How would you prune this plant?

C

Copperhead46

Active Member
This is a Birthday Cake, grown in potting soil. I have taken a few clones off of it, but it grows all clumped up on the stem instead of putting out branches. Should I trim the leaves along the stem or just leave it alone? 20191210_094603.jpg
20191210_094603.jpg
 
Some clones get that way. With plants like that I normally will supercrop somewhere around the middle area of the stem and bend the whole thing over at 90°, whereupon it will produce several leading branches.
Usually wouldn’t win any awards for appearance, but then it depends how much love you want to put into it to make it symmetrical. In my case- usually not much.
 
Pruning this is a hands on job. Explaining pruning details through text is difficult enough. The details of this plant are an entirely different challenge.

For starters I would trim the largest fan leaves on the outside, similar to trimming top plant fan leaves to accelerate lower growth. In your scenario, it’s going to set you back a few weeks, but that’s where I would start. Expose those budsight to light and take away all of those vegetating growth leaves.

Secondly, I would prune that top back to where you can identify bushy growth. Looking at this picture, I would take it down to the point where I start to see the vertical green stripe on the backdrop. It looks like the top is really starting to stretch compaired to the bottoms veg.

Lately, I would start giving it light on the sides of the plant verses on top. All of those branches will find the light, creating horizontal growth.

Keep this thread up to date however you set out to prune. I would love to see it’s growth.

Cheers
 
PE636 said:
That's a strange looking specimen! I think I'd try bending the whole thing as horizontal as possible.
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I've wondered about maybe laying it out on its side. Its an odd plant, all, but the top leafs are singles, I've never grown this strain before. Even the parent plant had 3 leaves or singles.
 
that plant is revegging, i'm sure of it. all the single leaves. it must have started to flower at some point then got set back to veg. looks cool.
 
Copperhead46 said:
This is a Birthday Cake, grown in potting soil. I have taken a few clones off of it, but it grows all clumped up on the stem instead of putting out branches. It's about 8 weeks old. Should I trim the leaves along the stem or just leave it alone?
20191210_094603.jpg
Click to expand...
what a mess she needs some loving haha✂️✂️✂️
 
I’ve got a Chocolope that looks similar. It only grows triple and single leaves, whether in veg or flowering. It has that same weird single- stemmed Dr Suess plant sorta look. Like it’s a reveg. But it isn’t. Just some weird genetics.
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I’ve cloned and recloned it for several rounds. Once in a while it might show one or two little five bladed blades leaves near the bottom, but very rarely. The pic shown is when it was about 6 weeks old, sprouted from seed.
Chocolope

Chocolope

I asked PotChimp and he has a plant or two like this as well.
 
WyattErbb said:
I thought that too, but my man talks about the mothers genes also showing the mutation. Could be a recessive gene mutation that wasn’t bred out properly.
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it's only about 8 weeks old, it's never got close to flower... This is the mother plant, I bought it the 1st of October.
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Weaselcracker said:
I’ve got a Chocolope that looks similar. It only grows triple and single leaves, whether in veg or flowering. It has that same weird single- stemmed Dr Suess plant sorta look. Like it’s a reveg. But it isn’t. Just some weird genetics.
.
I’ve cloned and recloned it for several rounds. Once in a while it might show one or two little five bladed blades leaves near the bottom, but very rarely. The pic shown is when it was about 6 weeks old, sprouted from seed.
Chocolope

Chocolope

I asked PotChimp and he has a plant or two like this as well.
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MickFoster said:
Looks like it revegged.
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Its never bloomed..
 
As for the original question- everyone has different methods. Yes you can trim whatever foliage you want off it. It is bushy and growing a bit weirdly. I agree that at some point you are going to want to clean things up.

On the other hand, that foliage probably isn’t hurting anything for now. I don’t usually worry about tidying up stuff like that till a few weeks into flowering.

My reasoning behind supercropping and bending the plant over, like I mentioned before, is that then all that foliage is working for you -to grow new branches. Leaves are there to work for you. They process light to create more growth. They’re generally good things to have around as long as they aren’t causing some obvious trouble.

If you strip off the lower foliage while leaving the plant upright the way it is now, you are losing the benefit of all those leaves while you still only get the one growing tip. Nothing gained except maybe it looks tidier for a while.

If it was mine I’d bend it over, then raise it closer to the light if necessary, let it grow several main shoots, then trim things up below those new branches.
 
Weaselcracker said:
As for the original question- everyone has different methods. Yes you can trim whatever foliage you want off it. It is bushy and growing a bit weirdly. I agree that at some point you are going to want to clean things up.

On the other hand, that foliage probably isn’t hurting anything for now. I don’t usually worry about tidying up stuff like that till a few weeks into flowering.

My reasoning behind supercropping and bending the plant over, like I mentioned before, is that then all that foliage is working for you -to grow new branches. Leaves are there to work for you. They process light to create more growth. They’re generally good things to have around as long as they aren’t causing some obvious trouble.

If you strip off the lower foliage while leaving the plant upright the way it is now, you are losing the benefit of all those leaves while you still only get the one growing tip. Nothing gained except maybe it looks tidier for a while.

If it was mine I’d bend it over, then raise it closer to the light if necessary, let it grow several main shoots, then trim things up below those new branches.
Click to expand...

I was in the process of taking your advise, when I noticed something kinda strange.. tell me what I'm looking at here, this is a clone from the one I bought. Supposed to be female!
20191216_113358.jpg
20191216_113358.jpg
20191216_113337.jpg
20191216_113337.jpg
 
That plant definitely started flowering at some point... or maybe the mother was when you took that clone.. you don’t get swollen calyxes with trichomes on a vegging plant. Not ever
 
From the pics it does look more like a reveg even than my weird Chocolope does. Sometimes they get confused because their light cycles have been interrupted somewhere along the line. I’ve had it happen in veg years ago because I was working in there a bunch and turning lights on and off a bit too much.
If that’s the case it should grow out of that bushy phase fairly soon and put out normal multi-bladed leaves. In the case of my Chocolope it was weird from the seed and just gets funkier as time goes by.
 
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