pruning

[frtyford]

Yes my question to the board is this. Should I be pruning the large leaves that are on top of what looks to be my flowing leaves. They are green and healthy but they are blocking the light to the smaller bud like leaves. As you can tell this is my first grow so I don't want to prune unless it's cool to do so. Thank you........

[demoreal]

I try not too. I bend them out of the way. If you have a bunch of fan leaves i do not think it will matter. Most of my grows I do not have many fan leaves. I like saving them, it seems my plants use them late in flower. You could cut them. I would not.
edit: And if you mean the leaves on the top I really would not. Just let the plant do its thing.

[CovertCarpenter]

... is if your plant has suffered some stress, and the fan leaf has more than 50% damage on it... then yeah, cut 'em. When doing so, ONLY use scissors or a razor blade that have been sterilized by flame or alcohol or lysol. Fire good. Use the top of the flame, and don't be afraid of a little blackening on the sciss.

If you don't /have/ to, DON'T. The fan leaves are a part of the overall mechanix of the plant, and unless you have to get rid of 'em (for disease / pests / damage / drought), leave 'em be. If you must remove some parts of 'em, try to remove only the damaged/dead bits. And make sure your scissors are sharp.

I had a friend a while ago who lollipop'd his plants, but that was only in the last 2 weeks of flowering, iirc. Killa widow, mon...

If you have to help a plant out that has suffered some stress (or had to have some bad foliage removed), SuperThr!ve is your friend. Get some. It really helps, particularly with some Dutch M4ster Penetrator as a foliar spray...