trimming fan leafs my new opinion , guys read my results.

about 4 weeks ago some body posted about fan leafs, and every body had there own opinion. so on that , about 4 weeks ago I said shit what the fuck , why not try to pull those fan leafs off , I pulled them off of four 6 feet tall plants I had under a 600 watt hps, . yeah the light only got about 8 inches deep or a bit more then faded off very bad, that's a huge problem . to many plants per light !. so I trimmed 90 % of the fan leafs off the plants. and pulled all the branches straight up so even the bottom branches are supported pointing up. and after I did 4 plants I seen I could add 1 more plant. so I did pull those leafs off. now I can have 5 plants ! instead of 4 that is huge for me. and today, I was looking and said (shit these plants are full of huge buds ) so today every plant got the leafs off. im very impressed with this new technique , its going at add about 30 % yield per plant and the other plant under the light that's a huge yield increase per light !!!!!, yeah baby. if I had to guess, each light will pull average of 7 to 10 ounces more , just from pulling fan leafs and pulling them up . only leafs left on are the fan leafs that don't have long stems hard to get off of the direct bud site. and a few on the bottom . yea the bottom fan leafs are allowed to block the light because just a pot under it . the light will penetrate about 2 feet deep now intense light. Im pulling the leaves off when the buds are about 1/2 inch thick. on the tops. I strongly suggest trying this technique , if your scared then just try 1 plant , and don't do it if you don't have all the nutrients dialed in , this technique if intended for seasoned growers . no pics. I never post them on here, don't want to in criminate my self.

kinddiesel said:

its going at add about 30 % yield per plant and the other plant under the light that's a huge yield increase per light !!!!!, yeah baby. if I had to guess, each light will pull average of 7 to 10 ounces more , just from pulling fan leafs and pulling them up .

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First you say conclusively it's adding 30%, then you guess it will add 7-10 oz/light.

I'll wait until you harvest and you give the final dry weight of the stripped plants, vs the unstripped plants you used as a control. You did do that didn't you?

Well... I checked the calendar... and it doesn't say 4/1....

So, I must add: Congrats I heard if you pull the leaves off just right you can clone them !?!

I did this with one plant about a month into flower. I have three down of the same strain (Barnie's Pineapple Chunk). The one I did it to is the runt so far as height. For whatever reason, it developed a shitload of sugar leaves so it seemed like an ideal target. Here are a couple pics of it today along with one of its sisters that I did not cut leaves off of. What I will say is that it seems to be developing better (this strain is a slow go, not what advertised!!!) but that may be due to the sugar bush.

I know they are not the most beautiful looking plants in the world. This has been a challenging grow and my cam does that. They are healthy and stable, but not pristine...

Defoliated:


Not Defoliated:

I have been doing this long time I don't need to have it all dry and weigh it to see the weight, I can look at it and pretty much know how much im going to pull off the plant. just buy looking at it yes its about 30 % more. per plant. after I get them dry ill post the new average. from my previous non trimming.

GrowinDad said:

I did this with one plant about a month into flower. I have three down of the same strain (Barnie's Pineapple Chunk). The one I did it to is the runt so far as height. For whatever reason, it developed a shitload of sugar leaves so it seemed like an ideal target. Here are a couple pics of it today along with one of its sisters that I did not cut leaves off of. What I will say is that it seems to be developing better (this strain is a slow go, not what advertised!!!) but that may be due to the sugar bush.

I know they are not the most beautiful looking plants in the world. This has been a challenging grow and my cam does that. They are healthy and stable, but not pristine...

Defoliated:
View attachment 2945574View attachment 2945577

Not Defoliated:
View attachment 2945578View attachment 2945579

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My P Chunks are acting just like u describe. Very slow. Doubt they will yield much either :-/ won't growing it again

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kinddiesel said:

I have been doing this long time I don't need to have it all dry and weigh it to see the weight, I can look at it and pretty much know how much im going to pull off the plant. just buy looking at it yes its about 30 % more. per plant. after I get them dry ill post the new average. from my previous non trimming.

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You've been growing a long time but you think de-foliating is a "new technique"?

____________________
Follow along with me on my first grow - https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/752460-1st-grow-custom-room-pineapple.html

GrowinDad said:

For whatever reason, it developed a shitload of sugar leaves

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i had the same problem i striped a plant and left one plant with the fan leafs on and i noticed an explosion of sugar leafs growing and its was like yours and i didnt yield as much off the de-leafed one it was about 1.6 oz and the none de-leafed on was just under 3


OP- im not in anyway saying mine was a test as some minor stuff was different but after doing that i now no longer pull any fan leafs unless its blocking a bud site but my theory is if you remove 1 fan leaf the plant then has to grow more smaller leafs to take up the slack of the leaf you removed and before anyone starts saying this is just my theory think about this if you do remove sed leafs the plant yes it will still grow but it will have to produce more leafs to absorb the light so in theory pulling the leafs off could possibly slow the growth as it now going to growing more leafs hence a lower yield but hey im a stoner and thats my opinion and my findings

Actually, mine was full of the sugars before I defoliated. Right now, it is 1 or 2 of the three. Cannacove, I flipped a week before thanksgiving. They are filling out now and I think yield will be okay. Stinky fucking plants so I am cautiously optimistic is will be worthy. I hope so because I have clones well into veg right now...

GrowinDad said:

Actually, mine was full of the sugars before I defoliated. Right now, it is 1 or 2 of the three. Cannacove, I flipped a week before thanksgiving. They are filling out now and I think yield will be okay. Stinky fucking plants so I am cautiously optimistic is will be worthy. I hope so because I have clones well into veg right now...

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i dont dout they they will be good, that just the experience i had when i took off fan leafs

I have tried this technique and have come to the conclusion that removing fan leaves it causes the plant to go into shock which slows down growth and then it tries to compensate for the pulled fan leaves by growing smaller sugar leaves ,which takes away from the energy used to produce BUDS which leads to smaller yields.

i second that

im on my 3rd harvest with BF pineapple chunk. ill tell you this, my PC doesn't look anything like yours growindad. im pulling 2+zips off each PC plant. granted they aren't prize winning massive colas like my other strains I grow, but they are dense medium to large sized colas. I FIM, lollipop, and supercrop thru veg and veg for 8-10 weeks.
when you remove fan leaves, your removing the plants way to absorb the light to help the plant grow. no leaves, no light absorption, equals a week yield. im no expert grower, but I average 2-4 zips per plant every harvest.

DemonTrich, I don't disagree. Have never defoliated before. But I read that High Times article, I was a few weeks into flower as it called for, and had this one plant gushing out sugars so I said fuck it and tried on one of the three. I am just saying that thus far, it does not appear to have hurt it vis a vis the other two. I still have a month or so until so we will see.

I topped once then did a good amount of LST. Prob vegged four to five weeks.

GrowinDad said:

Actually, mine was full of the sugars before I defoliated. Right now, it is 1 or 2 of the three. Cannacove, I flipped a week before thanksgiving. They are filling out now and I think yield will be okay. Stinky fucking plants so I am cautiously optimistic is will be worthy. I hope so because I have clones well into veg right now...

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Mine are soooo reactive to any minor deficiency. It's extremely frustrating.

The fan leaves are what is responsible for photosynthesis the basic building block for growth on any plant matter. If you remove most of the fan leaves you will have a stunted plant and not realize the full potential of the plant. Yes, removing some fan leaves is good, but there is a fine line between just the right amount and too much. Be careful, do not ever remove most of the fan leaves, you will be making a big mistake.