Anyone a fan of defoliation to increase yeild?
- Thread starter DankkAbuser
- Start date
JointOperation
Well-Known Member
yes taking fans off plants at the right times does increase yields.. on some genetics.. some strains do not like it . others love love love it.. and its more about how u do it.. if ur plants not healthy at all. and your pulling off the fans.. your going to see bad yields.. its really simple.. learn how to keep your plants super healthy.. before going and trying 1 million different techniques.. once ur dialed in with your nutes.. and environment.. then .. try to do lots of diff stuff to see wat works best for your strains.. but then again.. 60% is growing the bud.. 40% is drying and curing and trimming.. atleast for QUALITY .. so even if ur growing great buds.. if ur not flushing.. and drying slow..and trimming nicely.. and curing properly.. its not going to make a difference how good they look if they smell bad. or smoke like shit.
joe macclennan
Well-Known Member
maybe he turned into a spammer? I always thought the potential there
joe macclennan
Well-Known Member
you really are a fool neo.
tooteefrootee
Well-Known Member
hey Charface and Joe 
Hope you all are doing well. If we are still chatting about de-foliation, I've noticed that some strains (such as skywalker og) benefit from removing the big huge a** fan leaves about weeks 4 and beyond. And I don't go crazy but ill start pulling some to allow light to penetrate further down the canopy. This is especially true and helpful when I decide to mass produce skywalker og in my aeroflo. The large fan leaves get to be as big as a friggin head lol. But I don't start pulling them until after week 4, I want to be sure my transition and stretch period has completed or near completed. Then Ill start pulling a few at a time just so I don't terribly shock the plants. But for any of my other strains its kind of useless, you would have to pull too much foliage and it just has too much of a negative effect on the plants ability to process light into energy that is needed to focus on bud production.
Hope you all are doing well. If we are still chatting about de-foliation, I've noticed that some strains (such as skywalker og) benefit from removing the big huge a** fan leaves about weeks 4 and beyond. And I don't go crazy but ill start pulling some to allow light to penetrate further down the canopy. This is especially true and helpful when I decide to mass produce skywalker og in my aeroflo. The large fan leaves get to be as big as a friggin head lol. But I don't start pulling them until after week 4, I want to be sure my transition and stretch period has completed or near completed. Then Ill start pulling a few at a time just so I don't terribly shock the plants. But for any of my other strains its kind of useless, you would have to pull too much foliage and it just has too much of a negative effect on the plants ability to process light into energy that is needed to focus on bud production.
tooteefrootee
Well-Known Member
neo, your point has been made and has some valid claim BUT its just doesn't mean that it works for every strain, everyone's technique, everyone's room application etc... But I will say burn one bro and be cool...It doesn't have to get too personal about the subject. I like Joe, we've seen differences in techniques and practices but overall, Joe is a really cool fellow. I can see a lot of merit in your posts, especially in regards to personal experience. If you have personally learned by trial and error, or comparison....I support that learning. Its great to learn from mistakes. teaches one better on why we make mistakes and how we can not do it again and grow on it. I learned my trade as an apprentice for 3 years, so I completely understand learning hands on by personal experience and experiment. Hope you don't take this the wrong way but I'm just trying to do 2 things. Agree with some of your practices in education experience and say hey, Joe is pretty cool and is good in my book bro. Hope all is growing well always
Sativied
Well-Known Member
^^lol
If in a side-by-side it turns out it didn't increase the yield then defoilators will claim it wasn't done right, at the wrong time or blame the strain. Even if the test was repeated with indicas, sativas and several hybrids a defoliator could claim it works only on hybrids that have a bud structure like sativas and leaves like indicas, or the other way around. I can think of several situations in which defoliation improves a situation that should have been avoided by proper plant spacing and/or climate control if max yield is the goal. Situations that don't occur in a grow from someone who could do a reliable side-by-side. I don't think this will ever be put to rest, at least not amongst hobbyists and amateurs.
dannyboy602
Well-Known Member
ur probably right about that. it will always be a point of contention. up there with flushing and the whole amber myth.
Sativied
Well-Known Member
Yeah, good example. A professor who spent decades on researching trichs ends up measuring the contents of trich heads and factually determines amber is degraded THC into CBN no less and still plenty of people who wait for 20-30% amber or even more.
RL420
Well-Known Member
In your opinion when is the ideal harvest window? Sometimes when i start seeing amber on some strains the buds arent even looking "done" yet, you know what i mean
chuck estevez
Well-Known Member
I pull when it looks done, I don't even look at the trichs. that's all a waste of my time. A grower who has grown long enough knows when the plant is finished.
chuck estevez
Well-Known Member
Almost forgot,
Sativied
Well-Known Member
Yeah I know what you mean, that's why it's important to not just look at trichs. As long as the buds are still going there's no need to look at trichs (well, unless you got one that foxtails too long and you don't want the center bud to degrade). Once the calyxes are fully swollen and no new fresh white pistils are being created it's pretty much done. If at that point most trichs are cloudy (which will pretty much always be the case) I pull it. The result of the research of that professor (outlines in an article by Mel Frank in Hightimes, called A Time to Reap if I remember correctly. Kite_high (rip) posted a scan of the article here somewhere at RIU) wasn't just that amber is too far, when trichs start turning cloudy they are at peak THC ratios, when fully cloudy they are already degrading. The only legal medicinal grower in the netherlands pulls ssh after only 7 weeks.
I imagine some early breeders and gurus told others to wait for x% amber as a rough method and that percentage increased (exaggerated) over the past decades as if it's desirable to have amber. If you had a certain % of amber (on the outer calyxes) you could be fairly sure no new trichs are being added and the majority is cloudy.
Unlike Chuck I do look at trichs, but like Chuck I don't really use them to actually determine the harvest day. I look more at the bud structure and calyx development:
Growan
Well-Known Member
T
Should I have the ripe off first and then take the rest later?
Continue on the slightly off topic theme, would you recommend harvesting in stages, as the tops of my scrog seem to be a week or so ahead of those a couple of inches down.Yeah I know what you mean, that's why it's important to not just look at trichs. As long as the buds are still going there's no need to look at trichs (well, unless you got one that foxtails too long and you don't want the center bud to degrade). Once the calyxes are fully swollen and no new fresh white pistils are being created it's pretty much done. If at that point most trichs are cloudy (which will pretty much always be the case) I pull it. The result of the research of that professor (outlines in an article by Mel Frank in Hightimes, called A Time to Reap if I remember correctly. Kite_high (rip) posted a scan of the article here somewhere at RIU) wasn't just that amber is too far, when trichs start turning cloudy they are at peak THC ratios, when fully cloudy they are already degrading. The only legal medicinal grower in the netherlands pulls ssh after only 7 weeks.
I imagine some early breeders and gurus told others to wait for x% amber as a rough method and that percentage increased (exaggerated) over the past decades as if it's desirable to have amber. If you had a certain % of amber (on the outer calyxes) you could be fairly sure no new trichs are being added and the majority is cloudy.
Unlike Chuck I do look at trichs, but like Chuck I don't really use them to actually determine the harvest day. I look more at the bud structure and calyx development:
Should I have the ripe off first and then take the rest later?
Sativied
Well-Known Member
I usually already harvest in stages because so far I always have at least different phenos or strains, meaning some are ready sooner than others. I have 6 cannalope haze clones from two different phenos now and will harvest the top of the plant(s) that are ready and let the lower buds in there together with the plants of which the upper part isn't done yet. If hypothetically speaking all plants where ready at the same time, or in case of 1 plant, it would for me depend on the situation. I would in any case not let the upper buds degrade further for the sake of wanting amber on the lower buds. The THC level has been building up during the entire flowering time, a day or two more or less really doesn't matter that much. If it seems worth it in terms of more weight to keep the grow space occupied with lower buds for another week than yeah I would.
Growan
Well-Known Member
Thanks, Sativied. This is my first indoor and first scrog to boot. A little too much canopy going and 2 strains to boot, so an inconsistant bud developement accros the board. My best guess was to take what's ready as and when as I used to do outdoors. Glad to have heard it from somebody who knows their stuff.
This is one of the situations discussed earlier where defoliation (this is a defoliation thread, right?) would have 'un-fucked a fuck up' so to speak. Neo advised more leaf removal a few pages back, but with the caveat that at this stage without having followed the method from earlier on in veg it could be a no gain situation. Either way, this is where I am now, and the next run will improve upon this.
Clones patiently waiting...
This is one of the situations discussed earlier where defoliation (this is a defoliation thread, right?) would have 'un-fucked a fuck up' so to speak. Neo advised more leaf removal a few pages back, but with the caveat that at this stage without having followed the method from earlier on in veg it could be a no gain situation. Either way, this is where I am now, and the next run will improve upon this.
Clones patiently waiting...