jacks Defoliation grow

There's a lot of growers on here that fill defoliation is a bad way to grow/train your plants but imo its the best way. I am not saying this because my mate told me, I am saying this as I have been a perpetual indoor grow for many years and know the advantages and disadvantages of defoliation, it has to be done right, I don't remove any leaves after week 4 of flower an less they are more than 50% damage

defoliation should only be tried by growers that have done a few crops and always start light and watch how the plants /strain reacts to the defoliation, same with topping some strain/plants don't like it !
I will show you my 4 plants grown under twin 3ft t5's (42w), there will be re-potted in a coulple of days and be veg for a week under a 600w mh and then be flowered under 2 600w hps

going to let the the plants bush out for a week, lst, defoliation and put a net over the plants 3-4 days into flower (12/12) so it will look like a scrog, should fill most the 4ft x 6ft screen.
will put some pic's up later

Mate, trust me, this thread is going to be a war-zone soon enough. I sure hope for your sake that does not happen, but the word 'defoliation' out here on RIU is asking for trouble. All the best with this one...

MH

I'd agree, defoliation does work quite well... It's silly to argue it doesn't.

Vincent VonBlown said:

I'd agree, defoliation does work quite well... It's silly to argue it doesn't.

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Oh but you know that's going to happen. My chair's pulled up, ringside seat, got me popcorn and pint ready.

There is even more then one reason, why a person might want to defoliate. For example, here are pictures of a male (Blue Hash x Thunderstruck 99) Now you might ask why would I defoliate this male. Well the answer is that, it is a restrike (meaning it has already been flowered once). And I want to use it again to pollinate the next crop. But it is growing to swiftly, so I removed the fan leaves. It still grew very swiftly. I ended up ripping off most of the branches as well, not once but twice. Second time was in flowering...

Vincent VonBlown said:

There is even more then one reason, why a person might want to defoliate. For example, here are pictures of a male (Blue Hash x Thunderstruck 99) View attachment 2810489 Now you might ask why would I defoliate this male. Well the answer is that, it is a restrike (meaning it has already been flowered once). And I want to use it again to pollinate the next crop. But it is growing to swiftly, so I removed the fan leaves. It still grew very swiftly. I ended up ripping off most of the branches as well, not once but twice. Second time was in flowering...

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You should see what I do to my poor boys. They just get lopped off all over leaving the smallest little branch. Repeated every few weeks, I only need 4 or 5 balls usually. I show them no mercy.

The most prominent usage though is with females. The "process" is in the, training, topping, super cropping, lolly popping category. All these methods, give a message to the plant to thicken up, and produce MORE! Here's some pics of a female (Cherry Fuel x Thunderstruck 99) the pic you are seeing, is after the 1st defoliation, the plant grows back stronger. You can see how it thickens through the stem areas, from the clipping I gave it... And the next defoliation... The plant keeps getting stronger, 2 days later it's in flowering. I will defoliate again, and show the results all the way to the end...

Check these lolly poppers... (before) And after... And another lolly

Now the rules for this thread, so we don't have another ridiculous little girl type argument over this... If you think defoliation doesn't work. You must show pictures, of your failure... NO just saying something happened. If you can't show pictures or have actual data of why it doesn't work. Please don't post nonsense on this thread, as there are people that would like to learn how to increase their yield rather then argue... Okay ?

Mad Hamish said:

Mate, trust me, this thread is going to be a war-zone soon enough. I sure hope for your sake that does not happen, but the word 'defoliation' out here on RIU is asking for trouble. All the best with this one...

MH

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thanks for the advice mh but half the reason I started this, I feel that too many growers knock defoliation and have very little ideal of how useful it could be, in veg and flower

Vincent VonBlown said:

I'd agree, defoliation does work quite well... It's silly to argue it doesn't.

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totally agree vincent
there so many grower that need to see how this works and see the results

I'm a trimmer of Sativas, not so much Indicas. I think it helps with bud development, and I have tried both ways. I don't hack indiscriminately, but choose leaves that are blocking a greater number of leaves and bud sites below them. I know the leaves around my bud appreciate it. Peace

Vincent VonBlown said:

There is even more then one reason, why a person might want to defoliate. For example, here are pictures of a male (Blue Hash x Thunderstruck 99) View attachment 2810489 Now you might ask why would I defoliate this male. Well the answer is that, it is a restrike (meaning it has already been flowered once). And I want to use it again to pollinate the next crop. But it is growing to swiftly, so I removed the fan leaves. It still grew very swiftly. I ended up ripping off most of the branches as well, not once but twice. Second time was in flowering...

Click to expand...

great job with the male, as you pointed out there many reasons to defoliate a plant, trying growing a bonsai tree without defoliate the plant every 2 weeks lol

can't be done, you can call it what you like but if you remove a lot of nodes/leaves imo this can only be called defoliate

lollipopping a plant just means,defoliate the lower part of the plant so there's a good airflow and you get less airy buds also you reduce the chance of insects/mold

Vincent VonBlown said:

The most prominent usage though is with females. The "process" is in the, training, topping, super cropping, lolly popping category. All these methods, give a message to the plant to thicken up, and produce MORE! Here's some pics of a female (Cherry Fuel x Thunderstruck 99) View attachment 2810494 the pic you are seeing, is after the 1st defoliation, the plant grows back stronger. You can see how it thickens through the stem areas, from the clipping I gave it... View attachment 2810495 And the next defoliation... View attachment 2810496The plant keeps getting stronger, 2 days later it's in flowering. I will defoliate again, and show the results all the way to the end...

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looks great will be good to see the results

I've had grows where I defoliated, and I've had grows I kept all the leaves on. While my defoliated plants grew well and had decent yields, the grows I left alone dramatically out yielded the defoliated grows.

Did I defoliate "correctly"? I dunno....I did what I thought was right (taking fan leaves off to let more light/air get to the lower branches). Defoliating is a grower's judgement call on what to yank and what to leave.....always an iffy proposition.

I also think different strains lend themselves to defoliating better than others.

I personally favor LST and spreading branches and staking them to allow light to get to the lower branches. But that's just the way I do things.

here's one of my plants in veg

lilroach said:

I've had grows where I defoliated, and I've had grows I kept all the leaves on. While my defoliated plants grew well and had decent yields, the grows I left alone dramatically out yielded the defoliated grows.

Did I defoliate "correctly"? I dunno....I did what I thought was right (taking fan leaves off to let more light/air get to the lower branches). Defoliating is a grower's judgement call on what to yank and what to leave.....always an iffy proposition.

I also think different strains lend themselves to defoliating better than others.

I personally favor LST and spreading branches and staking them to allow light to get to the lower branches. But that's just the way I do things.

Click to expand...

LST and spreading branches works great, just think that removing a few fan leaves can give you better control over the plants canopy

Jimdamick said:

I'm a trimmer of Sativas, not so much Indicas. I think it helps with bud development, and I have tried both ways. I don't hack indiscriminately, but choose leaves that are blocking a greater number of leaves and bud sites below them. I know the leaves around my bud appreciate it. Peace

Click to expand...

sounds about right imo

update

last night I re-potted the plants into 20ltr pots, changed the light cycle from 24/0 under a twin t5 to 18/6 under 600w hps, lst and lightly defoliation all 4 plants so there less fan leaves covering the nodes and no fan leaves touching the soil so far my training has worked out well, all 4 plants was topped lst and defoliation a few weeks back which has given me 4 main tops on all 4 plants and a few smaller branches, in the next week I will defoliation over half the fan leaves and nodes as I would like to see 8-12 main tops on each plant and flower

I have taken pictures of each plant and a group picture so you can follow my progress
all comments welcome

3 days later, the plants had time too de-stressed and settle into there new pots, now looking 100% better

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