Why are people against pruning?

[pip313]

I used to trim leaves but don't, because I used to veg but now I don't. My grow method is DWC 12 5 gallon buckets all connected 3x4 under a 1000w hps (I have a few setups all the same) growing in the 6in net pot lids flowering from clone each clone is between 6-8 inches and the plants (clones of a mostly indica and a 50/50 hybrid) all finish around 2 feet tall and fully fill their space.

So, about yeild I was getting 0.6 gpw but I am now just starting to use pk booster and other addatives and I was harvesting large kinda fluffy buds (I know its the strains and my weak nutrients).

 

[dank.frank]

I agree that a plant NEEDS its leaves to encourage nutrient uptake throughout the plant. Need the leaves for photosynthesis to take place. This being said, a bud In shade will grow faster upwards forwards the light source. I remove COMPLETELY the bottom 12-15"...this is not to increase budding or focus the plants energy...that is silly. The minute you think you CONTROL the plant, you are heading down the wrong track. I do this removal simply to increase air flow under the canopy...and help prevent excess moisture around the base and soil surface...and increased air flow can keep contribute to a healthier environment, which will increase yields.

Otherwise, I try to just let them grow. Mother nature thins the leaves as necessary...I only pluck after the initial shapping; leaves that are more than about 80%+ dead/depleted. If you pluck the fans, you'll miss key indicators of deffiency or imbalance. It's like reading the plants palm. Keep it to a minimum in my personal opinion...


dank.Frank

 

[mad librettist]

good advice there....

 

[grassott]

Its great that we can share our defol techniques/views here in peace. My experiment so far has shown me that one early aggressive defol is very beneficial and suits my particular grow style to a tee.

Experiment pics will be up shortly I promise. Stay tuned peeps

 

[sso]

was thinking about defoliating the other day and this comes to mind.

ok, remove this leaf and 10 lower leaves get exposure to light.

remove it in veg and all those 10 lower leaves get bigger.
remove it late in flowering and you just lost a huge leaf in favor of 10 tiny leaves.


here´s the thing, if a top (future bud) is small when it begins flowering, its never going to amount to much, even if it gets top light. (might grow into a gram yeah, but the bud above it might have grown into 5-10g)

so, removing leaves from a big top, budsite, in favor of small crap below, is going to cut into your yields.

but lets say, removing that top leaf, will open up the entire inside of the plant to more light? open light to similar size leaves and tops, then yeah, id say you just increased your yield.

 

[olddirtybastard]

i grow vertical because i dont like to waste light, to me it seems like a waste if most of my light is being sucked up by gigantic fan leaves leaving all backrow buds to turn to popcorn. i run my room crowded and spend endless hours cutting, defoliating, and tying.

most times i end the grow wishing i had cut more than i did

yield? better? yeah a little bit, more importantly i dont have much popcorn

 

[grassott]

Well, I got busted recently so that means that I am no longer conducting my experiment. However, I highly recommend an aggressive defol during the early stages of veg, shortly after the roots are established and there are enough fans to chop off...

Two weeks after defoli. Now the fucking cops got all my plants, tents, lights, everything
However, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. I have a guerilla set up at a mates place which are getting defolied.

Peace

 

[NeWcS]

That sux! Sorry man

 

[HobbyGrower]

that's my biggest fear. damn dude, sorry.

 

[grassott]

Awww stop it guys ur making me cry here lol. My geurilla shit's gonna be on the way soon so don't worry. I'll be back like the terminator

 

[Tuhder]

No good grassott.

 

[Red Fang]

I only got partly through page 3, but the pictures of the defoliated plants I saw after some time had passed looked weaker and stunted and deformed. I seriously doubt that would yield better results than leaving them alone. Plants have leaves for a reason, to make food. Depriving them of that and expecting better results seems the height of idiocy in my opinion. Still, it may work for some, maybe removing a few top leaves would help if growing an indica strain with huge fan leaves. Removing lower branches seems like a good idea. Even if all this defoliating does help lower buds get more light, the light is far less intense the further you get from it, so it would seem to make more sense to not stress the plant and just remove lower branches and leave the leaf.

 

[Red Fang]

sorry to hear that man, I was looking forward to seeing the end results of your experiment whether I agreed with it or not. I hope it works out ok and that all is better soon.

 

[grassott]

Tuhder? Red Fang? Here's how I see it...
If you grow with very short vegging time (eg. SOG), then don't defol. My veg time (from the day I take a cutting to the day they go 12/12) is about 10 weeks, same as my flower time with the strains I grow. This gives a defol'd crop plenty of time to recover.

Yes Red Fang, defol slows down vert growth which is great for my grow style. However, it encourages lower branches to bush out. Have you seen my pic above, just 2 weeks after an aggressive defol? Do they look deformed to you? Of course when you strip the plant's leaves off they're gonna look shitty (for a short while).

Plants need stress. When they recover from the stress we indoor growers give them, (LST, bending, supercropping, cloning, pruning, fan blowing on the plants etc) they come back stronger if given appropriate time to recover. I have experienced this.

You'll see my next geurilla crop. The results will be there for all to see. This time I'm gonna do the crop and display the pics, results etc after the harvest.

 

[mad librettist]

Tuhder? Red Fang? Here's how I see it...
If you grow with very short vegging time (eg. SOG), then don't defol. My veg time (from the day I take a cutting to the day they go 12/12) is about 10 weeks, same as my flower time with the strains I grow. This gives a defol'd crop plenty of time to recover.

Yes Red Fang, defol slows down vert growth which is great for my grow style. However, it encourages lower branches to bush out. Have you seen my pic above, just 2 weeks after an aggressive defol? Do they look deformed to you? Of course when you strip the plant's leaves off they're gonna look shitty (for a short while).

Plants need stress. When they recover from the stress we indoor growers give them, (LST, bending, supercropping, cloning, pruning, fan blowing on the plants etc) they come back stronger if given appropriate time to recover. I have experienced this.

You'll see my next geurilla crop. The results will be there for all to see. This time I'm gonna do the crop and display the pics, results etc after the harvest.

don't tell me you defoliated your outdoor crop? indoors, you are persuasive enough that I bothered subscribing to the thread. Outdoors, your grow is powered by the sun, and the plant is designed to take full advantage of the way the sun works (travels on an arc, much more intense than hps). Outdoors, defoliation is usually the result of drought or herbivory in my experience. Plants that come back from being defoliated by animals do not outproduce plants that got left alone.

????

I'm with you on a bit of stress making for better products, however you take this to ridiculous lengths. A bit of stress can be achieved in so many ways. And considering how you feel about the pictures you have already shown, I am not likely to believe anything but more pictures. Quite simply, I don't see at all how you can say your plants look more healthy. The pictures don't show plants living to their full potential.

I veg as long as you, maybe longer. I bend and crush stems, and usually accidentally top some plants. I remove a great deal of material too, only I let the plant show me which leaves are not producing (they yellow and die).

Did you have yield issues that led to defoliating? Help me out with your logic. Stress = good and defoliation = stress, therefore defoliation is good? Perhaps if we defoliate, crush, top, bend, dry out, and burn our plants, we will break the 2 gpw mark?

 

[grassott]

^ oh look, it's my "friend" again lmao.

Who said anything about outdoors? I don't grow outdoors. My guerilla crop is indoors (in a mate's barn out in the sticks). I'd never defol an outdoor crop and I'd never grow outdoors.

I had to abandon my last crop for reasons already explained, but they would've been a real nice crop. My guerilla crop's gonna be killer and in a few month's time, you'll see what a defol'd crop yields. Friend lol.

Peace out.

PS. Because of people like our "friend" here, I am not going to give results until harvest. I can't be ass'd with argumentative people.

 

[mad librettist]

Not going to give results until harvest?

You've already made assertions friend. A little late to pull back now.

 

[VerdantGreen]

grassot - sorry to hear about your bad luck, but im a bit confused, you seem to have concluded that defol is the right thing for you - yet you said that the vegging plants you posted pics of were the first time you tried it, then you got busted..

so how have you decided that defol works so well??

 

[wisco61]

grassot - sorry to hear about your bad luck, but im a bit confused, you seem to have concluded that defol is the right thing for you - yet you said that the vegging plants you posted pics of were the first time you tried it, then you got busted..

so how have you decided that defol works so well??

A1 stoner logic.

 

[mad librettist]

Not going to give results until harvest?

You've already made assertions friend. A little late to pull back now.


You are not doing a guerilla grow in my book. You are growing indoors in a remote location. Guerilla means guerilla.