Bud Brewer
Well-Known Member
I defoliated a shopping bag worth at 3 weeks flowering that would be more than half of the large leaves from the plants I should have done a bit more.So then is this area an area that you did not defol enough? If defol was the answer to this problem then why is it on your defol'd plant?
this is pretty common when you alter your plant to the point of having an unnatural number of bud sites..
This I can speak on with much confidence... I am a genetic nerd and know what each of my plants produce... I've said this 20 times, but it so true...
You can get 4 10 gram buds 8 5 gram buds 16 2.5 gram buds or 32 .75 gram buds... the plant just does what it does. Obviously, root mass, container size, air quality, nutes, light levels effect... So say those aspects are met with adequate/consistent conditions... Your plant yields the same..
You can reach a point where you have so many sites that your plant won't even produce on all of them... Like most things with these plants (from what I see) the lower growth sacrifices first.
I've done much looking into this area.... fueled by hours spent at a trim table asking myself "how do I get the same amount of weight without all of this bullshit fluffy stuff to trim?"
The answer was less bud sites. I get the same weight every time. This is assuming my canopy is full. Not full with many many small buds, but full with many large buds. (Less budsites) I get the same weight with the larger but spend many less hours at the table.
I'm not saying you are absolutely wrong.... but... HAVE you tried these genetics without a defol? Or with less budsites?
Perhaps there is an element to my gardening style that is making this happen, but the more smaller buds/less larger buds/same weight thing has been showing itself to be true time and time again.
The factor that really increases yield ime is the proper spacing under the light which is dictated by how the plant likes to grow/branch. The more altering you do to the plant, the more bud sites.. That I will agree with you on... I just don't find it to be a good thing. If I was growing just a couple plants and yield was increased say 20%, then I might go for it. The thing is that I'm not seeing any increase at all as I am already filling my canopy up well with fewer bud sites that are developing larger flowers.
I'll still have a massive yield with a big plant to reflower another 8 oz with no veg time but this time the whole plant will get more light I could even get more the second time with better use of the light.
All genetics are different sure but you are always limited by one or more things that aren't optimal if your containers are small so is your root mass and plant you can force feed a big plant in a small pot but give it a bigger pot now it has more roots eats more grows bigger same with light, food, air movement, hydro flow speed or space as in my case.
Plants grown outside have the best light you could ever ask for that moves all day give them endless good soil water and food you could have a 12 foot monster that weighs ten pounds because it had months of veg time and no limitations we deal with indoors.
These plants were given to me by my friend who grew them from bagseed and the biggist one of the three was three feet smallest 2 feet they grew like typical good christmas trees normal nice average plant with two month veg in hydro with a 1000 watt he got over a pound but just gave some away and kept enough for me to restock him till he starts in the spring he does it in his garage summer only and has been growing since the late 80's like me.
I vegged these totally different with CFLS plus a 400 watt hps till it died not a 1000mh in soil not hydro defoliating in veg makes dense bushes instead of trees with more leaf mass.
My friend will have a much better crop this year we are upping the air and water flow moving the res out of the room and flooding the root tray to the bottom of the pots, he had some heat issues that affected his crop but so did I.