Jeffrey Hickey Writes Blogs

Light shines through a fence lattice on beds 12 and 13.

I have previously written that I try to avoid pruning, and it’s true. However, pruning is inevitable. It is critical for proper plant maintenance, and for encouraging growth. I don’t like excessive pruning or emergency pruning. I like proactive pruning. I like being able to prune in order to best enable the potential flowers. If I prune properly, I will have created paths for the strongest possible candidates to flower, and they will have their best chance to fully grow.

We love to train our plants, so there is a specific method to how we prune. We wait until the middle of June, which allows each plant many weeks to get well-established in the beds. Now is the time to make the first cuts.

We look down and into the interior of the plant and prune from the center out. We want to clear out leaves that lead to nothing, or new growth that’s never going to make it  to flower. I don’t want anything growing that’s going to drain energy from the big flowers.

The center of Rośe has been cleaned out.

Those who follow me might be confused. The reason we train is to open up the inside of the plant to the sun, so that inner growth can develop almost as much as the tops and the outside growth. While that is true, before we can get to that point, there are a lot of leaves that need to go.

Pruning is not just about cutting off the weakest growth. It’s also about shaping your plant so that the best flowers may eventually emerge. Each of those flowers needs to be given the chance to fully grow.

We also view our first large prune as an opportunity to help the entire plant to grow, removing leaves that are leading to nothing allows the plant’s energy to shift toward new growth. After topping several weeks ago, we want the new, expanding branches to be large enough to train. Once we start getting those in place, the inner growth that we’ve allowed to remain will begin to grow vigorously, because the inner plant will then get more sun.

Another reason for the inner/lower pruning is to provide a path for more air circulation. We are getting into the warmer months, and as plants get larger and more crowded, the likelihood of pathogens increases. If the plant is crowded, pathogens have extra material to work with, but if that vulnerable growth has been removed, the improved air circulation will help keep pathogens at bay by keeping the plant dry.

Of course, we all know how to cut off leaves, but I have a couple of suggestions anyway. First, don’t prune when you’re angry. I have made my worst and sloppiest cuts when I was irritated while doing the work. I have hurt my plant. Pruning is rote work, but it still requires a degree of mindfulness. Second, don’t make your cuts close to a branch. Give the stem a little leeway and leave it on. It will eventually come off, of course, but while it remains, it can be a buffer between pathogen and plant. If mold is present, it will hit the tip of that stem and not the stalk itself. Also, closer cuts to stalks and stems can result in stripping. If you do accidently strip a bit of the stalk, treat the area with honey, or it will serve as a nice, wide landing pad for a pathogen. Third, resist the temptation of removing leaves with your fingers only. Fingers, unless gloved, are generally filthy. Always use your scissors. 

Use a Q-tip to apply honey to seal shut any accidental cut, scrape or strip, they’re more sanitary than your fingers.

Below is a drawing that Bee made of a basic training design:

This is the basic theory of training. It starts with the first top. Once those new shoots get long enough, they get stretched out, so that the inner, or lower part of that growth, the part that would have been on the inside, is directly exposed to the sun, creating more top-tops. The same stretching and training is done all over the plant for the same purpose.

Note the new tops emerging across Royal Kush 13.

And here are the tops on Cherry Punch 15:

Of course, there are many creative ways the plant can be trained. Bee’s method is based on size and shape of the growing mediums they have to work with. 

Sometimes, training can also be done entirely to keep your plant discrete from view. Training is a vital tool in keeping your plants below the fence line of neighbors and not in a direct line of sight. 

But our method of training is all about increasing yield from our grows. Conventional cannabis wisdom says that if you want more yield, top more and create more flowers. We have done this and seen it to be true. We grew a White Widow some years ago that tried to flower early, so she got stripped and super cropped. She created so many flowers we had to train a portion of them into one of the beds next to her.

The White Widow is the upper left plant, being stretched into another tomato cage in bed 11. Every plant in this photo needs pruning.

While that is impressive, and we still have some of these plants in our closet, topping it so much created a nightmarish flowering landscape. There were too many flowers. We could see within the first week of flowering that we had to prune out at least a third of what was coming in. Otherwise, It would have been a mold-fest. (Remember, this was before I started using Stargus) Even with our pruning, we still yielded 2.2 pounds on that one White Widow plant.

We prefer training, because we have found it leads to larger yields and less interaction with other flowers, so less mold. How it gets more yield is by growing larger, more substantial flowers, and also by making the inner growth as large as the outer buds. Using this technique, we’ve gotten between 2.7 and 2.8 pounds.

That giant over my left shoulder was Rainbow Kush 18. She yielded 2.76 pounds and you can see how far apart we separated her flowers, top to bottom. Almost all of them were allowed to grow as if they were tops.

Each of these flowers were close to maxed out. They were heavy flowers. I’m standing on top of a bed here, so I could get a view above the canopy. We eventually had to use a ladder for inspections and foliar sprays. Training made that plant go off.

This year, because there’s been no early flowering, we’re training every plant from start to finish. So far, there’s only been one topping done per plant, although there have been some accidents. Auxins have been summoned and the plants have responded. Right now, we just have to be careful not to hurt them, only tend them, and pour the teas made from what they love to ingest.

It’s getting to be plum time.

Another aspect of training developed over the last two years are the yellow clips we use for localized stress training. Stress is an amazing tool for growers, though it can also be a bit of a slippery slope. Accidents happen more frequently with stress training. We’ve had more surprise breaks because of these clips. Over time, we’ve learned that these clips work best on plants of a more typical size, not the larger cultivars. Still, the benefits of stress training can lead to stronger flowers and more potent tops. 

Every time you stress a branch, you actually are damaging it a bit, but giving your plants teas high in silica and mycorrhizae, means they will have remarkable recuperative powers. And if there is any kind of breaking tissue, auxins are immediately rushed to the injured area. This year, a top was broken by a clip, but it was immediately taped back on from where it broke, and within hours, it was healing and is continuing as a top. That kind of healing is where both the silica and fungus in teas come in especially handy.

So, the clips are great, but do not assume they are for every plant. They are lovely for diminutive and normal-sized plants, but not potential monsters bulging from mycorrhizae. 

A Golden Crown Sparrow watches me.

The first phase of pruning is finished and the plants are now all being stretched into open paths toward light.

Honey Tsu in bed 16 is stretching out and up. The goal is to train all the visible new growth outside the tomato cage to open up the inner growth to more sun.

After this prune and train, we let them stretch out a bit. But from this point forward, we are mindful of the largest new growth, because that’s where the large flowers will emerge. If too many are clustered together, we’ll make a judgement call and prune the weakest of the flowers, separating the survivors so they don’t interact with each other. We want each potential flower to have adequate room to expand during the last month of flowering.

One other factor–I use Stargus now as a foliar spray to help control, or stop botrytis. In our early growing years we didn’t have Stargus, so much more attention had to be paid to air and space between each flower. Since we’ve been using Stargus and our mold situation has almost disappeared, we have been less stringent about eliminating flower interaction. If there is no mold, you don’t have to worry so much. But if you are not using something that prevents botrytis, you will need to prune accordingly.

Apple Crumble continues to grow amidst the lavender. The only plant bites have been from Western Cucumber Beetles.

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Or contact me directly with your idea (good seeds are always welcome–and if I grow them, I will get the flowers tested and share with you the results.

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