Whats Your opinion on defoliation

Ahhh... thank you for reminding me. I SCROG. So TECHNICALLY, I do a HEAVY defoliation RIGHT at the beginning of flower, see what buds are gonna produce, then tear out everything from under the net thats scraggly. Promotes BIGGER, BADDER, CREAMIER, MILKIER budsites on top, why? Because ALL the enrgy is going to them, not trying to keep undergrowth alive that receives virtually no sun.

I think it depends on the plants leaf structure. If it has tons of leaves it can spare to lose quite a bit. These two plants were only topped once. It is very easy to control the canopy by defoiling taller stems, then the under growth just sky rockets. Look how I manipulated the plants below with defoilation. Let me remind you, these were only topped once.and heavily defoiled durring veg. These pics are at day 20 of flower.

About 2 weeks ago.

1 week ago




This morning:

wood780 said:

I have to defoliate my lower stuff or it rests on my soil and I dont like having leaves sitting on wet soil . I only takeb out whatb I need to . I never remove leaves cause they are shading buds but I will remove a few from the center of my plant for better air flow . I grow up to a ring once im past my ring I defoliate alot of whats under my ring so I can water easier

Click to expand...

That is called pruning which is completely different from defoliation. Pruning helps reduce disease by improving airflow and removing non productive shoots. Defoliation is removing leaves for any number of made up reasons from getting light to budsites to stimulating new growth. Or as seasoned growers call it getting light to non light absorbing plant material and replacing the leaves that were needlessly ripped off.

Lol OK I prune then . Less controversial

i defoliate my outdoor pretty heavily. they're about 7 feet tall, and that's a lot of leaf layers. all of my ag and horticulture classes suggested that the sun only penetrates about 3 leaf laters, and any leaves deeper into a canopy become parasitic.

Regardless, I prefer to error on the side of lower yield & high airflow versus higher potential yield & loss due to mold.