cutting fan leaves off

I'm in my second week off 12/12 iv I should cut my fan leaves off but I'm wondering is that is the right thing to do can some 1 give me some advice thanks

Only remove sick/wilted/dead leaves, leave the rest. They're your plants solar panels.

I remove some of the lower leaves to allow better light penetration & air flow in a small space or overgrown area. Not outside where light & air are plentiful. But you will hear a heated debate to follow

as above.............

yea i trim. more light to the buds. i don't give her a bald eagle just a little shave to keep her tidy.

I seem to have good results whether I trim light, or don't trim at all. I never take off more than 10" of fan leaves though, even with taller sativas. Either way I would say that once you've flipped them to 12/12 it's going to cause "some" amount of stress to the plant. Might take a day longer to finish, might find a few seeds in a few buds...I'm not an expert. But once you see pistils it's a bad idea either way unless the leaves are damaged or blocking so much light that you would actually see a diminished yield.

i prune hard. works for me, depends on your strain, youll get mixed opinions. it really comes down to strain, and how full your canopy is

I don't. Seems to be a personal preference or experience.

patrickkawi37 said:

i prune hard. works for me, depends on your strain, youll get mixed opinions. it really comes down to strain, and how full your canopy is

Click to expand...

it doesn't have a thing to do with strain, science is science regardless of the strains, that's just simple thinking..

trimming leaves is retarded.. what do you think makes a plant grow?? anyone want to take a guess?? that's right, the leaves.. they take the light and turn it into food and sugar's via photosynthesis that are used to feed the plants.. no leaves, no food, no buds, no life, no nothing..

and buds don't photosynthesis on their own.. yes, buds have some leaves in them that is what creates the photosynthesis in the buds, not the actual buds themselves..
when growing, don't worry at all about the buds.. if you concern yourself with only growing a nice healthy green canopy with tons and tons of leaves, well, that's the goal as that's what is going to feed the plant and keep it healthy..

check out this thread by uncle ben on here, it's over 100 pages long, but i've read about 10 pages so far and have learned a ton already.. skip all the posts from anyone but the op if you want, and i will guarantee that you will look at things much differently..

https://www.rollitup.org/advanced-marijuana-cultivation/267989-uncle-bens-gardening-tweeks-pointers.html

racerboy71 said:

it doesn't have a thing to do with strain, science is science regardless of the strains, that's just simple thinking..

trimming leaves is retarded.. what do you think makes a plant grow?? anyone want to take a guess?? that's right, the leaves.. they take the light and turn it into food and sugar's via photosynthesis that are used to feed the plants.. no leaves, no food, no buds, no life, no nothing..

and buds don't photosynthesis on their own.. yes, buds have some leaves in them that is what creates the photosynthesis in the buds, not the actual buds themselves..
when growing, don't worry at all about the buds.. if you concern yourself with only growing a nice healthy green canopy with tons and tons of leaves, well, that's the goal as that's what is going to feed the plant and keep it healthy..

check out this thread by uncle ben on here, it's over 100 pages long, but i've read about 10 pages so far and have learned a ton already.. skip all the posts from anyone but the op if you want, and i will guarantee that you will look at things much differently..

https://www.rollitup.org/advanced-marijuana-cultivation/267989-uncle-bens-gardening-tweeks-pointers.html

Click to expand...

I don't doubt that you know what you're talking about for the most part, but to say that it has nothing to do with the strain is ignorant. Some indica dominant strains grow HUGE fan leaves and don't stretch out much during flower. So if you're in a high yield situation and you have plants close together and you are growing a strain with big fan leaves that doesn't stretch out more, you may have to trim some fan leaves from one plant that are even blocking growth on the plant next to it, let alone itself.

Here's a fact. If you cover a growing flower with a large leaf of another plant that flower is not going to be gathering any energy from that leave. And if you cover a flower with a large leaf from the same plant, the flower that leaf belongs to may flourish, but the flower being blocked by the leaf will not.

In order to tell someone trimming leaves is a bad idea you would have to know how they are growing their plants and how they are positioned under the light and so on. Not trimming may be the better advice in theory and practice, but you would have to practice properly for it to be the better advice.

That being said, I re-iterate that you shouldn't trim any leaves unless you "feel" it is necessary or if the leaves are bad or dying.

Also, pinning the fan leaves down or back is probably a better option that cutting them if they are blocking the light.

i cut all of my fan leaves off once and got twice the amount of bud.............go figure that.

No do not cut off your fan leaves...plants grow leaves for many reasons, and I think it is probably best that we let the plant keep it's leaves if it so wishes...if the plant wants to it will shed them all...

im going to cut ooff the main stem this time to see if it increases yield...........

The whole "if it didn't want the leaves it wouldn't grow them" argument doesn't really apply to indoor growing. I see the logic, but growing under HIDs isn't really logical to a plant.

I think that if the plant knew it was going to be grown 3'+ in an indoor environment under HID lights that it would probably grow less or smaller fan leaves to allow more light to make it to the bottom. So when growing outdoors, I wouldn't even consider taking off any leaves unless they were damaged or touching the ground..especially during flower. But indoors, unless I am growing short plants, I usually have to take off a few bigger fan leaves before flowering starts.

del66666 said:

i cut all of my fan leaves off once and got twice the amount of bud.............go figure that.

Click to expand...

Unless it was with a sizeable group and an equal controll group this is annecdotal.

If you grew roses, you wouldn't strip all the leaves now would you?

I can see in my vegcabinet that brances that gets the most light on the growtips grow faster than others.

Well I trimmed the shit out of plants...removing alot of lower growth and alot of the lower laterals that arent getting light and would just waste the plants energy. Just picking all of the fan leaves off isnt going to help...because the laterals will keep growing.

ANC said:

Unless it was with a sizeable group and an equal controll group this is annecdotal.

If you grew roses, you wouldn't strip all the leaves now would you?

I can see in my vegcabinet that brances that gets the most light on the growtips grow faster than others.

Click to expand...

its a mistake to listen to anything i say...........i have removed every leaf before and then let them grow back and then repeated again......

phishtank said:

Well I trimmed the shit out of plants...removing alot of lower growth and alot of the lower laterals that arent getting light and would just waste the plants energy. Just picking all of the fan leaves off isnt going to help...because the laterals will keep growing.

Click to expand...

Im with you! I trim them up good! I dont raped them all in one day but everyday I go in there and take off some lower branches or fan leaves that are blocking light. Dont let the plant waste its energy down low on under developed buds.

racerboy71 said:

trimming leaves is retarded.. what do you think makes a plant grow?? anyone want to take a guess?? that's right, the leaves.. they take the light and turn it into food and sugar's via photosynthesis that are used to feed the plants.. no leaves, no food, no buds, no life, no nothing..

and buds don't photosynthesis on their own.. yes, buds have some leaves in them that is what creates the photosynthesis in the buds, not the actual buds themselves..
when growing, don't worry at all about the buds.. if you concern yourself with only growing a nice healthy green canopy with tons and tons of leaves, well, that's the goal as that's what is going to feed the plant and keep it healthy.

Click to expand...

I agree with this in theory. A plant uses these leaves as storage units but there comes a time when the plant is using energy for the leaf not the bud and this is the time they have to go. If you know your strain they will let you know which needs to go. Circulation should be the only reason to remove viable leave and knowing when the are not viable is the key.

By the way I read a page of uncle buck's or bart's or whatever his name is and his info is garbage. I don't care how many years you have grown, if you give advice that a wet/dry cycle is a bad thing I need not read anymore of HIS bullshit!