tying plants "back" while still allowing stretch toward the bare bulbs to create as perfect a sideways canopy as possible in a SCROG type grow....
....Proper pruning , trimming , and shaping during veg up into beginning of stretch to create proper plant footprint and get rid of unnecessary foliage and limbs
I've been shaping these plants for this next run very carefully. I'm trying to get this perfect sideways canopy you speak of. I've been pruning large fan leaves IN VEG once the branch above it is a decent size. This is keeping my GG4's lanky and lots of room to breath. All the branches are big and thick, no sucker branches at all.
Also, on each of these large branches, I am removing the 1st growth tip near the base of the branch. Sometimes the 1st 2 or more. This is where the lil sucker branches will come from when stretch starts. We don't want them in the 1st place... and for me its alot easier to snip em off now when the plants are in veg, rather than looking for them inside a big thick canopy at day 30.
But like you said Fred, this came from experience, i learned this the hard way. Using oz after oz of larf to make butter. Now the amount of larf is far less. I'm going for 1% larf this time. We'll see.