I'm doing my first SCROG grow. I just flipped to 12/12 with 75% of the screen covered.

Should I trim out the leaves and branches below the SCROG layer? Or should I just let them die from not getting sufficient light?

Thanks.

i would trim rather than let suck energy from the top...but im not a scrog guy so....might not be best...pros to follow up im sure

i was peeping around and all i can find for advice is trim out from the shade it will hurt production on the tops that have light..
so..
get to hackin..just kidding but yes sounds like you should clean up under there...cant see that being very easy...
Green mojo

That depends on what you mean by trimming below the screen. You absolutely don't want to remove any leaves that are in the light at the top of the canopy, but after the flip, if you see any smaller branches and leaves that are UNDER the canopy and they don't get any light, AND they don't look like they will make it up to the light, then you can remove them. I only remove a couple of the lower branches every few days so that I don't stress the plant with large amounts off cutting and removal. If you have "spindly" lower branches that have little or no chance off getting above the canopy, then cut them all the way back to the larger stem or main trunk. What I mean by "the larger stem" is some of the branches will go out from down low and will extend several smaller branches up through the canopy but will also have 2-3 smaller branches that are well below the canopy with little or no chance of penetrating the canopy to become new bud sites. These little off-shoot branches can be removed while leaving the bigger branch that does penetrate the canopy.

As they flower you will see little "sucker buds" develop around the base off the trunk and on the lower branches in places below the canopy. You can remove these as well because they do nothing but suck up energy from the plant while never becoming viable, mature, ripe buds. Removing these a few at a time will allow the plant to send that energy to the tops, and because the plant is in flower, it will largely ignore the loss of those buds. They call them "sucker buds" because they suck up energy from the plant, they and sucker you into thinking that they will be worth keeping, but they aren't.

i have always read to do all your lollipopping before you flip to 12/12 . i trimmed mine up and left some on closer to the top there. one reason I did that is because i wanted some of the smaller buds for hash making.

I also advise doing trimming before you flip. Do you have a pic of under the screen?

Quote: The Hemp Goddess wrote in post #6

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I also advise doing trimming before you flip. Do you have a pic of under the screen?

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i also trim because i am only using a 400 watt and i only get heavy bud down to about 12 to 20 inces under the light so i trim the rest .. i am not sorog but i sog all the time

Quote: JackRyan420 wrote in post #7

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Quote: The Hemp Goddess wrote in post #6

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I also advise doing trimming before you flip. Do you have a pic of under the screen?

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Thanks THG. I'll get and post a pic of under the screen when the light comes on today at 5:00PM.

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I'm a little confused--I don't see any horizontally growing branches? With a scrog, the growing tips are trained to grow horizontally under the screen. Then when you flip to 12/12 you let the buds grow up vertically through the screen. Under the screen, you should have a bunch of vertically growing branches. The canopy also looks like a normal grow rather than a scrog. Have I missed something here?

Quote: The Hemp Goddess wrote in post #10

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I'm a little confused--I don't see any horizontally growing branches? With a scrog, the growing tips are trained to grow horizontally under the screen. Then when you flip to 12/12 you let the buds grow up vertically through the screen. Under the screen, you should have a bunch of vertically growing branches. The canopy also looks like a normal grow rather than a scrog. Have I missed something here?

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Quote: The Hemp Goddess wrote in post #10

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I'm a little confused--I don't see any horizontally growing branches? With a scrog, the growing tips are trained to grow horizontally under the screen. Then when you flip to 12/12 you let the buds grow up vertically through the screen. Under the screen, you should have a bunch of vertically growing branches. The canopy also looks like a normal grow rather than a scrog. Have I missed something here?

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Sin inc, good morning. Of course I know you know. LOL--I wasn't paying enough attention (or had smoked too much God's OG Kush) that I thought your pics were Jack's--no wonder I didn't think those pics looked like a scrog, it isn't. I have never understood why they put the caps lock button where they did--it could be way out of the way as it is hardly ever used (on purpose). I realize that you are not screaming at "mom" (insert smiley here)

Jack, you need things trimmed enough so that you have good airflow below the canopy. If not you will have problems. If you think it is too dense for this, I would go ahead and clean it up some even though you are in 12/12. You also need to attribute great looking plants to the grower--good job!

Quote: The Hemp Goddess wrote in post #13

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Sin inc, good morning. Of course I know you know. LOL--I wasn't paying enough attention (or had smoked too much God's OG Kush) that I thought your pics were Jack's--no wonder I didn't think those pics looked like a scrog, it isn't. I have never understood why they put the caps lock button where they did--it could be way out of the way as it is hardly ever used (on purpose). I realize that you are not screaming at "mom" (insert smiley here)

Jack, you need things trimmed enough so that you have good airflow below the canopy. If not you will have problems. If you think it is too dense for this, I would go ahead and clean it up some even though you are in 12/12. You also need to attribute great looking plants to the grower--good job!

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