To defoliate or not?

[CannaRed]

I just reread thru this thread, alot of great opinions. I haven't been very active the last couple of years and I notice that Hempy's profile isn't active anymore. We didn't always get along, but I hope Hempy's in good health and doing okay. Does anyone know him in the real world and know if he's still kicking around?
He was so argumentative, but he was a part of ic

 

[PoweredByLove]

pruning is the wrong term . removing a few leaves is minor defoliation .

Pruning is a horticultural, arboricultural, and silvicultural practice involving the selective removal of certain parts of a plant, such as branches, buds, or roots.

Are you saying pruning is not what they mean when they say they're defoliating a plant or are you saying that is what they're doing?

I would agree that it falls under the category of pruning. When you remove parts of a plant for benefit then it's pruning.

As for "defoliation" meaning the thing weed people do where they remove a significant amount of the fan leaves on a plant. I've done a side by side and made my conclusions and over the years tested and retested my hypothesis and I maintain it is situational and strain dependant on whether there will be any benefit. Strains I think would benefit are any plant that mostly grows a thick branchy bush like afghans look. Taking off a lot of those leaves will most likely increase your overall bud formation but most likely will not increase overall yield. You can in addition remove all the growth below the bottom 1/4 to 1/3 and force the plant to use all its energy in the upper canopy.

This will just make less popcorn and more mid to large buds.

On a sativa type Thai Colombia Indian looking bud like the guy a few posts up has. Removing leaves will just harm your plant since they don't grow many branches and leaves to begin with. They need every bit of light they can get to.

But just like the Afghani looking plant if you take away all the stuff at the bottom 1/3 that would have been shaded by the top anyway. You will have less popcorn to deal with and larf and leaf and those little tiny branches that stick way out and have 1 little leaflet on them. All that energy put it up top.

But you can't get a plant to do something it can't do like out yield it's constraints.

View media item 18718459Defoliate

View media item 18718460Defoliate
View media item 18718397Leave em alone
View media item 18718276Definitely clean up all of that at the bottom
View media item 18717345You can mostly leave alone. But get rid of everything at the bottom or put it in a scrog. You wasting your energy on it unless you just scroop it all of when it dry and just hash it out.

If you trim these up to smoke then do yourself a favor and just put it in the trash early on your hands will thank you in about 10 years.

 

[CocoNut 420]

I should be clear that i don't not remove leafs but stripping a significant portion doesn't sit right with me?

I've grown for a few years but I'm 1st to admit I don't know anything about the science stuff I'm open minded on any subject if there's a logical explanation.

I'm flowering this blueberry twist it's leafy and compact, I don't think it needs them all but its usually only the bottom I remove.

what would you do with this?

They're not the best pics but I can snap better ones to show how leafy it is, I'm open to suggestions?

 

[PoweredByLove]

I should be clear that i don't not remove leafs but stripping a significant portion doesn't sit right with me?

I've grown for a few years but I'm 1st to admit I don't know anything about the science stuff I'm open minded on any subject if there's a logical explanation.

I'm flowering this blueberry twist it's leafy and compact, I don't think it needs them all but its usually only the bottom I remove.
View attachment 19035713
View attachment 19035712 what would you do with this?

They're not the best pics but I can snap better ones to show how leafy it is, I'm open to suggestions?

Personally. Since I've never seen these pants growing but they seem pretty leafy. When you flip to flower as in the day of. Remove all the bottom 1/3. After week 6 take off all the large fan leaves on the main stem and the big side branches. Leave all the leaves near the bud site alone.

 

[CocoNut 420]

Personally. Since I've never seen these pants growing but they seem pretty leafy. When you flip to flower as in the day of. Remove all the bottom 1/3. After week 6 take off all the large fan leaves on the main stem and the big side branches. Leave all the leaves near the bud site alone.
View attachment 19036591 View attachment 19036592

Thanks a lot bud i appreciate that, next time I grow it I'll make it a point to remove them on the 1st day, leaving the bigger ones to wk6 doesn't sound painful at all the plants had some of them by then.

Normally i leave the lower 1/3 untill after stretch (i love to hate stretch)
My thinking is the plant might concentrate growth into the remaining shoots, that's just hypothetical of course but it seems logical, what do think?

Cheers bud

 

[PoweredByLove]

Thanks a lot bud i appreciate that, next time I grow it I'll make it a point to remove them on the 1st day, leaving the bigger ones to wk6 doesn't sound painful at all the plants had some of them by then.

Normally i leave the lower 1/3 untill after stretch (i love to hate stretch)
My thinking is the plant might concentrate growth into the remaining shoots, that's just hypothetical of course but it seems logical, what do think?

Cheers bud

Me too. I would transplant into final pot then throw into flower. My thinking was they would grow some during the stretch anyway and the extra space might help. But In practice they don't do much with the roots after flip. Only real added benefit from potting up was I don't have to worry about watering as much cuz they dry slower.

But the bottom always keeps growing all the way through flower even with next to no light. Just a bunch of wasted energy. I find it's easier work later and better results to just strip all that off like the old guys would tell me.

I'm a bit of a scientist so I had to check for myself but yeah. It's really up to you I don't see any actual yield change. I'm sure if I add up all the trim on the leafy plant with the solid buds and compare to the plant I pruned a lot it will be about the same. Just less popcorn vs buds.

I'm lazy so anything smaller than my thumb I don't bother with and it just gets mashed up for joint weed or I make edibles with it.

 

[GET MO]

Wanted to follow up and show the result of taking top leafs for lowers to stretch and even put the canopy. These plants were growing as almost single cola plants with very little branching, by taking off the top leaves you can see the results.

 

[Camillia]

I have only done it during a wet year, I am an outdoor grower, I found that I would get some white powdery spots if they were too dense and not having enough air flow. One positive was that there was less trimming and clean up during harvest season. My girls grow about an inch a day, after defoliation I find they slow an inch or two, but get back on track after a few days.

 

[chiesesganja]

How they absorb the photons withoutout leaves??

 

[chiesesganja]

Zero defoliation!

 

[RequiredUsername]

Hi everyone,

I was wondering what's your opinion, personal experience,.. etc about defoliating? This includes even extreme practices like removing all of the fan leaves?

Do you get more yield, better buds,...?

Thanks.

Plants put energy into creating a leaf which stored energy. When the plant switches to making flowers it draws the energy from the leaf which becomes pale and falls off. Remove leaves only if they are causing a problem.

This should be obvious.

People tearing at their plants like greedy rats is their frustration. Use your head, and dont just immitate.

 

[aCBD]

i think it depends on the style of growing, the grow op size, the variety and the grower.
i didn't defoliate when running hps.
narrow leaf varieties don't really need a defoliate session that much because the air and light has no problem getting through.
these days i only take a few leaves off before switching to flower so the light can penetrate better and defoliate a last time at day 21.
i use it as a preventive measure because i do lst and use led lights and if leaves cover too many budsites, it creates a microclimate that caused me some problems in the past so i take leaves off that cover those.
no agressive defoliation because i also want the plant to perform and not stress it too much and have leaves that indicate if something is not right.
like so many techniques when it comes to growing, defoliation is one of them that deserves to be tested imo and if it works for grower x, it doesn't mean it'll also show better results for grower y.
this is just my personal opinion and whatever works for you, I'm happy you get your results

 

[DARKSIDER]

Topdawg Seeds.. Stardawg Manny Defoliated .Always.

 

[CocoNut 420]

My primary use for defoliation is to slow stretch, I'm robing the plant of the ability to grow is my view.

I defoliated the sativa leaning at the back to slow stretch down and left the indica leaning at the front, when they finished they were all much the same height.

I'd experimented with defoliation previously on a clone of blackberry cake, more than anything the lack of stretch was most notable.

I'd also messed with defoliation in veg there's not a lot of growing goes on without leafs.

I've noticed this a few times...After I let my mums grow on the bottom of the pots spill roots out but as soon as I trim them back the roots die back to the pots, idk but I'd expect the same with heavy defoliation, it wouldn't surprise me to find plant mass and root mass are related.

 

[Orange's Greenhouse]

it wouldn't surprise me to find plant mass and root mass are related.

That is what pretty much every study on every plant species finds. It is basically impossible to change the root to shoot ratio.
Often you hear concepts "grow more roots" because plants with many roots are productive. But no technique is known that grows just roots. It's usually bigger plants that have the same ratio of their biomass in roots.

 

[Spaventa]

I’ve done it when trying new genetics but I don’t keep those bushes.
Anyone who grew Soma NYC knows you don’t need a jungle of leaves to grow buds like clusters of hand grenades at every node.