Indoor Pruning bud sites

[A Man You Know]

Got some auto flowerers on the go now and they are bang on 4 weeks old. Been showing pistils for around 5-7 days now and I have been pruning new growth that I deem will not get enough light to produce decent buds since they were about 11 Days old. Started with the first new shoots above the single bladed fan leaves and have moved on to new shoots on the side branches trying to keep everything having as much light as possible

Can anyone give me a bit of advice on when it is best to stop pruning the bud sites that will not get enough light as the plants are still stretching and what I thought would get enough light is now half way down the plant as a whole so I would like to tidy that up again

Couple of pics to illustrate...

First one shows them just before stretch and where I took a couple of shoots off, just above the string. I done this on all my plants side branches.



The 2nd pic shows where I am wanting to continue to prune off on a couple of plants. Don't want to cause too much 'stress' to the plant. Would like it to be smooth sailing from here to chop but at the same time I want some good buds



Thoughts please fellow stoners

 

[TshirtNinja]

I personally lightly prune at each watering all the way until week 7. The key is light pruning. Chop about half of what you want and come back and do it again next watering. Plants naturally have this happen in nature and this is a small step above that. Just don't prune heavy in late flower IMHO.

 

[A Man You Know]

Thanks for the input TshirtNinja.

Thats pretty much what I have been doing dude. Not every watering but then when I have done it I have took most of what I seen to be useless so perhaps I should stagger it out a bit more.

They are keeping me on my toes for sure. I thought the stretch would of finished by now but they are still going!

 

[A Man You Know]

Thanks for the input TshirtNinja.

Thats pretty much what I have been doing dude. Not every watering but then when I have done it I have took most of what I seen to be useless so perhaps I should stagger it out a bit more.

They are keeping me on my toes for sure. I thought the stretch would of finished by now but they are still going!

 

[whatsgoodie]

I prune popcorn buds at the base of the stalk all the way through harvest. I also prune leaves that would otherwise be covering half-way nodes on branches through week 6 so I have to prune less popcorn buds!

That second pic shows a plant that would benefit greatly from LST dude. Have you ever considered it?

Also what kind of light are you using and how far away is it?

 

[A Man You Know]

I prune popcorn buds at the base of the stalk all the way through harvest. I also prune leaves that would otherwise be covering half-way nodes on branches through week 6 so I have to prune less popcorn buds!

That second pic shows a plant that would benefit greatly from LST dude. Have you ever considered it?

Also what kind of light are you using and how far away is it?

Thanks for your input mate.

I have thought about LST but wanted to try and leave this to be as natural as possible. Get those main cola's nice an thick. I think in just 6.5L square pots it would get messy around the base too and be hard to water. Just measured the three plants I have now and they average 23" so they are quite leggy for an auto.

Which brings us on to light, i'm using a 16/8 regime with a 250W Dual Spec and during the first two weeks it wasn't below 12" from tops of plants. During the stretch it's been one of those... go to bed and they are like 10" from top, wake up they are almost touching ! It's at 6" from the tops now with a fan blowing on my reflector and oscillating. Gonna move it up 2" shortly.

Hopefully with pruning away the sites that aren't gonna get light then I should have some fine plans on my hands.

I also prune leaves that would otherwise be covering half-way nodes on branches through week 6

You couldn't give us a picture of what you mean there could you please? I'm thinking you mean as a bud grows bigger and reaches up to the light you snip off the fan leaf directly above it which its now being shaded by?

 

[whatsgoodie]

Yessir, that's exactly what I mean. If a branch was a Y and a leaf was in the middle of the V part of the Y, I'd cut it off as to expose the buds a little more down the branch. Lighting sounds perfect! Your plants show no signs of light stress, so they're loving the distance.

How many plants you have under the 250?

 

[A Man You Know]

I've just got three in there at the moment. Might crack another three in about 2-3 weeks or so, so i'm cropping three plants every 4-6 weeks or something.

I have another idea also. Pop five/six auto's on my next go so I have enough smoke to last then veg some regular strains alongside the last 4 weeks of my next auto flower grow. Putting the vegging plants on an elevation in the centre of my tent and moving the others to the outside so they get a little less light. Could be good for simulating the natural light drop off in the early autumn/fall months. Bring out those resinous oils

I'll also only have the same time to wait for flowering if I pick a quick flowering strain. An 8-9 weeker would be ideal. Would probably do four plants and look for 2oz off each

What do you think I would get off 6 auto's under a 250 HID? And what do you think I could get off the three I currently have? I suppose the final yield of these three will determine how many it would be ok to put in next time but I would like to crack them before then to get a nice perpetual harvest going. 6 of the strain I have in there now would be very crowded too, would have to raise the light a bit more to get full coverage...

That reminds me I did just raise my light again. Its at 9" from main tops again and about 14" from the smallest plants lowest side branching so not that bad. The others have very big side branches, they have overtaken growth that is in the centre of the plant :thumbs: Can't wait for them to fill out :smoke:

 

[TshirtNinja]

nice idea on the photo/auto combo. I thought about this myself but honestly I see no reason to do this if you stagger your autos. I am working on a rotation where i will pull a new crop every 4 weeks per strain with a harvest of every 2 weeks between 2 strains. I just need to hook up my new light mover plus rework some things in the grow area and buy some t5's to veg. I noticed that the first 4 weeks dont really matter as far as keeping a large amount of wattage over them while in this state. I think I will be using 2 t5ho lights to bring the "replacements" to the grow area and flower them for 8 weeks under led to finish.

 

[whatsgoodie]

I have the same experience as TSN that the plants will grow much the same under T5s, 6500k CFLs or HID for the first month. I've vegged under 206W 6500k CFL and I've vegged under my 600W HPS - there was honestly 0 difference in the first 3 weeks of growth. Your technique determines the most - to maximize your yields under a 250 you're going to want to look into some sort of training, IMO. Honestly 6 autos under a 250 HID you're probably looking at 1oz to 1.5oz under optimal conditions - you're really pushing the light to it's limit @ 6 plants. Remember, the less plants there is - the more light there is to go around for the ones in there. I'd reccomend throwing some 2700k CFLs in with the 250W with 6 plants, maybe 100W (real watts) worth, scatter 4 13s per side so the sides can get some good penetration.

I run a similar OP, I have 3 areas to grow - veg/mother cab running 206W worth of 6500k CFLs, 600W HPS closet that currently just has a couple of autos in it (vegging photo strains for it) and a 240W blackstar in a 2x2 tent running a 12 plant auto SoG. Aiming for 1oz per plant every 3 months (QP per month broken down) then running perpetual 8 plants in the closet with 2.5oz off each every 2 weeks. So about 9oz per month total. I've been considering buying some UFO lights and upping the plant amount to 20 in the SoG.. but we'll see. Right now since I'm vegging the autos (Onyx, Snowryder, Mi5 and BHD.. <3 Short Stuff Seeds) I have some LST'd autos under the LED (2 Auto Widow and a SnowRyder).