Quote Originally Posted by macnasty
Hello,

O.M. I (try to) grow similar sized plants as yourself; short, single cola plants, so my plants have very minimal side branching when they are triggered into flowering. Side branching intensifies in the first 3 weeks of flowering, and only then does it become a nuisance. My first question is, do you cut lower branches off? Secondly, when do you do this, so that it doesn't impact yield? Thanks.
First let me throw out this disclaimer; it is wrong sometimes to put out general statemants about what one should do or not do with anything (trimming, photoperiod, container size, etc etc.) dealing with this plant. Often times it is a mater of strain, style of grow, and what works best for you in your situation. This is where the arguments start, people tend to be attached to thier style of grow and the beliefs they hold as some sort of gospel.

In my personal grow, I use RW and I bloom them in a GI Grow rotating garden starting when the plantlets are about 6" tall. In that grow anything that could be a branch or future branch must be cut off immediately. Because the plants auxisms are so screwed up form rotating the plant has no way of knowing which way is up, so any side branch could suddenly start growing like crazy and top growth stops. Plus this growth could be growing straight down, or side ways. That's why I tell people while it sounds sexy to use a rotating garden one of it's bitches is the need to check for and cut any growth at any time at least everyother day. It is very labor intensive.

If you veg too long in a SOG style grow people will trim most of the bottom off the plant and you have a the "lollipop" plant...bare stalk first 6-10" and a single cola top.

In another grow I am a partner in, we are growing in contianers, and we are doing abt 2' plants, but I have showed him, with using a short veg period I can grow a small plant with no bare bottom just a cola. I'll post a pic of one I've shown before, it is exactly 10 inches in the pic and when finished it was 12". The only problem is some of the bottom growth is close to the dirt (pro-mix).

BTW, I've taken plants that size, burnt them with nutes about 14 days before harvest and then flushed them till cutting. All the leafs got burned, dried up by harvest and I had what we jokingly called an "auto-trim" plant. Not a reccomended technique but what I call a "shit and giggles" experiment.

Here's a 10" plant in a 6" dia. pot, really should be a 4" square for this size to max yield in a given space. This plant has never been trimmed, just becuase it tended to be a single stalk strain anyway.