plant is healthy it doesn't need all those leaves.

I don't know... I'm sure I'll get better and better at this as time goes by. I just changed water and heading into week 8. The plant took forever to get going with its roots finally hitting the container. So I feel it might be a bit behind because of this.

Let's see what happens and I want to thank everyone that took the time to help me out.
 

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