Defoliation, Your thoughts?

[stumpjumper]

I already know what I have concluded by experience.

I want to know what you all think about cutting off all of your fan leaves after the plants done stretching.


I'll be defoliating all of my plants here in the next day or so, I've actually already started, I just like to do it gradually where some do it all at once.

 

[hunter22375]

Can I do it for plants that are already 38 days into flower?

 

[Cory and trevor]

It wasn't hardly at all benificial until I started using the MH in with the HPS. Then it made tons of sense and works beautiful.

 

[Rrog]

Opinions sure differ on MH during flower, or even veg, for that matter.

I trim fan leaves when they cast a shadow on buds. Otherwise I try and leave many. Also down low below the main canopy, I leave many. They're still doing something, and I have air movement and have never had mold on growing plants or curing bud.

 

[stumpjumper]

It wasn't hardly at all benificial until I started using the MH in with the HPS. Then it made tons of sense and works beautiful.

It works with just HPS too.. The whole objective is to get direct light hitting all of the bud-sites having none shaded. It makes a hell of a difference. The last one I did had no popcorn at all, everything was nice tight nugs top to bottom.

 

[Rrog]

Stump, so you remove them all? Curious where you draw the line? Leaves coming out of the budsites... you trim them also?

Some leave any leaf with Trichs alone.

 

[stumpjumper]

Not leaves coming out of buds no, just all of the large leaves shading the budsites. I leave the smaller new leaves until they get large enough to start shading again.

Here is a good read with a lot of side by sides, lots of pages to dig through but it is all there.. I would not do this to my plants if I wasn't 100% sure of it being beneficial.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=174163&highlight=defoliating

The general idea is to wait until the plants are done stretching, trim all the fan leaves, then trim again around week 6 or so.. I was really skeptical at first along with a lot of other people, however there are a lot of very high-profile growers doing this now.

 

[Rrog]

I'm just entering week 4 of flower and was trimming a few fan leaves this AM. Thanks for the link.

Personally, I am not of the opinion that fan leaves all by themselves rob the plant of growing energy. Clearly the fan leaves are there to generate energy. I am, however, of the opinion that fan leaves that shade bud = flarf

 

[hic]

Getting rid of the junk at the bottom if done not to the point of stress gives more to the rest. It has been that way since the begining of plants showed up here on Earth. It somehow becomes a marketing idea in marijuana magazines??? It also works with many of the other plants on earth for example a flower lets say. It does not matter when so much as if.

 

[stumpjumper]

Here is a before and after from today, I might trim a few more later but I have a much better light penetration now. Notice there are still some fan leaves here and there, I didn't strip them completely bare.. But I took off A LOT of leaves..

Before

After

I'll probably do a little more trimming in a day or two.

 

[abe supercro]

hmm will check it out, sounds like an ease for churn n burn those smaller plants for commercial growers... ease of maintenance, quick flower/trim/bag... bahm thing, yeah def no popcorn..

a final 'thinning' a few weeks into flower I can see. defoliation sounds like something from Vietnam. aren't those fan leaves energy factories? perhaps it depends on size of plant and for sure strain, but I'd like to see a comparison w a control group, same exact plants... how it effects weight in diff scenarios. maybe those leaves serve lil meaningful purpose for our particular needs.

 

[Rrog]

My last grow of Plush Berry was like a jungle and way too much loose flarf. Previous Plush grow had much better light on buds and I had great colas. Same batch of Plush from Attitude

 

[racerboy71]

Not leaves coming out of buds no, just all of the large leaves shading the budsites. I leave the smaller new leaves until they get large enough to start shading again.

Here is a good read with a lot of side by sides, lots of pages to dig through but it is all there.. I would not do this to my plants if I wasn't 100% sure of it being beneficial.

https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=174163&highlight=defoliating

The general idea is to wait until the plants are done stretching, trim all the fan leaves, then trim again around week 6 or so.. I was really skeptical at first along with a lot of other people, however there are a lot of very high-profile growers doing this now.

hey stump, i'm not trying to be a dick here, but i'm just trying to understand your thinking is all..

ok, here goes.. why on earth would you cut off the big leaves that are doing more work, ie, converting light into foods and sugars via photosynthesis, only to leave the smaller leaves to do the same job?? i mean, what would produce more crops, a 100 acre farm or a 100000 acre farm?? obviously the larger sized farm right?? same thing with leaves.. yes they all do the same things, convert light energy into foods and sugars, but simply for the fact that a fan leaf is how many times larger than a sugar leaf, the fan leaves are way better at the job then sugar leaves..

so in essence, by removing the larger fan leaves, which are larger and therefore do much more work than smaller sugar leaves, you're pretty much shooting yourself in the foot imo..
it just seems very obvious to me that a larger leaf is going to do much more for a plant than a smaller one.. it's the leaves that grow buds.. yes, buds do photosynthesis, they do so at a much lower percentage than large fan leaves, so you really don't want to try and get more light to the buds as they do little in the way of photosynthesis, you rather want to get more light to the fan leaves...

check out some of uncle bens threads, i have learned tons of stuff from him.. his gardening tweaks and pointers thread is full of gems. i tend to read only the posts from ub as that thread is super long, but i have still learned tons just reading his posts..

 

[stumpjumper]

Abe that is discussed in length in that thread a lot.. All I can say is do a side by side man.

Here's the Last one I defoliated and I grew it 12/12 fro seed, a little over 3oz..

 

[racerboy71]

I'm just entering week 4 of flower and was trimming a few fan leaves this AM. Thanks for the link.

Personally, I am not of the opinion that fan leaves all by themselves rob the plant of growing energy. Clearly the fan leaves are there to generate energy. I am, however, of the opinion that fan leaves that shade bud = flarf

bud by natrure do not have nearly the amount of chlorophyl in them as fan leaves do, therefore fan leaves do way more photosynthesising than buds do.. you want to grow leaves as leaves will grow buds, not vice versa..

 

[racerboy71]

Abe that is discussed in length in that thread a lot.. All I can say is do a side by side man.

Here's the Last one I defoliated and I grew it 12/12 fro seed, a little over 3oz..
View attachment 2401913
View attachment 2401912

if you hadn't of cut off all the fan leaves the same plant probably would have produced more like 5 ounces or so..

idk man, you just can't argue science.. leaves are the power plant of the plant, so be removing them, there is no way anyone will ever convince me that the plant will grow bigger..
that's like saying my car will go faster after i take the motor out pretty much.

 

[Rrog]

I think we're saying the same thing, racerboy. In my opinion, fan leaves produce more juice, but if these same leaves cast shadows on bud you can tend toward flarf. I have yet to see rock hard nugs grown in the shade of leaves.

 

[stumpjumper]

hey stump, i'm not trying to be a dick here, but i'm just trying to understand your thinking is all..

ok, here goes.. why on earth would you cut off the big leaves that are doing more work, ie, converting light into foods and sugars via photosynthesis, only to leave the smaller leaves to do the same job?? i mean, what would produce more crops, a 100 acre farm or a 100000 acre farm?? obviously the larger sized farm right?? same thing with leaves.. yes they all do the same things, convert light energy into foods and sugars, but simply for the fact that a fan leaf is how many times larger than a sugar leaf, the fan leaves are way better at the job then sugar leaves..

so in essence, by removing the larger fan leaves, which are larger and therefore do much more work than smaller sugar leaves, you're pretty much shooting yourself in the foot imo..
it just seems very obvious to me that a larger leaf is going to do much more for a plant than a smaller one.. it's the leaves that grow buds.. yes, buds do photosynthesis, they do so at a much lower percentage than large fan leaves, so you really don't want to try and get more light to the buds as they do little in the way of photosynthesis, you rather want to get more light to the fan leaves...

check out some of uncle bens threads, I have learned tons of stuff from him.. his gardening tweaks and pointers thread is full of gems. i tend to read only the posts from ub as that thread is super long, but i have still learned tons just reading his posts..

I understand where you are coming from, but I have also seen the benefits of opening up the canopy and getting direct light on all of the bud sites.

There's plenty of substanciating evidence that it is a benefit to yield in the thread I posted if you want to take the time to read it.

 

[Rrog]

Stump, curious what 600W lamp you're using? I switched from 600W grow lux to Ushio. Man! That Ushio is bright as hell. It's caused issues with light bleaching on this grow and the last. In my small cramped grow area, it's challenging keeping the buds low enough to avoid bleaching (which seems to happen at 1200 FC)

 

[stumpjumper]

if you hadn't of cut off all the fan leaves the same plant probably would have produced more like 5 ounces or so..

No it wouldn't have, all of those lower buds that were shaded would've been airy popcorn.. Watch and learn brutha Actualy take the time and read that thread man, there's lots of eye candy..

Also dude, 12/12 from seed man, 3 oz is an awesome yield for 12/12 from seed dude lol.