Fan Leaf Removal?

Greetings all.
I'm in day 29, of a space bucket grow of Royal Cookies Auto.
I am on week three schedule of Fox Farm Nutes at 1/4 recommended dosage, and topped 5 days ago.
My question to the gurus is this:
I have substantial bud sites underneath the two giant fan leaves (you can partially see the one on the upper right). The fan leaf stems, and the topped branches are not quite long enough to LST them out of the way, and I was wondering if it might be safe to just remove the two leaves? Or if I should just focus on the four main colas?


Thanks in advance!

M.

you can remove those. Try to get ur leaf pulling done early. Gonna need them for bloom stage.

Those large fan leaves are going to be your early warning system for knowing when nutes are not correct, I'd leave them. The spectrum of light that allows photosynthesis is able to pass thru those fan leaves and work on the leaves below that appear to be in the shade.

Thanks for the feedback... I opted for the low-risk approach as this is my first grow, and more about the experience than sweating the yield. One day after posting my question, the upper stems had already grown enough to start some LST, and I'm happy with the results... Any feedback or tips for a newbie would be greatly appreciated!

Make sure you let the soil dry out properly between waterings. The leaves on your look quite meaty which is an early sign of over watering, the droopy leaf tips also suggest that your mix is a little hot in Nitrogen (which can be made worse by overwatering in hot soil).

Having dry soil adds a lot of oxygen and really does make a difference. It a balance though of course, don't leave it so long that they are actually wilting...

This is a really helpful site with a lot of great information that help me when I was just starting out.
This piece is on topping of auto-flowers:


You might want to dig around on that site.

Good Luck,
WillieP

Leave the leaves alone, fix your high nitrogen and over watering! Just a touch of each. Looks good.

Thanks again, what a great community.

I will adjust the nutrients, I was already using 1/4 the recommended dosage, but from reading other forums FoxFarms seem to run hot. I think I'll just alternate Nutes and plain water for the time being.

I will also adjust my watering, I'd been waiting for the soil to be loose/dry to about an inch, but will be more patient.

No need to remove them, it looks like you can easily tuck them under the lower branches to give them some light. Removing them will only cause the plant to get less energy to grow, unless that light is 100% catched by other leafs.

maestus said:

Thanks again, what a great community.

I will adjust the nutrients, I was already using 1/4 the recommended dosage, but from reading other forums FoxFarms seem to run hot. I think I'll just alternate Nutes and plain water for the time being.

I will also adjust my watering, I'd been waiting for the soil to be loose/dry to about an inch, but will be more patient.

Click to expand...

Dont add any NPK nutrients yet unless you grow in coco or other medium with no nutes. It looks like you gave it bit too much already(doesent look like something to get alarmed, more just on the edge of too much) when it needed none