I've never defoliated but this time.....

[pegboy]

Are you popping beans or acquiring clones?

I never quite understood the benefits of running multiple plants in small enclosures. If you mainlined and scrog trained just one you'd be filling that tent easily. All while saving a little cash on one bean. Area wise its the same gr/m2

In this case I'm popping beans for a tester run. The benefits as I see it are faster veg growth in a much shorter time span. Ultimately ending up with the same yield. I too often see pictures of of plants with about 4 weeks of plant growth stripped off the bottom just to fill up a space when the same thing could have been accomplished with more plants and shorter veg. I don't have a problem with that at all but this just seems to be the style I've ended up with in this particular space. And yes, ideally i would go with just a couple of plants at a time in a 2x2. Less stress (not the plants.....me haha).

 

[pegboy]

I live in the don't remove fan leaves unless you need air flow or have a specific reason camp. I'm sure I'm in the minority. At those current pictures I'd remove zero of them. As you know, they will self prune. I currently have 4 plants in a 3x3 that just finished an eight week veg from seed under a scrog. I'm sure it'll be a shit show. So far I've only removed sucker branches and fan leaves that were already on their way out.

I am completely in you camp! This is a first for me other than stategic pruning. It will be interesting.

 

[pegboy]

10 days from from flip. So when would be the next time to give these girls another hair cut?

 

[Budzbuddha]

10 days from from flip. So when would be the next time to give these girls another hair cut?

View attachment 5361840

Under canopy

 

[pegboy]

Under canopy

Can I sart now or should I wait until the stretch is over?

 

[Budzbuddha]

Can I sart now or should I wait until the stretch is over?

You can wait . Plus you can snip any sucker growth.
Besides - big fans can be “ tucked “ too.

 

[pegboy]

3 weeks in flower. These plants are only about 16 inches tall. At this point should I do a heavy defoliation (I'm not sure I can even get much light down there) OR should I just clean it up a little bit and worry about only the canopy height bud sites? As a non-defoliator I'm having a real tough time with stripping them down.

I've done 3 small defoliations up until this point.

 

[fanya]

3 weeks in flower. These plants are only about 16 inches tall. At this point should I do a heavy defoliation (I'm not sure I can even get much light down there) OR should I just clean it up a little bit and worry about only the canopy height bud sites? As a non-defoliator I'm having a real tough time with stripping them down.

I've done 3 small defoliations up until this point.

View attachment 5365628

Personally, if you have proper air flow, I wouldn't touch a leaf on those plants. Harder to tell without a side view. But I'm in the non-defoliation camp.

 

[pegboy]

Personally, if you have proper air flow, I wouldn't touch a leaf on those plants. Harder to tell without a side view. But I'm in the non-defoliation camp.

I hear you. I'm very hesitant myself. Leaning towards just letting them go at this point.

 

[Star Dog]

I'm for defoliation for my benefits but I don't subscribe to removing leafs improving yeilds or benefits the plant.

I've seen myself dense nuggets top to bottom without defoliation.

Grown all its life under a leaf


I've lots of examples, buds are a product of the leafs imo.

If we take the light gathering off the table, we're still left with leafs transpiring and drawing in nutrient, the leafs are still exchanging Co2 and oxygen, they're storing excess srarch which gets used during the dark period, this is easily verifiable with a iodine stain test.

Imo even if the lower leafs aren't catching more than 400umol it's no reason to remove them, they bring to much to the table.

Fwiw I use defoliation to slow down my mother's in veg and to slow down growth after flipping, without leafs there's not much growing goes on.

 

[pegboy]

I'm for defoliation for my benefits but I don't subscribe to removing leafs improving yeilds or benefits the plant.

I've seen myself dense nuggets top to bottom without defoliation.
View attachment 5365796
Grown all its life under a leaf
View attachment 5365798
View attachment 5365797
I've lots of examples, buds are a product of the leafs imo.

If we take the light gathering off the table, we're still left with leafs transpiring and drawing in nutrient, the leafs are still exchanging Co2 and oxygen, they're storing excess srarch which gets used during the dark period, this is easily verifiable with a iodine stain test.

Imo even if the lower leafs aren't catching more than 400umol it's no reason to remove them, they bring to much to the table.

Fwiw I use defoliation to slow down my mother's in veg and to slow down growth after flipping, without leafs there's not much growing goes on.

Yea. I think the experiment is over before it really ever got started. I think I'm just going to let them ride at this point.

 

[Star Dog]

Yea. I think the experiment is over before it really ever got started. I think I'm just going to let them ride at this point.

Your's looks good tbh, you've left a decent canopy for them to grow from.

In times of high humidity defoliation can be your friend.

I was more referring to stripping leafs from plants type defoliation in a bid to improve yeilds by lighting up buds.

Cheers bud