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bobblehead overtakes

TheArchitect

Member
Veteran
I've been biting my tongue, but I want to say my bit, as it will be short.

I really despise the term defoliation.

1. To deprive (a plant, tree, or forest) of leaves.
2. To cause the leaves of (a plant, tree, or forest) to fall off, especially by the use of chemicals.

Cotton farmers defoliate at the end of the season, and their are other uses as in the case of bonsai trees.

What bothers me is that I believe people are misusing the word. Defoliation is drastic, ie >70% leaf removal. That's what by definition defoliation is, you are depriving(key word) the plant of leafs which are what your plant uses for growth. Why would you want to deprive your plant of its vital growth engines.


Pruning is the proper term, and when you say that, the professionals are less likely to immediately scoff.

Pruning will increase your yield period. There's not even an argument about that. The disagreement comes from when and how much.

IMHO, no more than 30% of the plant at once, but preferably over 3 days to a week in veg.

In flower, I try to not interfere with stretch, so I do a hard prune 3 days prior to flip, let them stretch, and then go back in to clean up again. Throughout flower they get touched up, mostly large leafs resting on buds, and then the last week I begin a true defoliation where I start plucking 10-15% of the foliage per day, starting with leafs closest to the light.

:ying:
 

Arminius

"I'm not a pezzamist, I am an optometrist"
Veteran
I've been biting my tongue, but I want to say my bit, as it will be short.

I really despise the term defoliation.



Cotton farmers defoliate at the end of the season, and their are other uses as in the case of bonsai trees.

What bothers me is that I believe people are misusing the word. Defoliation is drastic, ie >70% leaf removal. That's what by definition defoliation is, you are depriving(key word) the plant of leafs which are what your plant uses for growth. Why would you want to deprive your plant of its vital growth engines.


Pruning is the proper term, and when you say that, the professionals are less likely to immediately scoff.

Pruning will increase your yield period. There's not even an argument about that. The disagreement comes from when and how much.

IMHO, no more than 30% of the plant at once, but preferably over 3 days to a week in veg.

In flower, I try to not interfere with stretch, so I do a hard prune 3 days prior to flip, let them stretch, and then go back in to clean up again. Throughout flower they get touched up, mostly large leafs resting on buds, and then the last week I begin a true defoliation where I start plucking 10-15% of the foliage per day, starting with leafs closest to the light.

:ying:

Very well put, thanks TA! :)
 
G

greenmatter

:biggrin:

when we talk about burning some herb people start to get reasonable all of a sudden ...... it almost looks like they start laughing at things instead of taking them so seriously and we have not even sparked up a bowl yet.

i like the fact that a plant that we all love to argue about also inspires us to stop for a minute or two and get our minds right TOGETHER

puff,puff,pass brothers!

have a good one
 

Ichabod Crane

Well-known member
Veteran
Call it what you like, I will call it stripping. I like to tye my women done so they are restrained while I strip them. Some responed better to it then others. Just have to try a few to know which like it and which don't. If you want I will refer to it as defoliation to get on the same page.

Cough cough thanks green, here you go Ta.
 

FlowerFarmer

Well-known member
Veteran
^that is what I call it.


when growing horizontally I'd do a very hard strip day 1 of bloom, I'd then clean up the lowers a 2nd time around Day 14. I wouldnt really touch the plants after that. This seems to be the opposite of what many recommend, but my plants seemed to respond to it without stall. The result was massive (2L size colas). I cant say it yielded more, but what was there was definitely top shelf bud with great bag appeal and a much easier harvest.

This was a heavy strip all the way to dominant top flower sites. I guess most wouldn't call this defoliation, but rather lolli-popping as I was taking all lower flower sites as well. They were however more prone to bud rot so I scaled back and allowed some of the lowers to stay.


Since going vert I've been letting them go natural.. usually dense all the way down. Maybe thin their backsides a bit. Taking down a un-defoiled crop now and looks to be heavy weight, but time will tell. As others state.. your mileage may vary. At the end of the day.. who really cares what the science is. You either like to do it and feel it benefits or you don't.


I'm still up in the air. I'm curious if all of those sub-par buds are "extra" on top of the similar weight I'd get either way. If so.. its all free hash making goodies anyways if you're one to work through it.



Just my 2c.
I will say, that a lot of the pictures I see on IC of heavy defoliators... look rather weak and unimpressive. They'll claim good yields and praise their raping of leaves, but I certainly can't see their claimed results. Most of the times their gardens look sparse and un-full, yet I still yield less covering almost every sq inch of space around the lamp.

Note - Not referring to anyone in particular.. Just what I've observed across ICmag and other forums.
 

Bonzo

Active member
Veteran
howdy brotha bobble! :) how the hell are ya? your garden looks happy bro :) your an inspiration dude...fuckin smartest dude on IC...and your totally out of your everlovin' mind! batshit crazy mad scientist that wont settle for anything less than the best...keep doin what you do bro...you do it well :)

its the journey not the destination...your havin one hell of a journey dude! :)

peace and love, i will be around more often :)
 

bobblehead

Active member
Veteran
^that is what I call it.


when growing horizontally I'd do a very hard strip day 1 of bloom, I'd then clean up the lowers a 2nd time around Day 14. I wouldnt really touch the plants after that. This seems to be the opposite of what many recommend, but my plants seemed to respond to it without stall. The result was massive (2L size colas). I cant say it yielded more, but what was there was definitely top shelf bud with great bag appeal and a much easier harvest.

This was a heavy strip all the way to dominant top flower sites. I guess most wouldn't call this defoliation, but rather lolli-popping as I was taking all lower flower sites as well. They were however more prone to bud rot so I scaled back and allowed some of the lowers to stay.


Since going vert I've been letting them go natural.. usually dense all the way down. Maybe thin their backsides a bit. Taking down a un-defoiled crop now and looks to be heavy weight, but time will tell. As others state.. your mileage may vary. At the end of the day.. who really cares what the science is. You either like to do it and feel it benefits or you don't.


I'm still up in the air. I'm curious if all of those sub-par buds are "extra" on top of the similar weight I'd get either way. If so.. its all free hash making goodies anyways if you're one to work through it.



Just my 2c.
I will say, that a lot of the pictures I see on IC of heavy defoliators... look rather weak and unimpressive. They'll claim good yields and praise their raping of leaves, but I certainly can't see their claimed results. Most of the times their gardens look sparse and un-full, yet I still yield less covering almost every sq inch of space around the lamp.

Note - Not referring to anyone in particular.. Just what I've observed across ICmag and other forums.

Ok I've been trying to avoid this defoliation convo, but since its going on w/o me anyway... and then I'm going to tie it into an organic discussion and shit might hit the fan.

When you remove a leaf, you're making both metabolic and hormonal changes. Like I mentioned before, the plants use leaves to transpire/breath. Its not just taking in CO2 and generating CHO, its also releasing toxic 02, moisture, and some other functions I'm glossing over... So when you remove the leaves, you're removing some "lung capacity" (edit: referring to healthy lung tissue; necrotic tissue is best removed). A person can live with one lung, but the 1 lung that person is left with has to compensate for the other lung that has been removed. The remaining lung isn't going to be strong enough to oxygenate all of the body's red blood cell's. Now the body is going to produce fewer RBC's because there is an abundance, and it needs to compensate for diminished oxygenation. There's also decrease production of hormones and enzymes. The remaining lung has to get stronger, and it takes time for the mitochondria to build up....

Auxin is a growth hormone in plants. Normally auxin is focus toward the tops. When you go and remove the fan leaves, that auxin gets redirected to other bud sites. This is a much more complex process and less is known about it. I don't want to get too much further in depth for fear of spreading misinformation. But on to my human analogy... Hormones work on a negative feedback loop. This means that testosterone for example, needs to be low, before the body starts producing more of it. Making a hormonal change takes time. I don't believe its different in plants, i.e. instant hormonal change.

edit: physical changes and hormonal changes are related. High RBC's with diminished oxygenation signals the body to speed up destruction of RBC's and slows production of new RBC's. This is part of a hormonal feedback loop. I guess what I'm getting at is that all of these hormonal changes have to take place before you see the physical changes... So you have to manually crash the hormones to manipulate them yourself, wait for the plant to respond, and then growth will continue as normal with w/e period of time for growth lost. If you let the hormones work naturally, things are more likely to stay on an even keel.

So here I go now with my bodybuilding example... B/c I love to relate growing to bodybuilding... :D Its well known that steroids have side effects. When you add artificial hormones, it throws everything else out of whack, and the body is left struggling to compensate. Elite bodybuilders, or their endocrinologists anyway, have a good understanding of this balance, and they can manipulate it achieve incredible growth, and balance out many of the side effects. Then you have your gym-rat steroid user who doesn't do his research, and he doesn't grow no matter how many steroids he injects because he's not eating enough. His body is covered in acne, he's growing a B cup, and his balls have shriveled into peanuts... The natural bodybuilder knows that if you eat right, train right, and sleep, your body will reach its maximum natural potential, without all the nasty side effects and imbalances.

So, like coco, if its done right, leaf pruning can work... but its an accident waiting to happen if you do it wrong!

Organics can work great, if you know how to manipulate the rhizosphere. Synthetic ferts are the same salts that are derived from organics. All you have to do is know how to make those salts available to the plants. Everything is more likely to stay balanced in the rhizosphere, as opposed to giving the plant w/e nutrients YOU think it needs. What makes us so much better than nature? I think its just our lack of understanding of nature that leads us to believe we can do better than nature.

I was just reading in the blumat thread, and sunnydog grows in organics, and only has straight water running through his blumats... He doesn't seem bothered by the smaller harvests organics has guaranteed him... Actually its just the opposite for him, things are better than ever! After the first few days needed to set the blumats up, he visits his grows every 2 weeks! He probably couldn't do that running synthetics w/o a bit more work.



howdy brotha bobble! :) how the hell are ya? your garden looks happy bro :) your an inspiration dude...fuckin smartest dude on IC...and your totally out of your everlovin' mind! batshit crazy mad scientist that wont settle for anything less than the best...keep doin what you do bro...you do it well :)

its the journey not the destination...your havin one hell of a journey dude! :)

peace and love, i will be around more often

Thanks for stopping in Bonz! Good to see you! IDK about smartest guy on ic, but thanks. There's lots of intelligent people here, some of which actually specialize in horticulture. I am definitely bat-shit crazy. You got that right... ha ha...

I read about your mom in Mega and Anti's thread. Sorry to read, I know its a very emotional time for you. PMs are always open if you want to vent dude. Health care is my specialty, and I would be more than happy to discuss these things with you.

I'm enjoying every minute of this journey. Its funny how things rarely turn out how you expected... but you know what they say...
"Shoot for the Moon. Even If You Miss, You'll Land among the Stars."
 
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G

greenmatter

defoliation is another one of those subjects that just plain and simple does not have a black and white answer

genetics, grow media,garden style,lighting, experience and what your goals are all spin up some interesting shades of gray though

my leaf trimming opinion (because i don't "defoliate" anything) would be simple.......

as little as possible ,but as much as necessary:good: ........ :dunno:
 

Bassy59

Member
I just love when people with zero experience on the subject of defoliation want to bring in some college dipshits "scientific" reasoning as proof against it.

Interestingly, not a fucking one of those college dipshits is referring to a study done on our plant, indoors, under our types of controlled conditions.

Why? Because other than at Ole Miss, where the only federally supported MJ grow is in the USA, MJ isnt even allowed to be studied for ANY reason whatsoever!

Why? Because it's still a fucking schedule 1 "no medical benefit" substance. And as long as that's the case, the studies every other dipshit MJ grower wants to claim as scientific proof are those that are not MJ, nor controlled grows anything like ours indoors.

It's so funny how only the inexperienced, or those that had shit tons of other issues going on are the ones that claim without a doubt it doesnt work. Even in light of evidence by TONS of growers that have been quietly doing this for years.

Sometimes, a learned book education is a bad thing. Experience is the best teacher of all.
 

DrFever

Active member
Veteran
Nice post bh and you pretty much nailed it comparing humans and plants is really good way of thinking about it....
I believe you pretty much said in other words what i have been trying to explain to many HERE on IC where i get neg rep for posting it or get trolled, bashed, or what ever
TA nailed it as well, we really are no different then plants
marijuana plant's main goal is to reproduce SEED so really if this is the case then over millions of years of evolution one would think that a mj plant would naturally drop its green leafs is this the case ?????? if it would produce more seed its all about keeping it green and as many bud sites where light is :) :tiphat:
 

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DrFever

Active member
Veteran
yo bassy you make it sound like usa is only cultivator of mj whats the chances most US Growers either got there seeds via Canada , UK or Europe seed suppliers ???? hmm wonder and if you really want to talk about it lets see Pakistan is legal to grow china , Portugal i believe still are number 1 and 2 producers of mj seeds for there oil properties
Albania is one of Europe's greatest producers of cannabis
 

bobblehead

Active member
Veteran
I just love when people with zero experience on the subject of defoliation want to bring in some college dipshits "scientific" reasoning as proof against it.

Interestingly, not a fucking one of those college dipshits is referring to a study done on our plant, indoors, under our types of controlled conditions.

Why? Because other than at Ols Miss, where the only federally supported MJ grow is in the USA, MJ isnt even allowed to be studied for ANY reason whatsoever!

Why? Because it's still a fucking schedule 1 "no medical benefit" substance. And as long as that's the case, the studies every other dipshit MJ grower wants to claim as scientific proof are those that are not MJ, nor controlled grows anything like ours indoors.

It's so funny how only the inexperienced, or those that had shit tons of other issues going on are the ones that claim without a doubt it doesnt work. Even in light of evidence by TONS of growers that have been quietly doing this for years.

Sometimes, a learned book education is a bad thing. Experience is the best teacher of all.


Your argument sounds intelligent... Thank you for your contribution...

I suppose if I told you about how we all evolved from proteins and bacteria you would probably call bullshit on that too. Its okay.

Knowledge + Experience = Greatness.

One without the other, and you're just a fool yappin.

:tiphat:
 

Bassy59

Member
Your argument sounds intelligent... Thank you for your contribution...

I suppose if I told you about how we all evolved from proteins and bacteria you would probably call bullshit on that too. Its okay.

Knowledge + Experience = Greatness.

One without the other, and you're just a fool yappin.

:tiphat:

And I have the EXPERIENCE using the defoliation techniques (or pruning as some would describe) and increasing yields by huge amounts. As do many others here on icmag and many other sites. Yet this site is the only one I am aware of where there is so much ignorance and ego that absolutely refuse to accept this technique used by others as proof it works for them.

Another definition would be "ignorance". I suggest you look it up. Wiki it even.
 

Bassy59

Member
yo bassy you make it sound like usa is only cultivator of mj whats the chances most US Growers either got there seeds via Canada , UK or Europe seed suppliers ???? hmm wonder and if you really want to talk about it lets see Pakistan is legal to grow china , Portugal i believe still are number 1 and 2 producers of mj seeds for there oil properties
Albania is one of Europe's greatest producers of cannabis

So bring me the fucking studies on defoliation or heavy pruning from these places where it's been "scientifically" proven to not work with mj. Guess what? You wont find any!

But you want to use "peer reviews" from universities as your evidence to rebuke. Yet NONE, not a single fucking one of them is growing mj, indoors, like we do here on this site and others.

I'm sure my op on the subject is way too far over your head.
 

silver hawaiian

Active member
Veteran
Organics can work great, if you know how to manipulate the rhizosphere. Synthetic ferts are the same salts that are derived from organics. All you have to do is know how to make those salts available to the plants. Everything is more likely to stay balanced in the rhizosphere, as opposed to giving the plant w/e nutrients YOU think it needs. What makes us so much better than nature? I think its just our lack of understanding of nature that leads us to believe we can do better than nature.

Kudos, mostly, at least on your thought process. :good:

But I think you'd find, after just a brief toe-dip in the organic pool, that if done correctly (which is easier than f'ing up), there's really no such thing as "managing the rhizosphere."

In fact, IME, spelling and pronouncing the word "rhizosphere" is far more labor intensive than anything I have to do in my organic garden, ever. :D

..I just typed out a short/long list of what else in my garden is easier than spelling "rhizosphere," but as one who prefers to grow organically, and who could also be construed to be a friend, I don't want to go spreading too much about one road to nirvana that diverges from another. :tiphat:
 

bobblehead

Active member
Veteran
And I have the EXPERIENCE using the defoliation techniques (or pruning as some would describe) and increasing yields by huge amounts. As do many others here on icmag and many other sites. Yet this site is the only one I am aware of where there is so much ignorance and ego that absolutely refuse to accept this technique used by others as proof it works for them.

Another definition would be "ignorance". I suggest you look it up. Wiki it even.

So bring me the fucking studies on defoliation or heavy pruning from these places where it's been "scientifically" proven to not work with mj. Guess what? You wont find any!

But you want to use "peer reviews" from universities as your evidence to rebuke. Yet NONE, not a single fucking one of them is growing mj, indoors, like we do here on this site and others.

I'm sure my op on the subject is way too far over your head.

who are you and why does your attitude suck so much?

You're not going to find many peer-reviewed articles on cannabis, but they're out there. Israel is an example of a country that has done peer-reviewed work on cannabis.

In horticulture... Many studies apply to more than one type of crop... I believe cannabis is classified as a C3 plant, so any study on a C3 plant will have correlations.

I also eluded to all of us having common ancestry with proteins and bacteria... So your assumptions that our systems are significantly different are wrong. Everything on this Earth is made up of the same exact materials.

I haven't questioned your experience... but now I will, since mine is in question. I've been growing non-stop for the past... going on 4 years now... in addition to my other endeavors in life. I have photo documentation.

Where is your experience?

Please:
a) bring a real demonstration of your experience. Maybe a side-by-side thread where you let a control plant grow natural, and an experimental plant was defoliated for comparison. That would be excellent. Sharing your methods would be most helpful.

b) sit down and shut the fuck up.

c) leave my thread.


Edit: here's a citation for a peer-reviewed article on cultivating cannabis in the US. It took me 15 mins on my university search engine.
Mississippi-Grown Marihuana: Cannabis sativa Cultivation and Observed Morphological Variations
Maynard W. Quimby, Norman J. Doorenbos, Carlton E. Turner and Asaad Masoud
Economic Botany , Vol. 27, No. 1 (Jan. - Mar., 1973), pp. 117-127
Published by: Springer on behalf of New York Botanical Garden Press
Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4253396
 
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D

DaveTheNewbie

i would reject that article due to age. 40 years old. Not even a reviewed RCD.

....

now im just stirring shit. :)
 

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