A lot of your reasoning is completely fair...Keeping a garden can turn into a full time job depending on how far you want to take it. Also although I bang on about how defol decreases yield, it's much better to lose a bit of yield than a whole crop due to fungus. However, if you're using amino acids this all becomes moot.
Just took this a moment ago. Just wanted to stress that you WILL have to prune if you don't use aminos. Any other grower would have run into fungus/pests/disease problems by now. That's why I can just let the leaves get necrosis die and fall off (really I should be removing them to be safe) cause I've grown the plant to be naturally resistant to those factors.Everybody has different strokes. I can do an lb in about 4 hrs. but it varies from strain to strain and whether its dry or wet. I wet trim cause its easier. dry goes faster cause it just breaks off but it takes longer to do a good job
I disagree and agree to a point , My experience has shown me noticeable differences in usable yield across a spectrum of different strains. More usable product and less bs larf. if you count airy larfy garbage as yield then sure I surmise that defoliation does in fact reduce yields, but do you want more garbage to be able to show a bigger number that is false when you have to remove an extra 200 grams of garbage that no one would use Or a smaller number that more accurately shows what you got of usable product?
For me the benefits are more then the number, I have no airflow or light issues down low , I dont have to use up space on a drying rack with garbage, I am using the nutrients on the targeted areas that produce real product. I use less nutrients and water and my environment is more stable.
To each there own but letting the lower leaves to just die and fall off of there own accord isnt really doing you or the plants any favors, It is a vector point for disease ,pests, mold and ultimately just increases workload .
Like I said to each there own but from a "logic" standpoint it isnt very logical IMO. Not trying to change any minds, Just looking at things from a different viewpointBB
I'll be honest...I kinda skipped it but glad wading through a river of shit was kinda worth itI just finished reading thru this jeez its a shit show until like the last four pages then it got better but what the fuck did I read
I guess if you want to avoid less work around harvest. Those buds will never fatten up like the top canopy but they're still potent, especially if the strain you're growing is potent to begin with, which most strains are these days. I think the biggest mistake growers make is putting time in to try and trim those buds...They're better off going straight in a coffee grinder than straight into some simmering oil and water or to make hash and rosins.
Hiho - how does a plant replace the lost fanleaves? Is it growing the fan-leaves back? Or is it promoting the new shoots instead?
It's because plants can sense the light which is thrown at them. Plants do everything to grow towards light.
a lemming can be a savage standalone fighter - BEWARE!:
There's people out there that argue that some forms of stress will even increase potency or dry weight - supercropping is one such technique. But it may also be just broscience.... The underlaying rationale is that cannabinoids are a shield to thwart off insects - or other herbivores.
Plucking away some fanleaves is nowhere near the stress level than when you do topping. Topping - esp. the first one on the main stalk - does collapse the internal fluid pressure and a plant may need days to recover from that.
Great post man thanks for all the info!Hiho - how does a plant replace the lost fanleaves? Is it growing the fan-leaves back? Or is it promoting the new shoots instead?
And if new shoots are blocked from light - will they grow big leaves? Are the shoots becoming thinly & elongated in order to avoid the shade? Are these light deprived shoots having 9-fingered up to 13-fingered leaves or just erratic 5 to 7-fingered ones? Will the internodial length be longer or shorter in this case?
And finally, what's the function of auxins in stems & stalks? Some of the answers to these question may serve as insight into when and how one should/could remove fanleaves....
It's because plants can sense the light which is thrown at them. Plants do everything to grow towards light.
In an outside scenario - a plant will get the same luminosity basically everywhere because the sun shines from different directions E-S-W and with such a sheer force, it can penetrate leaves multiple times and still be strong.
Indoors - not so much - mostly because of stationairy lights lacking the 550nm (green) bandwith and also, because of diminished strength due to distance.
a lemming can be a savage standalone fighter - BEWARE!:
There's people out there that argue that some forms of stress will even increase potency or dry weight - supercropping is one such technique. But it may also be just broscience.... The underlaying rationale is that cannabinoids are a shield to thwart off insects - or other herbivores.
If a plant becomes attacked/damaged it may respond by increased resin production.
Plucking away some fanleaves is nowhere near the stress level than when you do topping. Topping - esp. the first one on the main stalk - does collapse the internal fluid pressure and a plant may need days to recover from that.
Thing is, just keep on growing and keep an open eye for your plants - experiment with different techniques and simply learn by experience. If you think you've got the time you could do a bit mainlining because this will give you alot of insights of how cannabis acts when you heavily prune/defol.
Another thing to realize is that several plant manipulation techniques do have a preferable window of time when it's best to use them. With defol it would be after the stretch is mostly finished - but you can do so also in early veg - for example the bushy plant you've shown some pages before is leafy as hell - I would've used LST to lay it out as much as possible then defoliated all the bottom & inner fanleaves away so you'll get stronger new shoots.
What you're essentially trying to create in veg is to have as many nodes as possible - because these are the sites where later buds do form.
These nodes are much more important than fanleaves - esp. because fanleaves can become defunctional as a plant progresses from veg to gen. The colas also do a tremendous amount of photosynthesis at their own - via the sugarleaves.
Alot of growers are actually looking out for strains that are less leafy - because these are more easy to grow. But does it automatically mean these strains will net lesser? Absolutely not. I've grown less-leafy phenotypes which did harvest significantly more than their leafy counterparts from the very same packet of seeds.
Because a plant can only do a specific amount of photosynthesis and anything beyond that is just a waste. Search "Daily Light Integral" & "Light Saturation Point" to learn more about this.
View attachment 4520361
Cheers
