Defoliation: Hi-Yield Technique?

[Blunt_69]

I don't get it...

each to there own though!!!!!. maybe i will try it as well.. a side by side.. I haven't seen a decent comparison done into the matter.

I have always been one to prune lower branches, and manipulate growth nodes.. Never been one to remove fan leaves..ever.

For me exposing budsites is all about opening the plant up so light can penetrate lower down the branches..that involves removing branches and leaves, but i don't specifically target leaves.

 

[JWP]

Nice results, keep it up

 

[Grat3fulh3ad]

BEFORE
AFTER 2-3 WEEKS

So three weeks after defoliating, they're almost as big as three weeks ago, but with more budsites? The new growth looks healthy. How many budsites did you gain?


I have to wonder how big they would normally be after the same three weeks, or if you had FIM'd instead of defoliating.
Still a useful technique for garden management... an almost stasis like suspending of growth for a couple of weeks.

 

[mikeross]

So three weeks after defoliating, they're almost as big as three weeks ago, but with more budsites? The new growth looks healthy. How many budsites did you gain?


I have to wonder how big they would normally be after the same three weeks, or if you had FIM'd instead of defoliating.
Still a useful technique for garden management... an almost stasis like suspending of growth for a couple of weeks.

Its pretty obvious that is not the way to deleaf a plant properly. With all the other photos and comparos in this thread thats the one you decide to make a point with?

 

[Grat3fulh3ad]

Its pretty obvious that is not the way to deleaf a plant properly. With all the other photos and comparos in this thread thats the one you decide to make a point with?

I don't believe I was trying to "make a point".

Seems more like I was asking someone about their post, and commenting to them about their post.

Why not simply allow me to converse with them, without pretending I'm doing something I'm not?



However... if you wanna get technical, these are the only actual pictures of defoliated plants in the thread... 99% of the pics here are plants that have only had a portion of their leaves pruned, and were not defoliated.

 

[EliTheBarrowBoy]

I used this technique for many years outdoors. The outdoor plants are tough and grow back fast.

I bet that people having problems with this are people indoors without enough rapid growth to make it worth the while.

 

[mikeross]

I don't believe I was trying to "make a point".

Seems more like I was asking someone about their post, and commenting to them about their post.

Why not simply allow me to converse with them, without pretending I'm doing something I'm not?



However... if you wanna get technical, these are the only actual pictures of defoliated plants in the thread... 99% of the pics here are plants that have only had a portion of their leaves pruned, and were not defoliated.

Yeah sorry bro, I have been reading this thread the last couple days and kinda getting sick of people coming in this thread and ruining the discussion. Seems like I just did it myself lol. I am not implying thats what you are trying to do. Just saw you make suggestions on other techniques while quote those pics and i jumped the gun before really pondering what you were trying to say... again sorry a misunderstanding on my part entirely.

anyways, I do agree with you 100% on the last comment. I only remove the very largest or older leaves, any leaf that is blocking a bud site or leaves that are grouped so tight together that it could cause PM or mold issues down the road. I strongly feel its a must with big trees... especially with the purple kush I am growing. I cant say the same about small plants because I have never experimented doing it with smaller plants. I do my clean ups at day 21 and follow up at day 45. Its my first time growing trees/leaf plucking and I do feel that they need to be opened up. I did leave 2 big girl untouched to compare.

I do notice that most of the pics here are not completely defoliated but more of a calculated leaf clean up. I jumped the gun when I saw you quote those pics because IMO thats probably the worse way you could go about cleaning up a plant. I also dont think a plant that size needs a clean up unless you are trying to keep her really small.

 

[dgkish]

i dont really defol but i remove fans so that when i look down on my canopy all i see is tops. once i left all the fans on with a strain that grew like a christmas tree. the tops which only made up about 15% of the bud looked great but shaded the other 85% that turned out mediocre and fluff(still frosty just airy). now i train more and do a lil defol and now about 40% are more solid tops increasing my GPW. defoliation works for me when i have a crowded jungle of fan leaves as i usually do. i only do it because i HAVE to. my next ebb n flo grow i hope to have more plant #s, less veg time, and some single colas that dont crowd my canopy.

 

[mikeross]

Stripping leaves off plants causes different things at different times in the plants life.......already posted my experience......knowing when to use it to your benefit means everything if you intend to try it.....

Plants get too big and strippin em shuts em down.........guaranteed...DHF..........

 

[dgkish]

i like what mike ross said. "calculated leaf cleanup"

 

[Grat3fulh3ad]

i like what mike ross said. "calculated leaf cleanup"

Me too.

It implies that there is a cost/benefit analysis of each leaf, which is then acted upon accordingly of a leaf by leaf basis.

 

[DHF]

Now see........Those pics by !!! are indeed the way I stripped my Chem D`s @ day 21 during the stretch only leaving budsites , and it completely shut em down for at least a week........

Did it again @ day 45 and they shut down AGAIN...no trich production OR swellage and OMG did that piss me off.........took 12 weeks for a normally 10 week variety........

From what I`ve seen from the above pics completely "de-foliated' and taking 3 weeks to get backta pretty much the same size they were , cements my decision further that there`s a stunting of growth and recovery period "regardless" of the plant`s age , although I think smaller plants handle it better during the stretch and recover faster than more mature mid-sized plants like mine were...........

Respect Mike Ross for differentiating the terms of " calculated leaf cleanup" , rather than "completely" strippin them bitches nekkid like I did as in true defoliation....

I`d imagine that recovery would be faster with the selective and calculated taking of "some or most" of the fans and not all so as not ta shock the shit out of em.....

Evidently , this shit works well in low wattage small grows and actually increases yields , since de-leafing the smaller plants would most certainly expose lower parts of the plants to more concentrated lumens that normally would`ve been hacked out for upper growth and swellage.....

Peace....DHF..........

 

[mikeross]

Did it again @ day 45 and they shut down AGAIN...no trich production OR swellage and OMG did that piss me off.........took 12 weeks for a normally 10 week variety........

Peace....DHF..........

Whats your opinion on a day 45 follow up clean up? Do you think think I am robbing a lot of of the swellage or tric production stunting them going into the last two weeks of production.

that sounds so bad as I type that... Stunt the plants right before they enter the 2 weeks they swell and pack on the weight the most. Are we giving up weight to obtain a better consistency in regards to outer and inner buds with trees or tops and bottom buds in a flat garden?

My plants were swelling great up until day 42-45 when I did a progressive leaf pluck, progressive in the sense that I was too lazy and tired to do it all in one day lol. I noticed that they did kinda stop getting bigger after I did that for a few days. I also had a very slight lockout around the time I presume. My 250gallon system was going up about 50ppm in 24hours and my PH was slightly dropping. Not saying the leaf pluck had anything to do with it but it could have caused the lack of swell those couple days after a pluck... I do feel it had more to do with the pluck then the actual slight lockout because I did notice them start swelling back up before I fixed the lockout issues.

 

[DHF]

Guaranteed......You shocked em , they shut down , and stopped eatin their nutes , or the opposite would`ve occurred Bro......

Plants eat ....... ppm`s go down , ph goes up .....period....Not backwards as you experienced.......so....though seemingly unimportant in your dialed setup and only experiencing minor fluctuations ,
you`re showing again that the shock/recovery process from strippin em shuts the plants down and they stop eatin till they recover........

How fast they recover is directly related to how much you rape and pillage em , as well as what type of hydro system you`re running to help em recover faster , or suffer more if in dirt for the turnaround........

Good stuff in here....Now we`re gettin down to tha nitty gritty.......

Peace....DHF..............

 

[!!!]

So three weeks after defoliating, they're almost as big as three weeks ago, but with more budsites? The new growth looks healthy. How many budsites did you gain?

There's at least 50% more bud sites on 2 of the plants. These plants are normally very lanky. The one that did not gain many bud sites is the middle one that I kept a few leaves on. The plant concentrated on growing the surviving leaves and the other branches were ignored.

The plants were stunted for a little over a week. Then little meristems appeared throughout the plant and by the last week they were growing rapidly.

I wouldn't defoliate this much unless I plan on vegging a month longer. I do defoliate partially.

 

[SCROG McDuck]

I used this technique for many years outdoors. The outdoor plants are tough and grow back fast.

I bet that people having problems with this are people indoors without enough rapid growth to make it worth the while.

Eli...Is your insinuation: some indoor growers, do not obtain 'rapid growth': because they might lack a really good environment?
or what?

I am DFing.. and the girls have never 'looked' more productive.

I've heard the phrase 'explosive growth' before...
I've had good sucess in the past but..
I dono about ever having 'explosive gropwth'
What is your impression of it?

 

[staff11]

I also dont think this is a bonsai technique, i am a bonsai enthus as well and i have tons of them from 3 - 30 years old.

like HEAD said
bonsai |bänˈsī; ˈbänsī|
noun ( pl. same) (also bonsai tree)
an ornamental tree or shrub grown in a pot and artificially prevented from reaching its normal size.


- i am growing plants but i am not preventing them from reaching their normal size. I am simply exposing the area that could produce buds instead of leaf. i do promote them to get bigger as well and not limited their height. to me this is defoliation, not bonsai, if you are interested in bonsai tech i can show you how it done and how it works with my bonsai garden

cheers,
red.

If you do this in veg it is exactly what is happening. I have some pictures and what it does in veg is completely slow down vertical growth. Not so sure light reaching the areas on the plant that were shaded exactly helps the new bud sites grow as more of a hormonal switch that seems to tell the plant to shoot more branches.

I definitely noticed increased branching and shorter internodes at the expense of vertical growth.

This is a complete bonsai technique in veg if not by exact definition, it keeps plant size down.

It definitely also adds weeks of veg time on to your grow. I can see this working for smaller hid lights and closet grows.

Just don't see it being very practical with huge lights and rooms as others have pointed out.

 

[RockyMountainHi]

From my experience,,,, not all plants act and react the same. And the enviroment can alter a plants growth pattern.


Some may benifit, and some may go into shock and take time to recover. (leme re-phrase that, most go into shock, some longer than others, a few, - get pissed and grow faster)


Anybody that says their methods are better than everybody elses,,, welll - for them maybe.

Believe nothing of what you hear, and about as much of what you see.

sproutco used to advise using stump remover for nute regiment.

and come to find out,, sproutco didn't grow, -

At least we have growers in this thread.

 

[bs0]

Me too.

It implies that there is a cost/benefit analysis of each leaf, which is then acted upon accordingly of a leaf by leaf basis.

That is exactly what I keep saying.

If you wontonly strip every leaf from a plant you are guaranteed to stunt it. I've been able to remove as much as 70 percent of the leaves in some cases to no ill effect. But it is also plant and environmentally dependant. Stripping a leaf which shades nothing but the ground really has no benefit (IME).

 

[Young Pumpkin]

What the heck, it works for me. Took a wee bit of refinement and I still may have some room top tweak this method. For the moment (3rd crop) I only defoliate up to/into 2 weeks of flower. Amazing growth in veg, plenty of shoots popping up. Can't see myself not doing this. Hats off to the OP for sharing..................best thing to happen since I went hydro............