DP on Defoliation

donpaul.p;1830496 said:

hi all, everythings going ok, the last few plants are not far from harvest, ill take some pics when iget my cam charged up,

@sativa, defol method will slow growth, but its a method i use, i remove any fan leaves that are blocking light, if the growth below is not getting any light then its not going to grow, so i then remove the leaves blocking the light, i only do this if i cant move the leaves out the way, defol does slow growth but it soon bounces back, say you take the top set of big fan leaves off, then this will slow the main stem down for the next few days until the new set of fan leaves has got bigger, but the growth lower down the plant will carry on as normal or increase if its totally getting blocked from the light,

so i do defol but not a heavy defol, if i think lower branches are not getting any light which usually means the lower branches are going to stretch and have big node spacing, just the same as a plant growing in the shade, it will stretch to get back into the light, the lower branches do the same thing, its why the lower branches produces popcorn buds as their just not getting light and node spacing is to big to produce big buds,

so if the light is been blocked and the growth lower down is been affected by the bigger leaves then you can remove them, outdoors you dont have this problem as the sun is putting out around 1000watt for sq ft, or so im told, so growth is much quicker and the leaves dont end up blocking the lower branches or growth areas, so if any of my plants are blocking the growth lower down then i cut the leaves off as light penetration is a lot less indoors compared with the sun, so any big leaves i remove but they soon grow new leaves to replace the ones lost, so worse case you lose a few days of upwards growth on the main stem,

ive got plants in veg at the minute then i dont want to get to big due to the space their in, so ive been remove the end set of fan leaves on each branch and the main stem, each time a new set grows i clip them off, this has kept node spacing down to about 1cm between each node, its encouranged growth at the nodes to grow so the defol im using is pretty heavy but only because i dont have the space to let them get to big, so i remove the fan leaves everytime it grows a new set at the end of each branch, its left me with some very small node spacing, so it should be a nice plant when i transplant to a bigger pot and put it under the hps,

but at the end of the day its your grow and do what you think is right, each grower has different ideas and does different things, some plants i do nothing to and others i use lst and others i do a small defol to let light in.

@spimp, is it only the roots that was affected, do you think it was over watered, or maybe it could be down to the roots not having enough space to grow, chances are you will have root problems if their is to much root mass in a small space, but as long as their is no signs of pm on the leaves or buds at harvest then i wouldnt worry to much, their wont be any problems with the bud, could just be the roots got to big for the pot and started to die, or maybe in the soil you had bits of wood that was rotting, ive had some compost in the past with small bits of wood or bark type stuff in it, then in the grow if any is on the surface it can get some mold growing on it so i always take them off the surface now, ive also seen mold on sticks that ive used to support plants but the plants themselves had no problem

you also can have beneficial fungus, really healthy soil can have a white mold growing on the surface, i had this problem a while back as air flower as not as good at soil level in this big pot i was using, so i mentioned i had this mold and i scraped the top layer off soil off and threw it out, then i found out it was nothing to worry about as healthy soil will have this type of mold gowing on the surface from time to time, it smelled similar to what your describing, but the buds and plants where totally fine, my problem was not enough air flow at soil level, i was using a big rectangle type tote and the soil level was a good few inches below the top of the tub so the air was not moving at soil level so it started to grow this white mold, i since moved a fan and not had the problem since.

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