Very Bushy LST- week into flower, advise on trimming/pruning undergrowth

Hey guys! I've read and read about LST and pruning and there are some debates between cutting branches and stripping all below, removing light blocking- This is my first LST but not new to growing, just wondering- This plant is 1 week into flower, have plenty of growing lateral tops, I've kept the plant below a foot in height, so the lower canopy is pretty dense, I know my pruning time limit is approaching now that i'm beginning second week of flower- so would just like so feed back- im with most on leaving my fan leaves, but there are definitely some secondary branching going on below the canopy line.

I can snap some better shots if needed. Hows does it look?

Looking good radmichelle. With a plant that small and already in flowering, there shouldn't be a need for thinning out. If any big fan leaves get in the way of a good bud site, you can always just tuck the leaf underneath. No harm no foul and everyone and everything is happy. Keep us updated on the grow!

Great thanks! when you throw lst into flower, do you continue to pull the side shoots out a bit or let them start gaining height? its been about a week now and the stretching is obvious but i'm pulling some of the lower nodes out away from the lower canapy... maybe let it grow up now?

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Originally Posted by radmichelle

Great thanks! when you throw lst into flower, do you continue to pull the side shoots out a bit or let them start gaining height? its been about a week now and the stretching is obvious but i'm pulling some of the lower nodes out away from the lower canapy... maybe let it grow up now?

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Either way really. Most will try and keep the canopy as even as possible so the light intake is maxed out. I sometimes do it sometimes don't. Sometimes I just lst til flower and let em go. I really don't see you going wrong either way. What lights are you running?

ive got a 400 watt hps- 2-2.5 feet from the canopy- I've a couple other plants in there- Im wondering about cutting the small 3" branches on the very bottom or the lower secondary branching that is inside the canopy.. something about taking energy from the upper growth lol

my plants look like yours, I'm also into my second week of bloom. My lights (2) 400w HPS are 12-18" up. I have yet to trim the 'legs' but when you do they will keep on growing back (and I keeep on cutting them). I'm not worried about leaves blocking anything yet until I get some real bud sites. Mine are still in preflower.

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Originally Posted by radmichelle

ive got a 400 watt hps- 2-2.5 feet from the canopy- I've a couple other plants in there- Im wondering about cutting the small 3" branches on the very bottom or the lower secondary branching that is inside the canopy.. something about taking energy from the upper growth lol

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You can if you want but given the height of your plant, I personally think your good. Now if you were flowering that same plant and it was around 3ft tall, I would recommend trimming her on up. You're running a 400 so penetration shouldnt be a problem. The two main reasons I see people thinning them out is with taller plants and air flow. The reason for the taller plants is because the tops can only be so close to the lights which leaves very little light reaching the bottom of the plant. Little light equals little growth so they trim the parts that will produce the little growth at the bottom. You have a short lstd plant under a 400 so there should be plenty of light hitting all areas with a little tucking. I try not to do very much hacking on the plants after the first two weeks of flower so if you decided to trim, you might wanna do it soon. Thats just my opinion and Im sure you will get several others.

Hey Shovel, I feel you- when I took clones 2 weeks back those sites I clipped are regrowing lol, I think my 1 400watt hps is about 2 feet above canopy, dealt with some heat issues early on so light was lifted, any pics of your plant? so far the plant is wide enough to not worry about the blocking from fan leaves, but its the low secondary branches im wonderin about

I do have images of my grow, in the grow log section of the forum. Stay tuned, this week I plan on looking close up on what happens when you do what I did.

Hey guys, just thought i'd throw up a post about how these guys are coming along. I did a tiny trim of the twiggy branches that were below everything at the base of the stem, Ive been tying back some of the giant shaded fan leaves, they are all tucked down below the canopy. I haven't trimmed a large fan leaf yet but the dense bush that's forming from tying them down is kinda getting ridiculous lol

Nice color, no sign of deficiency I can see. What do you use for fert?

Hey thanks man!
They used to have a few probs early on while I was balancing things out lol, when they were vegging I ran with low doses of FF Grow big, Sea Weed Extract, and occasional Epsom salt sea weed foliar spray, and low dose FF Tiger transitioning into flower, Now that they are 2 weeks into flowering, (i'd gotten ahold of some extra nutes from a friend a little late into this grow lol) I've been gradually low dosing with some koolbloom, tiger bloom, and sea weed on the feed days.

I did get ahold of some Great White Mycorrhizae late in the game, and added their solution to a watering, and have followed up with some Rasta Bob's Blackstrap Molasses on the next water (2 days ago) I've definetly seen a little pep in their fruiting step, but I've read too that since I've some chem ferts that i'm cross canceling the benefits of the microbs, hopefully since im lower dosing the ferts and have been focusing on the soil that they've gotten a bit of beneficial-ness lol. Have you used the molasses at all? i'm under the impression that its just to feed the soil- so organics only. using ffof soil so I know its kind of alive so to speak lol.

People have talked on web forums for years about how they used molasses. What they never discussed was why the did it. Apparently there is an idea that plants take up sugar, hence the use of molasses. I remember from early biology that plants make sugar from soil nutes along with sunshine. So it was confusing. Why would a plant take up sugar if they can make there own? I'm guessing that they don't take up sugar. Thus, the use for molasses is to feed the bacteria in soil. The point to using chem ferts is rapid uptake without waiting for bacteria to break the stuff down. Not sure if going with chem is a problem later on or not. Probably not, but only a chemist knows for sure.
Molasses: Sweet and Super by Malcolm Beck - Organic Lawn Care Forum - GardenWeb

molasses is indeed for feeding the soil microbes and not the plant. Using salt based fertilizers is not very good for the microbes and you can't reuse the soil as an organic grow medium. Well you can, but not the best results that way.