trimming shade leaves???

[Justtrying]

I am glad to read this and while there are so many different ways of doing it and on my first grow of WW, I did allot of trimming, so I cannot have a way point to say they grew more or less.

The Genetics thing and nature makes allot of sense to me, so I believe on this 32 PPP I have going (one month hydro from seed, they are about 12", some slower, but the light is not the problem) and 12 Supergirl, I think i will go with only trimming the bottom leaves in veg stage as they clearly go yellow and are not producing as nature turns them.

Another great learn from a great set of peeps. Thanks for the info.

[just1plant]

15 years old in 2004 would make him 19. This thread is ancient and even has a discussion about resurrecting old threads in it!

So he'll be 23 now? Wow.

[Bloomin Idiot]

Nature is incredibly efficient, and even though most of us are going to very unnatural steps to produce our fine products, it's still a plant and follows those rules.

True.

No need to trim, just keep the used up dead ones that fall out of the medium. The plants will poise themselves for best absorption and protection. Its like the stretching thing, complete bs, other than the plant knows what to do to put itself in the best possible position, if its a bad one its telling you your garden sucks and they want something better,haha

[Johnnycannaseed]

I have been reading apparently contradictory statements concerning trimmming the shade leaves on growing plants...I have a very small cabinet (2.5' x 3') and currently 3 plants in the mid flowering stage...they are pretty close in there, and I thought it wise, after consultation w/several online sources, to trim some shade leaves...Then I started reading some contradictions, from Ed Rosenthal el al, suggesting the trimming has a price, oftentimes too steep of a price, ie, disease, stunting or even hermaphroditism...Nothing I can do now, having trimmed 2 dozen or so shade leaves, but in the future, should I clip these huge shade leaves, or leave them be???

Never cut shade/fan leaves I did an experiment on this subject in my early grow days, I had some bubble gum cuttings that I had let veg to a nice size they were about 3ft high very bushy and fairly uniform in growth and pattern I decided to prune the best looking one and stripped off most of the fan leaves can't remember exact yields but I can remember all the none pruned plants yielding significantly more than the poor old pruned girl, needless to say I never stripped the fan leaves off a plant again.

Trimming lower leaves and branches where the light cannot reach in the 2nd-3rd week of flowering is good practice or alternatively you can leave them, flower the top half of your plant then trim that off to harvest, then finish flowering the lower half of your plant, I found the lower bud seemed to be better in taste than the top bud:stoned: