To trim or not to trim

I am debating on whether or not I need to trim back some of my fan leaves. I know that there are different schools of thought on this, but I thought I would go ahead and ask. I am 9 days into flowering, I have LST'ed bushy plants with seemingly tons of fan leaves. I am thinking about cutting some of the lower growth that won't be producing good bud. I only have a 250w HPS running right now and I would like to be able to grow the strongest cola's and not have the plant waste too much energy on lower growth that isn't receiving light.

At this point I can see where most of the bud sites are going to be right? Shouldn't I trim the leaves surrounding the bottom that don't have bud sights? I know that the leaves are used to make the photosynthesis work so too much trimming is bad, but is there a general guideline?

Trim lower branches that won't produce much, I trim up to a third of the plant off in lower branches but I leave all the fan leaves on,even lower ones unless they are atleast 50% necrotic or completely dead and even those I usually just leave them untill they fall and clean them up.

as Jorge Cervantes says " Trimming healthy fan leaves is crazy!!! "

if they are blocking bud sites just tie them out of the way but dont cut them off, trimming off fan leaves will never give you more energy, fan leaves produce the food to give the plant energy Fan Leaves never take any energy away from the plant, however lower " sucker " branches take from the plant......get me.....and they can be trimmed

So if the branch doesn't have good bud then whack it. Is this right?

Moon Shadow said:

So if the branch doesn't have good bud then whack it. Is this right?

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NO IF the leafs are green they are helping the plant. Dont cut off leaves unless they are more than 50% yellow or brown

Hrmm good responses there, What about new branches coming off the main branches as i have also Lst'ed. Can we trim them doesnt matter how high up the plant?

Anyone know?

I don't cut anything from my plants, unless the leaf is dead. Any leaf green and living is helping the plant. Remember as the plant reaches full flowering, it will start pulling nutrients from all parts of the plant, that's why quite often the leaves, especially lower leaves, start to yellow and shrivel up. If you cut those lower leaves early, when the plant starts to reach harvest, it may not have the resources to pull from, resulting in smaller buds or longer flowering times. Just my 2 cents.

I appreciate the responses. I am guessing that is why plants that are nearing harvest are often just shoots of cola's? This isn't because of all the trimming so much as the leaves dying off correct?

dont make the same mistake as i did!!like triming medium amounts of leaves here and there..or every other day.if you goin to do large trimings...for instints ur plants are begining to bud and you neeed to get more light on the inside or bottom og your plants,you should trim all at once so you dont repeditively stress ur plants..im dealing with that rite now and talked it over with an older grower an he put me up on game

just grow it . said:

dont make the same mistake as i did!!like triming medium amounts of leaves here and there..or every other day.if you goin to do large trimings...for instints ur plants are begining to bud and you neeed to get more light on the inside or bottom og your plants,you should trim all at once so you dont repeditively stress ur plants..im dealing with that rite now and talked it over with an older grower an he put me up on game

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if u didnt notice
this thread was from 2 years ago

don't confuse trimming with pruning.

if u cut fan leaves off yor defeating the purpose of growing bud. if u want larger buds then leave ur leaves.

maybe prune in early stages of growth like sum lower branches. but when it starts flowering i would leave it alone.

superscropping is the way to go the two taller branches are actually the two bottom branches

this one too