Why is defoliation so controversial?

Hobbes

Well-Known Member
You are stripping your plants of its solar panels which are necessary for photosynthesis at the most crucial times during flowering. The first 3 weeks of flower is when the most stretch happens and your plants are going to be busy replacing all the leaves you chopped.
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This was exactly my point in another thread - that I could reduce the plants' stretch by defoliating on day 1 of flower (like I normally do), but move my second defoliation to day 10.

The whole idea was to reduce stretch and it did, I only had stretch of 1.5" in the first 2.5 weeks of flower.

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Apalchen

Well-Known Member
Defol in veg all you want.
Even some in flower.

Its the " Extreme Stripping " off All of the leaves in Flower, is what I have a problem inderstanding, as we know severe stress can cause issues and possibly affect our final outcome.
My plants are so full and growing so fast at day 21 that I couldn't imagine how much larf I would get if I didn't defoliate. Only the top few inches of canopy would get good light.

When I didn't defoliate as hard I ran a lot less plants in a given area. It works good too, but it's easier to pull better numbers overall with more plants. You still need to remove some inside leaves imo to avoid larf.
 

Apalchen

Well-Known Member
Experienced growers and multi-million dollar cannabis facilities that have decades of combined experience and tons of money and resources into research don't use extreme defoliation for a reason. If it was proven to be beneficial I am sure they would and at this point in time would be a mainstream thing.

If it ain't broke don't fix it.
But they do, almost all the large commerical grows I know of defoliate. I'm confused where you are getting this info.
 

Wizzlebiz

Well-Known Member
Id still want to see a side by side comparison , with actual controls ...so we can see the results in real time...side by side. Doing whole crop shows nothing but plants recovering. IMO
I'm doing a side by side by side right now.

1 defoliated day 1 and will do again day 21 of flower
2 lollypopped nothing more
3 not doing shit to it.

All the same strain from the same mother.

However not clones. Its from seed so it will be up to perception.

Either the training technique works or its a pheno thing.

So I guess my point is dont mind me over here in my little corner lmao
 

lime73

Weed Modifier
My plants are so full and growing so fast at day 21 that I couldn't imagine how much larf I would get if I didn't defoliate. Only the top few inches of canopy would get good light.

When I didn't defoliate as hard I ran a lot less plants in a given area. It works good too, but it's easier to pull better numbers overall with more plants. You still need to remove some inside leaves imo to avoid larf.
Agree . That's proper defol technique.

But I wouldn't take all leaves off. :lol:
 

Apalchen

Well-Known Member
I have not seen a single commercial grow that leaf strips. Please show me a pic of one
I posted pictures above of my grow, I'm not posting pics of other people's grows but I learned the technique watching commercial growers on IG about 3-4 years ago. Miami Mango used to post a lot about it. A lot of guys up here in Mi are doing it as well. Some more extreme than others.
 

eyderbuddy

Well-Known Member
only defoliation i've ever done is getting rid of:
  • leaves on top of each other
  • leaves shading bud sites
  • leaves getting almost/no light
  • leaves blocking airflow
.. combined with SCROG and LST has propelled me to 1.7 gpw (LED) without CO2. But i've no idea if the defoliation has got anything to do with it...
 

BobCajun

Well-Known Member
I just take the really big ones off that are shading buds below them. Ones near the tops that are shading buds I just cut the ends of the leaves off to expose the shaded buds to light, like about the outer half of the leaflets usually. Better to leave half of a leaf than to take the whole thing off if it's near the top. The ones in the middle or bottom pretty much have to go completely because they're not getting enough light anyway and usually start dying off before long so might as well speed it up a little and reduce water usage.

Near ripening time I do take most leaves off so all the buds get good light, just leaving the smaller leaves near the tips, or else the lower buds won't thicken up enough. It also makes harvesting easier because you already got rid of a bunch of the worthless leaf already so you don't have a big pile of it all at once. I try not to take much leaf off until buds are well developed though, not in early flowering. You need a good amount of leaf for solid buds to set up. I found that if you take a bunch of leaf off in early flowering the plant will just replace them by making the leaves at the base of the buds get bigger than usual, so you're really just slowing them down because they have to put energy into growing those bud leaves big to replace the fan leaves you removed. In late flowering they don't bother growing the bud leaves big to make up because the big leaves start dying by themselves anyway so they apparently don't even need them anymore.
 

lime73

Weed Modifier
I just take the really big ones off that are shading buds below them. Ones near the tops that are shading buds I just cut the ends of the leaves off to expose the shaded buds to light, like about the outer half of the leaflets usually. Better to leave half of a leaf than to take the whole thing off if it's near the top. The ones in the middle or bottom pretty much have to go completely because they're not getting enough light anyway and usually start dying off before long so might as well speed it up a little and reduce water usage.

Near ripening time I do take most leaves off so all the buds get good light, just leaving the smaller leaves near the tips, or else the lower buds won't thicken up enough. It also makes harvesting easier because you already got rid of a bunch of the worthless leaf already so you don't have a big pile of it all at once. I try not to take much leaf off until buds are well developed though, not in early flowering. You need a good amount of leaf for solid buds to set up. I found that if you take a bunch of leaf off in early flowering the plant will just replace them by making the leaves at the base of the buds get bigger than usual, so you're really just slowing them down because they have to put energy into growing those bud leaves big to replace the fan leaves you removed. In late flowering they don't bother growing the bud leaves big to make up because the big leaves start dying by themselves anyway so they apparently don't even need them anymore.
That's just pruning, not defol lol
 

lime73

Weed Modifier
.

This was exactly my point in another thread - that I could reduce the plants' stretch by defoliating on day 1 of flower (like I normally do), but move my second defoliation to day 10.

The whole idea was to reduce stretch and it did, I only had stretch of 1.5" in the first 2.5 weeks of flower.

.
Don't let plants stretch so much before flip and you wouldn't have to Swazz to minimize stretch??

You can train your plants man ....simple.
 

DaFreak

Well-Known Member
The argument that the plants wouldn't grow the leaves if it didn't need them fails because we're putting the plants in an environment that they didn't evolve in - constant light and nutrients.
If plants don't need leafs then do a cycle and remove the leafs throughout the grow and prove the argument wrong. You wouldn't do that would you? Because you accept that they do in fact need leafs. So no, your above statement is not well worded or thought out.
 

JoeBlow5823

Well-Known Member
If plants don't need leafs then do a cycle and remove the leafs throughout the grow and prove the argument wrong. You wouldn't do that would you? Because you accept that they do in fact need leafs. So no, your above statement is not well worded or thought out.
Not to mention that weed has evolved in an environment of constant light and nutrients for the last 30-40 years. Especially the last 10-20 years.
 

DaFreak

Well-Known Member
Not much evolution happens in 40 years though. Leafs are not gallbladders. The other thread that got silly I did learn one thing though, that plants are designed with redundancy because of natural damage and have approximately 20% more fan leafs then they need. I had never read that and I am curious how close to 20% all these people who claim success are.
 
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