Although lollipopping is a straightforward procedure, you should still use caution. You should lollipop your plants right before they start to bloom. Additionally, we advise trimming to remove any extra branches, albeit you should move cautiously and with a strategy.
- When pruning your plants, start with clean, sharp scissors. For example, our curved trimming scissors work well for making exact cuts close to the nodes. Invest on a pair of shears for larger, thicker branches. Remove any apparent foliage first. Obviously, the initial few branches around the base of your plant won’t receive enough light to properly develop. First, get rid of these.
- We advise following Kyle Kushman’s pruning recommendations and cutting any branches that don’t break at least half as high as the plant after you’ve addressed the most visible issue areas. These branches won’t grow properly because of the plants’ stretching during the first weeks of blossoming. Although pruning is frequently employed in conjunction with lollipopping when appropriate, eliminating entire branches is not always essential.
- Start cutting down branches that are growing in the centre of the plant next, especially those that are growing beneath the canopy. Not only will they probably not receive enough light, but this interior foliage also hides several potential locations for large buds. You should also remove any branches or leaves that are decaying or turning yellow at this time.
- When you’re ready, start lollipopsing each branch on your plant individually. Nodes should only be left three nodes or less from the tip of each branch, according to some growers. But a lot relies on the strain, the size, and the state of each plant specifically. Additionally, the moment you’re pruning matters. For instance, if you’re cutting late and your plants are smaller, we advise clipping below the top 4–5 nodes. In any instance, cut off the growth that extends to each branch’s highest nodes.
We advise waiting 23 days after you’ve lollipopped each branch before turning on the lights for your plants. Additionally, keep in mind that excessive pruning can hinder their growth. If you’ve never tried lollipopping, start out slowly and progress to the best pruning technique.
When should you give outdoor plants a lollipops?
The majority of growers concur that the ideal time to begin lollipopsing is during the third week of flowering. The majority of cannabis strains will start to show several bud sites along shoots after a few weeks in the bloom period. Some strains of marijuana will stretch more than others during this stage. Plants will use up less time and energy growing fluffy buds if the lower bud locations are removed early in the bloom.
Defoliating outdoor plants is recommended.
Your plants become stressed when healthy foliage is removed. Therefore, you should only defoliate fully healthy plants. Strong, straight stems, green leaves, rapid growth, and a well-draining, fast-drying medium are all indicators that your plants are content.
Avoid defoliating any plants that appear emaciated or exhibit signs of nutritional deficiencies, excessive or inadequate watering, nutrient or light burn, wind damage, pests, or disease. Defoliating these plants will just put them under more strain that they won’t be able to handle.
Additionally, we only advise defoliating indoor plants. Cannabis plants, as we previously said, actually store energy in their leaves for times when they are under duress. We don’t advise defoliating outdoor plants since they are more susceptible to pests and more frequent environmental stressors (such storms, severe winds, droughts, and changes in temperature and humidity).
The sun also changes positions throughout the day and can penetrate even very bushy plants, so outdoor plants receive far more (and better) light exposure than their counterparts under indoor grow lights. Defoliation does not help them in the same way as it does indoor plants.
Does Lollipopping increase yield?
Simply explained, pruning is the act of using shears or scissors to remove growing branches from your plant.
The dominating shoot of growth will simply be pruned in its most straightforward form. However, there are more intricate methods of pruning that can produce impressive-looking plants with a ton of flowering sites and enhance production. Let’s get going.
Topping
A very simple method of pruning called topping produces effective effects. With each pruning, it virtually doubles the number of bud sites on your plant while allowing access to light where it would not otherwise be available.
You can end up with four or more colas rather than the one dominant one! You can top as often as you like, but after a while the benefits start to fade.
Does topping really increase yield
Some believe that topping does not actually enhance yield because topping results in smaller colas. However, studies have shown that topping your plants increases the cumulative output significantly. Therefore, topping does indeed boost yield.
The result is significantly heavier, more productive plants since there are many colas, each with sufficient illumination.
How to top your plants
Once your plants are about 10 inches tall and have at least four sets of leaves, you should start topping them. To be sure, look for evidence of secondary growth close to lower nodes on the plant. These are a sign that your plant is ready for a topping.
The top shot can then be readily cut off by grabbing it. Ensure that this is the newest, most recent increase. You will notice two new growths at the base of where you topped within a few days.
Your plant will initially go through a period of shock. Once it recovers and these fresh shoots have formed a few nodes of its own, you can top once more. It will first grow slowly. This can require a week, or perhaps longer. Please give your plant some time; this is a very stressful situation.
You should now have four colas. If you have enough room for a large plant, you can keep topping, but your colas will get smaller as you go. To identify the sweet spot that produces the maximum yields, you can experiment with various topping techniques.
Fimming
Topping and fimming, often known as the FIM method, are quite similar. This tactic may seem odd, but it can also boost your yield.
With topping, you make a complete cut, while with the FIM approach, you only remove 2/3 of the growing shoot. Every time you fim your plants, four new shoots of growth appear.
You may repeat it, although it takes a little longer to recoup than after you top. Therefore, the interval between fimming your plants needs to be extended.
It is up to you as a grower to decide whether the FIM method or topping produces superior results. With both, you can effectively achieve the identical outcomes, but FIM has the advantage of doing twice as much work in a single cut.
Lollipopping
When pruning a plant, a technique called “lollipopping” is used to remove only the lower growth.
When topping and fimming, you concentrate on pruning the fresh growth spurts to encourage new bud sites. Lollipopping aims to maximize present bud sites while eliminating others.
The reasoning behind lollipopping is straightforward. Your plant’s lower branches do not receive the same quantity and quality of light as its top branches.
As you probably already know, flowers won’t ever reach their full potential if they don’t receive enough light.
Therefore, before flowering, some growers will just remove all bottom growth! The plant can concentrate all of its energy on the top of the plant, where blooms really receive light, by chopping off these branches. The outcome is shaped like a lollipop, hence the name.
Does lollipopping increase yield?
By lollipopping, several growers have enhanced yields. We have enough knowledge of plants to understand the reasoning behind this kind of pruning.
Even cooler is the fact that topping or fimming can be added to lollipops. You don’t lollipop till just prior to blossom, as you’ll discover further down. In order to boost yield, you might prune in several ways early in the vegetative phase.
How to lollipop your plants
Making lollipops is easy. The optimal time to do it is between 18 June and 12 December, just before switching from veg to flower. Unlike with topping or fimming, you don’t really need to worry about it throughout the vegetable.
You must take a step back and loop your plant’s canopy. It is simple to determine which sections get and do not receive light. You can cut all of the leaves below a line you draw across your canopy.
Cutting the lower bud sites off the branches they are keeping is one error growers make. Don’t disconnect cannabis sites that you don’t need to disconnect!
Do you need to prune your outdoor plants?
Whether you grow cannabis indoors or outdoors, topping your plants can help them yield more, which is what every grower strives for. Topping, which is an accurate cut at the node, is the first thing to grasp. While it sounds simple, the time of topping is crucial. When to top a plant relies on the health of the soil, the health of the plant, the lighting, the size and age of the plant, and the growth objectives. Topping forces a plant to grow laterally rather than vertically.
Topping cannabis plants is a crucial step to maximize the overall quality of the harvest if you are new to cannabis production. By shifting the developing propensity from vertical to lateral, it is a tool that aids in controlling the plant’s overall shape.
The result is that the cola on the supporting branches grows thicker and stronger. However, topping is not the only element involved in generating high-quality, significant yields. Health of the soil, hydration, and light are further considerations.
Is popping lollipops required?
Lollipopping is a pruning method that encourages your marijuana plants to concentrate their energy on the largest bud locations, which are typically found near the canopies. It’s simple, low-stress, and it can assist you in growing abundant crops of top-notch buds.
When ought I to begin scrogging?
Your plants will begin to move through the screen as soon as they come into touch with it. In order to accurately time when you start to ScrOG, we advised placing the screen about 20 cm above the base of your plants.
As soon as the apex of each plant starts to poke through the screen, start the “tucking procedure. As each tip approaches 5 cm above the screen, wait. Continue to direct each individual shoot through the subsequent square by tucking them under the screen. Be careful of the growth path you want each branch to take while tucking because this will lay the groundwork for the ScrOG process.
Throughout the vegetative stage, keep doing this. When the screen is mostly filled, switch to a 12/12 light cycle to encourage flowering.
Over the following 23 weeks, as your plants start to swell, keep tucking and weaving each branch. Before your plants reach the real flowering stage and start to slow down, you can fill out the screen thanks to this spike in growth.
Should I eliminate every leaf from the fan during flowering?
It’s rewarding to grow and gather the beautiful fruits and flowers that nature has provided for us. Whether you are a plant hobbyist or considering larger-scale gardening, it is always a good idea to ask questions. Do you have any doubts about removing the fan leaves from your plants when they are in bloom, for instance?
Yes, you need use the proper method to remove fan leaves during the flowering period. Fan leaves can be removed to let in more light and improve airflow to the lower canopy. Additionally, it will make sure that more energy may be directed onto your plant’s useful components, leading to a larger crop.
During the flowering stage, your plant goes through a tremendous growth surge, and any severe pruning at this time may cause your plant to go into shock. Any time the fan leaves are taken away, development will momentarily slow down. However, if nutrients are left in the substrate, growth can suddenly accelerate.
However, throughout the first to last flowering time, it is still crucial and highly beneficial to remove the fan leaves correctly. Fan leaf removal is a method of pruning, just like any other. However, if done properly, it will really benefit your plant.
One of the most well-liked and simplest methods to increase your yield is to trim the fan leaves. To maintain their plants tidy and healthy, many gardeners prune their plants to some extent. Others find it preferable to remove the fan leaves from plants since they can occasionally get out of control and become difficult to maintain.
Depending on the type of plant, proper pruning will remove 20–40% of the mid to upper foliage every 5-7 days when clipping the fan leaves. Maintaining healthy leaves at the base of the canopy will prevent precious light from being lost or wasted.
A flowering plant will grow bigger and mature faster the more high-quality light it receives.
Removing your fan leaves during the flowering stage has several advantages for all plant types, and there are very few risks involved. Trimming ultimately assists in keeping your plant’s size minimal while also maximizing its output and output quality.
This is particularly crucial if your gardening area is small and you have a modest selection of plants. In other words, you can get the most yield from fewer plants by eliminating the fan leaves from your plants.
Trimming your fan leaves simply entails cutting or trimming the larger leaves from the selected plant’s portions. One may compare trimming fan leaves to grooming a plant. Every plant goes through its life cycle with a certain number of leaves dying.
Simply remove the dead leaves at a much faster rate by pruning the fan leaves before they wither. Consequently, your plant won’t waste energy on the dead sections. Additionally, as leaves deteriorate gradually over an extended period of time, assisting your plants in getting rid of them allows them to focus their energy on other essential components.
If done correctly, you can increase the value of your expensive fruits and flowers! Despite all the advantages, newbies with little to no experience with their plants should never remove the fan leaves from their plants. It takes skill to trim the right number of fan leaves, so making a plan is crucial.
If you don’t prune the fan leaves properly, it could cause significant loss or harm to your plants, and if you don’t know how to prune, it might be best to avoid it altogether.
Starting small and being cautious are always wise while acquiring new skills or utilizing novel genetics. For instance, a plant will be under more stress if its fan leaves are pruned heavily. Some DNA can withstand significant stress without suffering too many drawbacks. Other genotypes might be more delicate, leading to stunting or self-pollination.
Some good news is here! First, the average grower can clip the fan leaves of their plants in a variety of more modest ways without taking any significant risks:
- The plants’ lower leaves should be removed because they receive little light and will eventually wither away.
- In order to enhance the percentage of light penetration throughout the canopy as opposed to only the tops of the plant, fan leaves that cast large shadows over budding or blossoming sides should be removed.
- Fan leaves that are expanding toward the plant from the inside out should be cut off.
- Lower-level bud and flowering sites may also be eliminated to allow the plant to concentrate on the sites towards the top.
- Always cut away any dead or dying leaves as soon as possible.
Similar to when a plant is in the vegetative condition, it is crucial to remove fan leaves during flowering. One thing to keep in mind is that the fan leaves of a plant should always be removed in intervals, with at least a few weeks elapsed between each session.
A plant will be left in an unending state of shock if the fan leaves are cut every day. When your plant experiences shock, it could prevent growth rather than promote it. But after removing the fan leaves, if done correctly, you will see a surge of growth in the coming weeks.
You are touching each plant more frequently if you remove fan leaves more frequently. Use this time to look for any symptoms of illness, discolouration, or pests on your canopy and leaves.
It’s crucial to give your plant’s fan leaves some time to heal after trimming them during the flowering stage. As previously said, cutting fan leaves causes the plant a great deal of stress, so giving it time to recover is crucial.
For the first few days following pruning, make sure you give your plants enough water, light, and food to help them recover from the shock. However, a considerable number of new shoots and leaves ought to be visible after a week.
You can remove fan leaves once more after the recuperation period is finished and your plant is back to its regular growing period. Always keep in mind that too much leaf and sprout removal puts a lot of stress on the plant and can prevent it from growing and producing fruit.
It is important to remember that cutting fan leaves is not always necessary and that most seasoned growers rarely bother with it. Despite this, it is a well-known truth that pruning your plants in a reasonable and controlled manner has a significant positive impact on them.
Trimming your plants’ fan leaves while they are in the blossoming stage could be enjoyable and gratifying. A lot can be learned about the various plant species and how well they can handle stress.
Pruning should be extremely minimal and restricted during flowering. The removal of fan leaves that are shading healthy bud or flowering sites is one instance of proper pruning. During the vegetative cycles, the trimming of harmed, diseased, or dead plant tissue is also an option. By removing these leaves, you can prevent them from falling and getting absorbed into the soil.
Always trim carefully, and remember that trial and error is the only way to learn! But once you get the hang of it, pruning the fan leaves will ultimately result in a bigger and healthier-looking yield!