New Grower Pruning an Auto

[Bromeo]

"Non tangunt" Latin for do not touch. Its what I've now taught myself. I have learned the hard way to just not cut. I figure subtract 2 days of bud growth and add two days on to grow time for each cut. I swear they seem to take longer if you cut anything.

 

[spelsylver]

No cuts period. Unless you're removing dead or sick leaf matter just resist the urge to cut. Lst works and so does leaf tucking. Simply tuck fan leaves blocking any budsites underneath the node. It's. Tedious process, as it needs constant attention, but your yield will thank you for it and not stress your auto at the same time.

 

[Rello2]

Once the Autoflower Bible is written(When we write it ), the 1st commandment should be :

Thou shalt not prune an autoflower, whether be top or bottom, foliage or rootage...

:smoke:

There is No benefit to topping or disturbing the roots of autos, only thing that would come of this is stunted plants.

 

[Eekman]

I guess I will let you all know

I trimmed the fan leaves on one recently to get light past the canopy. Not tons, but I am unsure if cutting a leaf will stress it or stop growth. I could see removing branches being an issue, because the plant will have to put energy into stopping it from leaking stuff through the canals, (not sure of the proper term), of its harder and thicker branch. But the fan leaves don't work the same way. Once it's gone, it wont grow back, and it isn't intended to, so there is no effort to restore anything or fix anything. Just like a dead leaf. The plant doesn't put any effort into restoring dead leaves. I am no expert, I just thought I would find out for myself. I have had other crazy theories come to be true as well, so it could happen, lol.

my two cents, wating to be skewered

Eek

 

[truck79]

All negative don't do it!!!!!!

What if the branch is deformed?

 

[GoAuto6]

deformity's still grow, I would just leave it and let it be It's self... every individual is special even the deformed....... :group:

 

[The Squid]

Although I don't condone it necessarily it, I do know that it has been done before and with success as well. I am inclined to 'keep it safe/simple' for the newer growers, so that's why I said that. If it works for Thud, cool. But I don't see a lot of it really. Maybe we should start a thread of topped and FIM'd Autoflowers.

Cheers everyone. Do what you do. If it works, please share, but don't blame me if it kills your plant either. I am actually thinking about trying it when I get a lot of plants going. Why not? Hell try it on 1 out of 10 plants. Couldn't hurt really.

 

[happily]

If a branch isn't trimmed down to the nub that will be the first thing to mold in your garden. The only times I've ever had mold were pruned branches I couldn't get in tight on and on multiple grows. The stem will curl up inside the bud and start molding everything it touches from the inside out

 

[thud]

My advice to the novice is do not cut your plants. It is not worth the risk. I have a freezer full of weed and a million seeds so can handle failed experiments and speak of sacrilege.

I trimmed the fan leaves on one recently to get light past the canopy. Not tons, but I am unsure if cutting a leaf will stress it or stop growth.

I recently did the same. A couple of weeks before harvest, trimmed everything with a stalk on 2 plants and left their 2 sisters alone. The ones with the leaves left on produced better. The additional light getting to the buds did not compensate for the loss of production coming from the fan leaves.

the time it lose's catching up? cut's your yeilds down!

My side by side testing says it does not. I harvested 3x60g creme caramel last week. I am simple gardener and don't have anything high powered.

What strains are you doing this to? Do you have pics?

That is a Barney's Blue Mammoth, A Betty Boo, and an Mi5, all topped.



The Betty Boo (middle one) day 24 above ground. Note that it has forked and the side branches are well developed.

there isn't enough time for it to recover from the stress.

A bit too anthropomorphic for my liking. What we have in a plant is the production and transport of chemicals. Of course, we want more production, but we also want control of where they go. When I 'top' I am removing the tiniest amount of materiel. If you examine a growing top, you will see the two side shoots that will become the new leaders. The rest of the plant is still working, the leaves producing sugar and the roots sucking away. Wherever auxins concentrate, you get growth. In removing the leader, I simply redirect that sugar elsewhere, bigger leaves for example. As the auxins gather again in the new leaders (the high points), the energy gets directed to them and they shoot up. The seeming stunting is while we wait for that buildup. The plant is getting wider rather than taller during this period. The plant has very limited control (opening stomata etc), it's all hormone and chemical gradients. The plant benders (lst) people are similarly doing auxin control by pinning down the leader.

I am reminded of the old riddle. "If a pond lilly doubles in size every day and fills the pond on day 50, when will it fill half the pond?" Day 49 of course. We are doing something similar with our plants. We are rolling out solar cells in the form of fan leaves to capture light. Once the surface is covered, there is no more use for more vegetative growth. The plant will try to grow up, unlike in nature higher means more intense radiation. Yet this will thrawted by me, I will move my lights up to negate that advantage. Thus I don't want the plant doing that at all. The Christmas tree shape is the exact opposite of efficient, a parabolic top to the canopy would be best but I settle for near flat. By topping early, say at 6 inch, the fork will be at 12 inches when it is ready. The plant gets taller by elongating its cells rather than adding new ones.

Once again, novices should not interfere with their plants.

 

[Muddy]

I've done several side by side experiments with topping. In the end the yields were about the same but the topped plants took about a week to 10 days longer to finish, the amount of time it took them to recover from the topping. LST is a much better option if height is an issue.