PW Pruning

[Gonejah]

My goal with this here nifty thread is to remove the fear of pruning from the picture for you guys.I will show that you will not lose ,in fact gain in the yeild and quality dept.It's hard to imagine removing all those potential flower sites,but as you will see,it all pays off in the end

Had to save this one...thanks a million pw!

 

[Gonejah]

Prune Along w/ PW

I'm gonna run through an entire grow one cut at a time.Complete with pics and details.I'll be demonstrating the techniques I use to encourage the onset of dense heavy potent buds.Avoiding as much of the dreaded popcorn as possible.I will be using both train wreck and soma's lavender for this thread.I will begin posting pics as soon as tomorrow.Every time I prune I will post pics before and after,and answer any questions that arise.Hope this helps.

A detailed look at the methods that produce loaf sized train wreck buds.
I've sampled the wares of PW, everybody ought to listen up this guy knows of what he speaks.

PW's TW

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[Gonejah]

Ok,here we go...
This is at about 2wks veg.having been topped once.
This goes for both the lavender and the train.
No pruning has taken place yet,first three pics are train wreck(grey container)second three, Lavender(blue container)

I top my cuttings @ about the 4th or 5th node when they are real young.
Basically just when they actively start growing after sprouting roots.

As far as actual veg time, I'd say these have been veging for 18 days.
These are 12 gallon containers w/2 cubic feet of my own amended soil mix...and honestly damn near every plant I grow branches this wildly,train wreck the least!

...if you want monsters you need to let 'em breathe...this includes root space as well as physical space

O.k. the first cuts have meen made.
At this first prune I like to be very aggressive so as to cut down on the work required when it comes time to prune again.(strain dependent of course)
After this initial prune,I like to allow the plants time to recover and get back into the groove.
If you're doing things correctly it should be no time at all before they are growing again.Perhaps a couple days max.After they are actively growing again just keep your eyes peeled for renegade shoots...but we'll get to that later.

O.k. here are the before shots of the train wreck...

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And these are after the prune

These next shots are of the lavender before

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And now after prune...

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Here's an over head of the train,so you can get a better idea of the spread/balance and uniformity

And now one of the lavender...

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[Gonejah]

On average I like to leave 6 to 8 branches(plant willing)behind.You just have to listen to the plants of course,they will let you know how much they can handle.
So you see it's not a matter of loosing any canopy it will still be there to soak up all the light.It's just a matter of directing the flow of energy through the plant.Removing all of the lower shoots and branches which would be shaded or otherwise non productive

So, you are removing the lower growth shoots without taking the corresponding fan leaves?[/QUOTE]

Yes exactly,the fan leaves must be left behind!!I remove the lower fan leaves once they are shaded by the canopy,but not till then. At which time the lower third worth of fan leaves are removed for proper air flow beneath the girls.

Two weeks is generally the cut off for most plants,other than heavy sativa influenced strains.A good rule of thumb is to stop pruning once the bud sites are about the size of a pencil eraser.You def. have more time where most sativas are concerned.As far as topping you want to get that out of the way soon as possible.I like to top and choose my main branches as early as I can.Usually within 1st wk of veg. I'll be posting some more shots tonight.There has been no need to do any more pruning as of yet,and I dropped them (12/12)last night.However till I prune again I figured I would post a couple shots of the progress of the two ladies in question.I'll keep the pics coming of these two so you guys can see first hand the effects of this pruning method beginning to end.

Ok so here we are 6 days after initial heavy prune.Just dropped the girls 12/12 on 1st.Now they are ready for a clean up...removing any fresh shoots that have shot out over the last 6 days.Here are some

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The first one is the lavender and the second one is the train wreck.You can see the contrast between the heavy sativa influenced train wreck and the more indica dom.lavender.The stretch on the train shoots is always fast.Especially when pruning like this.It makes 'em bolt like crazy. Any how the shoots you see under the crown at the top of each train, and lav. branches will be removed.Here are a couple full shots.First lavender second

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[Gonejah]

There hasn't been any more pruning thus far,however now we are day 8 into flower and ready for another aggressive prune

Ok,so here we are day 12 into flower...@ day 10 I went in for another heavy prune , it was time.Once again you must feel it out with your ladies...they will let you know when it's time.I let these go a little long for demonstration purposes.That way it will be clear what to remove.They probably should have been pruned as early as 8 days into flower. The first two shots are train before and after.The next two lavender before and after.

TW before prune

TW after prune

Lav before

Where did you get the balls to prune so heavily in the first place? I know it has worked for you in the past; but was it something you slowly added onto little by little or did you have another plant model in mind (like the tomatoes)?
BTW I thought TW was supposed to have spindly stems. Yours are quite strong looking!

Well the balls grew a little slower than my plants...LOL!!! It took me a few years of successively more aggressive pruning before I was where I'm at now with it.Yes the train has very spindly stems...this is another example of re-directing the energy of the plant.When pruned as such the stems really pack on the meat...however they still won't be able to support the buds to come.So staking is always a must with trainwreck.I'm hovering around the 50 watt per square foot mark.

 

[Gonejah]

KK has a very similar thread with excellent pics as well...

https://www.thecannacabana.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3501&highlight=prune

and another...
https://www.thecannacabana.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3317&highlight=prune

 

[LadyTokin]

Gonejah I think I love you :laugh:. Well of course I love ya but you know what I meant . I've been looking everywhere for Pistilwhipts method with pics. Thank you thank you thank you :adore:

 

[dcyans]

 

[LadyTokin]

STICKY STICKY STICKY :laugh:

 

[rabbitt]

Good on ya Gonejah:smileyhug:

 

[Gonejah]

another little example...

Here's a small clone in a 1/2 gal bloomed with little veg time...

A closer view of the nodes to be pruned

The little one after the first prune
I wasn't sure if i should take it up one more node on the first prune.

A week later, i decided to snip it as well...

9 weeks later...

 

[Gonejah]

another "radical" example...

These girls are 5 weeks in, you can see the pruning in full force on the left. Nearly all the leaves are intact, and the tops are filling in...
(there are two plants in that 18 gal tub. the one on the left was the keeper, and is the one in the remaining pics...)

4 weeks later, she's ready to cut down....
(you can see the one plant has already been cut down)

Of course, I had to try it 'naturally' to see how much i lost by cutting all those little nuggets off...what a mess!
She's not a bad lookin girl, but loook at all that crap down there :glare:

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[leroy]

14 days in & I took them out-side for their final pistal-whuppin'...

 

[kevdaddy]

Thanks for putting this up Gonejah :)

It would be great to sticky this...

 

[DMAN]

Great thread gonejah...stuck! :)

 

[Gonejah]

Hey L, I hope you'll share some pics later on showing the results...

D & PW, thanks! without you, were would we be???

I've received a few comments about the 'radicalness' of the pruning. I'm sure most of you have seen a nice scrog...look how heavily pruned the underside of the screen is, and if the screen is vegged right, the results certainly speak for themselves...


If you're on the fence, take up pw's suggestion and do a branch, or a plant....

 

[Grobot]

I'm curious... I realize that the popcorn is not valuable in and of itself, but it can be thrown into the bubble wash and you can get some additional trichomes from it. Do you think that leaving the lower branches for that purpose is worth it, or has it been your experience that the yeilds on the upper colas are reduced significantly by their presence and their obstruction of the air flow through the garden?

I have been removing the branches on the bottom third of the plant, but lately I have been thinking about leaving them in place to check how my cola yeild and bubble wash yeild are in agregate compared with the lolipopped plants. Any thoughts on this?

 

[leroy]

I can speak only for myself, but I like to think of it as pre-emptive trimming...

 

[Gonejah]

has it been your experience that the yeilds on the upper colas are reduced significantly by their presence

not "significantly" different one way or the other ime.
the pruned plants are much easier to trim...

I have been removing the branches on the bottom third of the plant, but lately I have been thinking about leaving them in place to check how my cola yeild and bubble wash yeild are in agregate compared with the lolipopped plants.

Any thoughts on this?

sure, get back to us when you find out :D
like i said above, i dont really notice much difference in yield, just 'quality' and trim time

When are you doing that pruning?

I'm curious if pruning during veg is better than waiting to prune near bloom

I can speak only for myself, but I like to think of it as pre-emptive trimming...

lol....

for a few years now i've been trying to get af to try it. that's exactly what i said to him..
you can spend about half hour now or half the day in 2 months...

 

[funk420]

thanks gonejah for the post:)
i agree with leroy. after some years of practice and patience (listening to the plant) i have come to a conclusion that this method yeilds better for me leaving me bigger buds and less trimming and screwing around with the popcorn buds. To each there own though. =)