Defoliation Experiment on NYCD

[DrFever]

lol its just funny.. because these side by sides.. should be done by a GOOD GROWER.. the defol vs non defol aint fair in the situation.. seeing as how.. defol was done WRONG.. and ontop of that.. the plants show many signs of NUTE ISSUES.. in both.. so I guess u could say.. defol didn't work because everything else wasn't in check first.. and he didn't even leave enough LEAVES u don't strip a plant naked and expect them to thrive lol..

but good try atleast.. but deff not SCIENTIFIC . lol.. he didn't even have a control group.. u had un vs defol.. u should have a group of Stripped, Defol. and non,. because what u just showed was a complete STRIP.. which u prolly did at 1 time.. which shocked ur plants lol.. causing a shitty yield.. u cant say this doesn't work.. like I said VERT GROWERS FORUM shows it works.. u gotta look at great growers to fine out what works.. not some noob that barely can grow to begin with..

not trying to start shit.. but still u gotta realize.. wen u do side by sides.. ur supposed to have everything else in check .. so that u can see if it was defol .. or not.. but honestly.. even the placement in the rooms.. and how far from lights .. how much nutes. soil.. if they were all rooted and at the exact same place in growth before flowering.. lots more then just stripping them.. or not..

???? Should be done by a good grower ??? Some one like you right ??? 660 + post and not one journal and only picture i find is a clone from a friend wonder did you grow that ??? cause if you did then you must not be a good grower any good grower would of noticed phos def hahaha
But anyways you must be a true leaf remover lol , hemp did alright and if you would of read some of his posts rather then skip thru like a moron you would of seen posts where it looked like defoil was winning but again no matter what Yield is yield an non defoiled won must be a reason yea think he was not bias and what is really funny many of the good growers on this site or any don't bother with shit like this you worried about middle or bottom end bud growth Get more power going period like it really was going to amount to anything anyways when light is 4 - 5 feet away from your middle of the plant hahaha this is halarious really i have grown for quite some time and every harvest in sog grows always lower buds were underdeveloped so really what should a person do ??? dont bother growing them period cut the shit out and watch the top buds explode
In other words PRUNING ...... removal of leafs all your doing is taking away the natural plant stored Carbs and energy away hahaha this sounds perfect huh ???? You ever wonder who does this type of thing i figured it out Closet growers , tent growers worried about every little larf bud hahaha on there plant cause i know the big boys on the block don't even think of this stupidity

 

[DrFever]

yup only way to grow is leaving leafs on lol

 

[Ganjalingus]

Thank you for this experiment hempfield! This confirmed what I thought: no defoliation in soil.

I still think though that hydro plants probably would benefit from defoliation since the nutrient intake is so much faster compared to soil. Well, atleast benefit more than soil plants.

 

[Gardening Angel]

Hey,

Thanks
For this interesting thread

GA

 

[Payaso]

Hey Mr. Joint Operation... it's time to listen to Buddha... let that shit go man!

Get with the plan... anyone who wants to do that can, you can choose NOT to and avoid the scene entirely... which would make everyone quite happy and a party would start and the joints would get sparked! But with this constant downer shit it prevents party formations.

Let it be, let it be... to quote someone else

 

[theother]

But with this constant downer shit it prevents party formations)

Hahaha

 

[stihgnobevoli]

your defoilsperiment was certainly better received than mine lol. Good job documenting the grow how the hell did you get so many pictures in one post? i think defoiling can prolly work on normally leafy strains in a vertical environment. seems like trimming the larf is a waste of time in vert since it just keeps growing back, would seem perfect for defoliation. but in a horizontal setup i don't think it's a benefit and as has been shown is usually a detriment. leaves are for a reason, unless you're blasting the plant with light it's just gonna focus on making as many as it needs to continue.

 

[Growcephus]

First, well done O.P., I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that I appreciate the effort you put into this thread.

/respect


Second...

lol.. ya did a amazing attempt... but not nearly as controlled as needed to be able to say.. THIS DOESNT WORK...... is all im saying.

I don't agree with that. At all.

IMO this grow shows VERY conclusive results, regardless of the limited controls used throughout the grow.

The proof is in the lower bud sites of all the plants.

The defoliation crowd insists that by defoliating their plants, they are allowing light to reach shaded bud sites, which in turn allows for greater bud growth and development. This grow CLEARLY shows that the plants involved did NOT receive ANY benefit from having their lower bud sites exposed through defoliation. EVERY single defoliated plant produced SMALLER buds at the lower levels of the plant than their natural counterparts, which is exactly the OPPOSITE of what defoliation is supposed to produce.

This grow clearly shows that defoliation did NOT help bud development, but instead, it HURT bud development.

 

[devilgoob]

If the whole canopy above was making the below pitch black, the lower is actually not receiving any light, and would be taking energy away from the system as a whole.

This is when you have a canopy. Not budsickles or a SOG.

You're freeing the N and making it think it is growing both leaf and bud. If it were being fed N without being pruned, the extra N would make the plant think it's still in summer pee cycle. This is why root-bound plants force things to flower better, it thinks not to produce leaf at all, and just bud. Simply it's kid. It's living, so it's not going to produce an extravagant amount of leafs and nodes, at a low quality, or use up the nutrients and be left for nothing for flowering. This is when lowering N in relation to P helps flowering also.

I mean things pee, but they don't anymore as much, and the bacteria changes over and produces more phosphates. Basically poop builds in the summer over time, because things crap, and pee. But at first only pee, then for fruit, phosphate.

It's in line with the cycle of when N from pee is available, to when poop starts to break down and is available also.

In other words a plant with high N would usually grow more leaves. THEN blossom.

Using up N, for new growth, can sometimes "key in" the flowering phase easier, especially when they're receiving a canopy overgrowth because of a slightly higher than needed N to begin with.

In pruning, it is not so cut and dry.

 

[HerBnGorE(illa)]

Excellent thread hempfield. Makes me wanna glue the leaves I recently removed back onto my plants....live and learn, I guess. Thanks for taking the time to upload all the pics and keeping us posted. Mostly thanks for keeping your point of view unbiased. Need more of that on icmag.

And to all of those "what ifers" and "shoulda doners" ....feel free to post some side by sides for us to view. I for one am here to learn all I can. Just make sure you keep the unbiased approach.

if I knew how to rep id send you some hempfield....much deserved. Thanks again!

 

[JointOperation]

First, well done O.P., I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that I appreciate the effort you put into this thread.

/respect


Second...



I don't agree with that. At all.

IMO this grow shows VERY conclusive results, regardless of the limited controls used throughout the grow.

The proof is in the lower bud sites of all the plants.

The defoliation crowd insists that by defoliating their plants, they are allowing light to reach shaded bud sites, which in turn allows for greater bud growth and development. This grow CLEARLY shows that the plants involved did NOT receive ANY benefit from having their lower bud sites exposed through defoliation. EVERY single defoliated plant produced SMALLER buds at the lower levels of the plant than their natural counterparts, which is exactly the OPPOSITE of what defoliation is supposed to produce.

This grow clearly shows that defoliation did NOT help bud development, but instead, it HURT bud development.

lol . obviously never seen someone hit high numbers in vert.. there is defol going on in that entire THREAD BRO.. and they hit numbers horizontal growers DREAM OF and or LIE ABOUT HITTING..

and yes it does matter.. a side by side.. should have a control. group.. and should be stress free.. and grown to its full potential to show if this works or not.. and obviously.. like I said before.. its a great try.. but not enough to say.. it doesn't work.. and wen I ment a good grower I ment. someone who can grow a plant from start to finish.. without ANY issues.. so that this could be actual SCIENTIFIC as an EXPERIMENT..

im about to harvest.. and ill show pics of the nugs ive been growing.. and DEFOL.. and ontop of it.. the buds on the lower branches.. are almost the size of the colas.. and if I didn't DEFOL.. those buds.. wouldn't of grown that big.. and would of sucked energy from the plant.. causing the same results u get when u pull off every fan leaf in a day. stress = less yield.. so why is that so hard to believe? lol.. if he would of slowly pulled fans off over a few week period.. he would of yielded the same or more. and ontop of that.. if he would of accounted for the stress of pulling the fans the way he did.. he would of left those plants to flower an extra week or 2 because he stunted the flower period by stressing it out the way he did . so ya.. I can say.. this isn't a TRUE SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENT that can be CALLED A SIDE BY SIDE EXPERIMENT sorry if that hurts your feelings.. or gets you all pissed off..

im not starting shit.. just stating the facts. vert growers aren't leaving there fan leaves to block the other 10 branches on the wall.

 

[Growcephus]

lol . obviously never seen someone hit high numbers in vert..

I have indeed.

However, the issue is whether or not a plant will produce MORE through defoliation, and this dudes' plants CLEARLY showed that:

1. ALL three defoliated plants produced SMALLER lower buds compared to their naturally grown peers.

2. ALL three defoliated plants produced LEAFIER lower buds compared to their naturally grown peers.

3. Defoliation resulted in the EXACT OPPOSITE of what it was supposed to do for ALL THREE plants defoliated.


Now we can argue about the test conditions all day, however, growers are growers, not botanists, and the fact that the results ARE UNIFORM for ALL three test and control plants is good enough for me to consider the results valid.

Our vert brethren surely do grow some fine dank, however, this side by side, and basic botanical knowledge, clearly show that a grower will have LARGER yields if they DON'T defoliate their plants. Period.

May your harvests be plentiful and dank.

 

[mojave green]

ima vert non-defoliator!

 

[DrFever]

lol . obviously never seen someone hit high numbers in vert.. there is defol going on in that entire THREAD BRO.. and they hit numbers horizontal growers DREAM OF and or LIE ABOUT HITTING..

and yes it does matter.. a side by side.. should have a control. group.. and should be stress free.. and grown to its full potential to show if this works or not.. and obviously.. like I said before.. its a great try.. but not enough to say.. it doesn't work.. and wen I ment a good grower I ment. someone who can grow a plant from start to finish.. without ANY issues.. so that this could be actual SCIENTIFIC as an EXPERIMENT..

im about to harvest.. and ill show pics of the nugs ive been growing.. and DEFOL.. and ontop of it.. the buds on the lower branches.. are almost the size of the colas.. and if I didn't DEFOL.. those buds.. wouldn't of grown that big.. and would of sucked energy from the plant.. causing the same results u get when u pull off every fan leaf in a day. stress = less yield.. so why is that so hard to believe? lol.. if he would of slowly pulled fans off over a few week period.. he would of yielded the same or more. and ontop of that.. if he would of accounted for the stress of pulling the fans the way he did.. he would of left those plants to flower an extra week or 2 because he stunted the flower period by stressing it out the way he did . so ya.. I can say.. this isn't a TRUE SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENT that can be CALLED A SIDE BY SIDE EXPERIMENT sorry if that hurts your feelings.. or gets you all pissed off..

im not starting shit.. just stating the facts. vert growers aren't leaving there fan leaves to block the other 10 branches on the wall.

No i have not seen vert hit high numbers this is true just look at most journals on here average yields are around .85 - .87

The ones hitting big numbers are tree growers with multiple hung vertical lights to say horizontal tree growers with multiple lights are not hitting huge numbers you will be mistaken

you can only place so many plants around a light before you get shading sure they mention going vertical you get 135 percent more space ???
Ask your self one question are they getting 135 percent more yield ????

There is lots of mythical stuff going on with the vertical growers saying they out yield horizontal which is truly misleading

It's a myth that there's no larf on a vert grow, or that it's more efficient in that respect than a horizontal.

It varies grower to grower and space to space. But people looking to grow vertical because they think it's the key to bigger yields and less fluffy shit, should think again, because it's definitely not

Vertical growing is projected to out-yield horizontal. The truth is, in most cases, when you factor in space and wattage, it doesn't seem to.

What I'm seeing is that the numbers being compared to are set horribly low on the horizontal, thus making the vert look much better in comparison. For me that's the biggest issue I have with the whole vert hor debate. I think that's what's happening here to a degree, with due respect.


Ask your self one thing has anyone come close to heaths yield vertical ???? if so please post the link ,

If the first post in the vert 101 was true, we wouldn't even be here. 135% more efficiency is a huge figure, but in reality it doesn't translate to yield. That's just a fact based on grow after grow, you'd be foolish to ignore that.

That was posted 4 years ago and since a lot of people have taken to vert largely because of figures like this, it's time to reflect now and see if people are hitting numbers which reflect that number. This vert forum has been open a while now and a lot of people are at it, so let's talk numbers now and see what's what.

Using the numbers you can see for yourself.

A bare basic flat grow under a 600 should yield at least 14-15oz.

135% more than that is about 35oz, which is a massive figure for a 600. That's for a mediocre grow as well.

If you go towards the upper end of what a 600 can achieve, and then you multiply that by 135%, you're talking stupid numbers which I don't think anyone's even got near to achieving.

So, the numbers clearly don't stack up in real world application, and there's a few good reasons for that.

First of all, when you are talking about a horizontal canopy, you are talking about 6-12" buds growing directly up in rows right across the whole area.

That is not the case in a vertical grow, unless you are absolutely nailing it. Which leads to the next point...

For me, nailing a vert is harder than nailing a flat. I'd welcome people to chime in and give their opinion on that, because for me, to put 4-6 plants under a 600 and get close to a gpw with relatively no training or attention throughout the entire grow, is easy in comparison to what it would take for me to get the same amount from a vertical setup.

now to clarify a few things i planted potatoes this year by mid summer the leafs were almost hitting 5 - 6 feet high by the way great summer for potato farmers , Anyways i decided to chop or as you call it defoil cut back 2 - 3 feet of plant
What i observed in the weeks to come was plant started to put on leaf and lots of it long story short my potato harvests was terrible from being nice big red tats i intern got lots of extremely small ones

 

[Miraculous Meds]

Defoliation or taking some leaves off the plant is situational just like all other pruning and training methods. Who here would think they would get a better yield by topping an indica from 12" to 6" then flowering it. nobody. So u don't take leaves off a plant that u want to stretch and fill in an area for flowering. You don't take leaves off a plant that is sick or already stressed. But if u have over vegged either by accident or on purpose, then defoliating is a good tool just like super cropping might be to slow stretch. I use defoliation when I purposefully over veg a plant to fill a screen in vertical scrog. this helps me to fill the screen better, than just using the plants natural stretch which for me would be sideways towards the bulbs.

I have over defoliated and caused puny small buds and low harvests. But when I learned to use it appropriately when I needed it, it swelled up nice buds and gave me personal records for yields. Now I know for myself how and when to use this training tool.

Some tips I could give are don't defol a sick/stressed plant. don't defol a plant u want to stretch to fill in ur canopy. Don't defol any areas that aren't going to open up more light to more bud sites. Never take more than 10% fan leaves from a plant in one day. When the buds start to set take as little leaf as possible.

Do defol when ur over veg'd and u would have to prune branches that would overlap anyway. Take leaves that are overlapping where a moisture pocket might form causing possible pm.

 

[Philosof]

IMHO defoliating plants just before or during their preflower period is a very bad idea. The plant is already stressed by changes hapenning within. And you add even more stress. Althrough it was an interesting experiment I believe results would be absolutely different if defoliation took place at least one week before putting plants under 11/13. And even better is you also top it a few days before that

 

[hempfield]

IMHO defoliating plants just before or during their preflower period is a very bad idea. The plant is already stressed by changes hapenning within. And you add even more stress. Althrough it was an interesting experiment I believe results would be absolutely different if defoliation took place at least one week before putting plants under 11/13. And even better is you also top it a few days before that

The most important conclusion of this experiment was this strain is not suited for defoliation and not even topping, because this plant was a very slow growing one. It was by far the slowest plant I ever grow. The mother from I have took the clones was lower than 25cm after one and a half month of intense vegging, while her neighbors (super skunk, train wrek, blue berry, and a few others) grew almost double in height.

I might repeat the experiment with a very nice growing sativa hybrid which I grown in the past with great results : G13 Haze, a very branching plant, with explosive grow in the first two-three weeks of flowering.

 

[HerBnGorE(illa)]

Hempfield. Please do! Would be subbed for sure!

 

[Oti$]

Thanks for taking the time to do the thread. Nice read

 

[FloridaHomGrown]

this is old but i gotta call you out Doc

this is old but i gotta call you out Doc

???? Should be done by a good grower ??? Some one like you right ??? 660 + post and not one journal and only picture i find is a clone from a friend wonder did you grow that ??? cause if you did then you must not be a good grower any good grower would of noticed phos def hahaha
But anyways you must be a true leaf remover lol , hemp did alright and if you would of read some of his posts rather then skip thru like a moron you would of seen posts where it looked like defoil was winning but again no matter what Yield is yield an non defoiled won must be a reason yea think he was not bias and what is really funny many of the good growers on this site or any don't bother with shit like this you worried about middle or bottom end bud growth Get more power going period like it really was going to amount to anything anyways when light is 4 - 5 feet away from your middle of the plant hahaha this is halarious really i have grown for quite some time and every harvest in sog grows always lower buds were underdeveloped so really what should a person do ??? dont bother growing them period cut the shit out and watch the top buds explode
In other words PRUNING ...... removal of leafs all your doing is taking away the natural plant stored Carbs and energy away hahaha this sounds perfect huh ???? You ever wonder who does this type of thing i figured it out Closet growers , tent growers worried about every little larf bud hahaha on there plant cause i know the big boys on the block don't even think of this stupidity

I know this is old but i cant let this slide.how are you gonna act like this guy cant possibly have any knowledge because he only has 660 post??? Oooh wow your supposed to be smarter because of more posts?just because someone doesn't live on here they are not as good? Straight nerd talk right there.you got people with 2000 post that dont know when a plant is ready to harvest.you got people been growing 30yrs n never touch a computer especially to brag about every (possibly) illegal thing they do.this test had great potential however lets be honest things are far from dialed in with this grow space.case in point 7gram yeilds on some plants?i think it has to do with the home made led light.how does no one mention this??? Obviously its under powered for the # of plants.its nothing to pull 5 zips off 3 small plants under a 250watter. This grower has the balls to try something new.good job keep it up.but i know he will have substantial gains by upgrading his lights.however much respect on making your own in the first place! I know you plans for a better one.and Dr. Stop judging people by the # of posts.this is my 1st post(registered just for this) and yes i do grow and have been for years(and done time for it) Google " myakka gold "