Methods of Pruning and why

[j0c1f3r]

"I just pinchl the suckers" off.....the lil cluster of tiny leaves poppin out at the top of each top.....usually does a fine job.....

[gumbyada]

so do you cut the main center stem when pruning, or do you cut the branches that hold the leaves and bud sites?

[jackel]

when u top, u cut the main stem as shown in picture`

[pawel1810]

ok so im pretty familiar with topping my plant
but what about the other method where u cut off the cluster of leaves
and wats a node?

[stiky dodo dumb]

I wanted to expand this topic a little into a technique I recently learned watching kyle kushman on a youtube video but first I want to explain what I prune most often and why... Ill cut or pinch off leafs that are shading growth nodes (new budding sites that a veggitating upwards and outwards) this allows the lowers to have as much potential and the branches with proper lighting and opens the plant to airflow and deeper ligt penitration. I will take a lot of leafs from the middle of the plant but leave the outside shad/water leafs to help produce energy, as the plant vegges more leafs will grow and you want as much energy as possible in production(budding) tho I dont want you productivity shaded out by too many huge ass leafs.

this technique Ill call snapping is used in replacment of topping and is far less stressfull on the plant, plus you get to keep that top how it was wich will surely grow the biggest bud. you want to pinch the stems when their soft and tender because its hard to pinch and bend a hard rigid stem. also you want to pinch and gently bend in a few locations at the top of the plant, the top will still grow tall but the lateral branches will noticably have more energy and the plant will bush out, I tied some tops over slightly to accomidate for hight restrictions outdoors. I haven't yet tried this indoors but anyhoo heres the video I really think this helped my plants bounce back and redistibute the growth hormones throughout the plant same as cutting the very top little tiny heads off. You dont want to break them obviously but a gentle plinch and bend will snap the stems and they will heal back while stimulating the plant to bush out much like supercropping. I have snapped alot of my plants and I think I perfer this but supercroping early on while the plant is very small will ensure their are more then a couple main stems. Im allways researching and developing I think it's healthy to keep exploring ideas and not get stuck on what I think is good enough.. the snapping is at about 2:30 into the vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_yCyK6Q ... ure=topics