Pruning and Training Your Cannabis Plants | EP7
Topics
Why Pruning Matters — Airflow & Plant Health 0:20
Topping vs Pruning — The Difference 1:13
Yellow Leafing & When to Do It 1:13
Stress Training — Low vs High Impact 3:01
Trellising — Support for Heavy Branches 4:17
When to Stop Pruning & Training 5:28
Outro — Next Episode: Flowering 6:33
Video Transcript
Follow along using the transcript
[00:20] So Swami, tell me why is it important to prune your plants? Well, it's important to prune your plants because it allows much more air circulation through the plants and brings more air into the inner part of the plant. Pruning is different from topping — we'll get to that in a minute. Pruning is when you take the bottom branches off, the ones really close to the ground, and cut them away. That allows more airflow. Also on the inside of your plants, if you really have the extra time, you can pull off the tiny extra branches that go on the interior side of the big branches and that opens up air on the inside.
[01:13] Topping is when you take that top sprout that's coming up — directly connected to the taproot — and you pinch that off early in its stage of growth. Very often two sprouts will come out from that. You should do this pretty early in the plant's life so it can recover. Yellow leafing is also important later in the season when your plants are four or five feet high. You'll notice that some interior and lower leaves turn yellow — that's partly because they're not really needed at this point and the plant is shedding them. Brown, dry leaves can absorb moisture later in the fall and promote mould, so you want to get rid of those. But inspect your plant first — if it has aphids or mildew, be careful about cross-contamination between plants.
[03:01] A lot of people say that stressing the plant is actually beneficial. Well, there are a couple kinds of stress — low impact and high impact. The stressing I like is more like cutting back the water as you get closer to harvest. When you cut back the water, it sends a signal to the plant that the season is coming to an end, and it pushes the plant to finish up and ensure the flowers are at their peak. That's the primary one I'm familiar with. It just causes the plant to send all of its energy to the buds rather than the leaves.
[04:17] Trellising is important as you get late in the season because now your buds are really heavy, your branches are long, and it's very easy for a branch to break off. You need to support those branches as the season goes on — and if you get a little rain, they'll get even heavier.
[05:28] Under the word pruning, we've included several things. As far as topping goes, you really don't want to top much after June. You really want to do your topping early. Any training like that too — the training and bending over — you can do a little bit later, but it's best to do it early on for the plant to recover from the shock and to produce more buds. Yellow leafing you can do all the way up until harvest — even after you cut the plants down and hang them up to dry.
[06:33] Thanks Swami. In the next episode you're going to learn how to keep your plants fed and watered during the next big phase — flowering.
[06:55] Hey home growers. I'm Parker Curtis from Homegrown Cannabis Co. Thanks for watching How to Grow Cannabis Outdoors with Nikki and Swami. Grab your seeds at homegrowncannabisco.com and use promo code SWAMI10 for 10% off. See you in the garden.
Pruning and training outdoor cannabis plants is one of the most effective ways to increase yields and improve plant health. In EP7 with Swami Select and Homegrown Cannabis Co., Nikki and Swami demonstrate their hands-on approach — covering selective pruning for airflow, topping, yellow leafing, low-stress training, trellising, and knowing when to stop each technique.
