Defoliation Increases Marijuana Yields????

takng a few off isn't defoiling and really nothing going to happen but strip the bitch and wait for a disaster to happen is a guarntee i suggest every strip there bitches cause yields will be 70 percent more

I defoliated this plant in veg.

Before

After

It grew back with a vengeance! Turned out to be male.
I "lillipoped" the bagseeds I have, the one pictured above was a bagseed, and I'm not touching my other strains except for minimal removal of the very bottom leaves and dead or dying leaves to see the difference in production. Not a full proof experiment but I'll still get an idea.

Defoliation is a bitch to get right.
Easy to sizzle fan tips if you uptake more then the foliage can handle (too much nutes)
Easy to turn a female into a hermaphrodite (too much stress for certain strains especially sativas)
Easy to light burn/bleach your foliage and buds if they still stretch too far(sometimes they still stretch after defol and if defoliation starts too early in flower)
You really gotta have everything in check, and even then my yield didnt jump so its all still only "experimental" for me.

SPLFreak808 said:

Defoliation is a bitch to get right.
Easy to sizzle fan tips if you uptake more then the foliage can handle (too much nutes)
Easy to turn a female into a hermaphrodite (too much stress for certain strains especially sativas)
Easy to light burn/bleach your foliage and buds if they still stretch too far(sometimes they still stretch after defol and if defoliation starts too early in flower)
You really gotta have everything in check, and even then my yield didnt jump so its all still only "experimental" for me.

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I would just call what I do pruning. I take off a couple bags full of leaves. its noticeable but its not to wear they are naked I still have a full canopy

MrStickyScissors said:

I would just call what I do pruning. I take off a couple bags full of leaves. its noticeable but its not to wear they are naked I still have a full canopy

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Do you prune in flower?

I have pruned my sativa during flower and well what can I say I have had my first real deal problem of nute burn now weather that was down to the amount of leaves I've chopped off or the high dosage of nutes I'm not sure... do indica's respond better to pruning/defoliation?

So what I am getting, for the most part, is selective pruning and or defoliation will help the plant and in turn help the yields..

EC8023 said:

View attachment 3525738 I have pulled off loads of leaves all through the flower stage as it wasn't trained well and was covered in too many leaves most bud sites would of been without light if I hadn't removed them first picture is the start of 12/12 second picture is about 4 weeks later

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Plant looks good, let us know what the yield is, thanks.

In my personal opinion defoliation depends on strain and environment

THCBrain said:

I have pruned my sativa during flower and well what can I say I have had my first real deal problem of nute burn now weather that was down to the amount of leaves I've chopped off or the high dosage of nutes I'm not sure... do indica's respond better to pruning/defoliation?

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Yup. Too much nutrient uptake not enough foliage lol! I've done that a few times as im a sucker for heavily amended soils.

I should have taken pictures before to share, but I didnt... I cut nearly 50oz of leaves off of 2 plants I have in veg on Wednesday evening, which was a day after I posted this thread. As of today, you would never know I took a darn thing off. There are new shoots all over the place where there were none before. Iam now wishing I had done a SCROG as I am running out of space width wise. These things started life bushy and are just getting bushier. These are at the end of 6 weeks of veg now and will go another 2 weeks at least before I flip them.

Joe Blows Trees said:

I defoliated this plant in veg.

BeforeView attachment 3525999

AfterView attachment 3526001

It grew back with a vengeance! Turned out to be male. View attachment 3526002View attachment 3526004
I "lillipoped" the bagseeds I have, the one pictured above was a bagseed, and I'm not touching my other strains except for minimal removal of the very bottom leaves and dead or dying leaves to see the difference in production. Not a full proof experiment but I'll still get an idea.

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I didn't de foi this plant before and after pics topped once and cropped 2 times

Mount said:

I should have taken pictures before to share, but I didnt... I cut nearly 50oz of leaves off of 2 plants I have in veg on Wednesday evening, which was a day after I posted this thread. As of today, you would never know I took a darn thing off. There are new shoots all over the place where there were none before. Iam now wishing I had done a SCROG as I am running out of space width wise. These things started life bushy and are just getting bushier. These are at the end of 6 weeks of veg now and will go another 2 weeks at least before I flip them.
View attachment 3527979 View attachment 3527980 View attachment 3527981

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Nice plants dude but you DID NOT defoliate....lol

MD914 said:

Nice plants dude but you DID NOT defoliate....lol

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True, I did not defoliate in the typical meaning.. I think the general consensus, that I was getting from the replies to the post, led me to believe that a partial and or selective trimming would be better, at least for a newbie grower like me. There are others that prefer to do a more aggressive defoliation, which I may try on my next round since I will have a few more plants at that time. Maybe I need to change the tiltle..lol.... But overall I am getting great insight on some different practices from a lot of members. I guess the main reason for the thread was to help me figure out if removing leaves would help or hurt, I can now say that removing some leaves does not seem to hurt the plant, but has helped. Although the harvest will be the real test. I do appreciate ALL of these responses as it helps me to understand how to grow better plants.

If your growing indoor and plan to defoilate you must look at mother nature percentage wise of insect damage ,, well indoor lets hope there is no insects but i guess if we take the 10 percent insect damage from average plants out door i guess we can apply that logic to indoor , but why really there has been a lot of side by sides defoiled vs non a buddy of mine did one same strain etc and although everyone thought wow some better development on lower buds end result showed that un stripped plants did better in yield
You want yield then add more lights end of story but to mess with plant by stripping leaves off not only did you stress the plant you also changed the plants function from growing / yielding to repairing the damage .
Evolution marijuana only goal is to produce as much of seeds so there is lots of off spring end of story ,evolution would infact changed the plant from 1000's of years to start dropping leafs to create more seed ??? but has it ??? Nope

when we see out door grows or some big indoor grows were in awe at the size of plants and buds on them
the grower does not worry bout removal of leaves but worries about canopy managment , having as many bud sites at the light source

Watching this shit!!!

I personally never defoliate in flower

I scrogged these plants and defoliated a guesstamate of 90% of the fan leaves and I striped eveything off the lower branches. If I would have left most of the leaves it would have been so thick I'm sure it would have harbored disease and insects along with lower quality and amount. I ended up with about 8 oz of bud from this 2x4ft tent grow, the same as my other grows with the same space and equipment.

Alienwidow said:

So i grew this plant here, and sure, it looks big, but everything on the inside of the plant was total larf. Not even big enough to keep. The outside ends were pretty good and she yielded quite a bit. But next time i try and grow the same strain outside i will be taking the inside and removing it. I am not dealing with that larf, and trimming, for nothing. View attachment 3525375

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Is that the Larfiest plant you ever saw, tiny little Colas, thanks for the post, we now know what a plant looks like when it hasn't been taken care of.

Alienwidow said:

Since most of us take clones and keep our genetics going i always recommend running the plant through once untouched. Then like five days or so before you chop it get right in there and see what you could have done without...next time cut it all out. I have a huckleberry kush from dynasty seeds that the whole damn plant is useable. But that jillybean i posted just isnt the same unfortunately, so it takes a bit more work.

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Why would you waste an entire run just to see what a particular genetic looks like, is it your first plant ever? If you have done any serious growing you would already know what the plant structure is because you would recognize it from breeder pictures and info, unless you grow bag seed which would not surprise me one iota.

But if you want to blow a 3 or 4 months of electricity nutrients and whatever it is you consume just so you know what a cannabis plant looks like rather than contacting the breeder on the phone or email then go for it.

Hilarious absolutely hilarious!!!