Defoliating Autoflowers too much or not? Advice please

[Grower2020]

Hey MG - don't want to piss on your strawberries, but there is all sorts of shite on YouTube
Forget it and read YOUR plant, it don't look too healthy at the mo, it looks tired
A plant will produce a certain yield, so you can have a few fat buds or a handful of popcorn - take your pick
Yes there are techniques to improve yield but first and foremost you need a healthy plant, never mind chopping it up cos some guy on YouTube says so and says he got 2lb off it
Sure, it'll grow more leaves but it'll be knackered and not properly ready to flower
Seriously, dude, forget YT and concentrate on your plant - look at it!

It's not tired I had the light too close and it suffered mild light burn and wilting as a result . Lights are way higher than recommended and sitting on a ppfd reading of around 650 at the top of the canopy . They have already sprung back. I'll post the pic of the light burn and also a pic I just took only one day after raising the light

 

[Nunyabiz]

If your ph is on point won't the plant get all the nutrients it needs from it's roots and the soil? After all isn't that why leaves die off on the bottom of the plant first with deficiencies ? Because the leaves are the last place that the plant draws energy from when it can't get it through the roots?

More or less yes, as the plant starts to go through senescence it stops sending the exudates to the roots.
It takes a lot more resources for the plant to create exudates especially when in flower and photons are at a premium because they only get 12 hours of light instead of 18-20.
So they start eating already created and stored food thats easily accessible to send right to the bud.
The more leaves the more readily available nutrients are right there ready to go.
Also the more leaves the more leaf surface area there is to collect photons in that 12 hours.
I usually end up with pretty fair yield per plant and the most defoliation I do is on photo-periods when I lightly lollipop them under the SCROG.
I don't even do a thorough lollipop just kinda half-assed, and then I trim a few leaves here and there, enough to have some airflow and thats it.
Unless you're outdoor growing a pineapple tree thats 15 feet tall then you kinda have to snip a few leaves just to keep it from being a total jungle indoor because you got limited space and light penetration.

 

[Roy Growin]

It's not tired I had the light too close and it suffered mild light burn and wilting as a result . Lights are way higher than recommended and sitting on a ppfd reading of around 650 at the top of the canopy . They have already sprung back. I'll post the pic of the light burn and also a pic I just took only one day after raising the light

Cool - they look shedloads better, can't wait to those babies pop

 

[keithlovesrach]

careful with defol in flower. they will not produce more leaves after the switch, what you have going in is all you are gonna get to make it home.

Autos, in fact, can create leaves after flipping into flower. I have consistent results while defoliating in flowering (week 1-4 of flower) to expose bud sites and the next week they come back even bushier. The myth you can’t prune, top, fim, or even super crop an auto, is just that…a myth. There are some strains that don’t prefer it as much as others, but I have over 20 examples of it actually increasing yield and the health of the plant. I’ve had a few strains that didn’t like it all though, but more that did. I even super crop them in veg before flipping and they stretch back stronger than ever. Get creative, experiment and I bet you’ll find the logic we use for them, is not the actual science of it. Happy growing!

 

[keithlovesrach]

Shots of week 1,2,3,4 of flowering or so. You can clearly see the leaves grow back and get bushier.

 

[bluter]

Autos, in fact, can create leaves after flipping into flower. I have consistent results while defoliating in flowering (week 1-4 of flower) to expose bud sites and the next week they come back even bushier. The myth you can’t prune, top, fim, or even super crop an auto, is just that…a myth. There are some strains that don’t prefer it as much as others, but I have over 20 examples of it actually increasing yield and the health of the plant. I’ve had a few strains that didn’t like it all though, but more that did. I even super crop them in veg before flipping and they stretch back stronger than ever. Get creative, experiment and I bet you’ll find the logic we use for them, is not the actual science of it. Happy growing!

depends how deep they've turned. running less light will definitely lengthen the amount of time you can defol in to flower.

if you have enough rig, they produce bud and not leaves after finishing stretch, about 2 wks in after pistils. that's the point i do final defol. i run 600w led in a bit under 4 x 4 with a flower bias kelvin.

i do sativas a lot so i can get stretch late in to flower, but the leaf development is not an extended fan at that point. it gets buried close in to the bud, even if not a sugar leaf. not something i would defol. i also lollipop, taking the bottom third out.

running a simple cage grow this way now

 

[Bill284]

Autos, in fact, can create leaves after flipping into flower. I have consistent results while defoliating in flowering (week 1-4 of flower) to expose bud sites and the next week they come back even bushier. The myth you can’t prune, top, fim, or even super crop an auto, is just that…a myth. There are some strains that don’t prefer it as much as others, but I have over 20 examples of it actually increasing yield and the health of the plant. I’ve had a few strains that didn’t like it all though, but more that did. I even super crop them in veg before flipping and they stretch back stronger than ever. Get creative, experiment and I bet you’ll find the logic we use for them, is not the actual science of it. Happy growing!

Good morning @keithlovesrach hope you are well my friend.
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I'm not big on removing leaves, auto or photo.
Like you say they grow back.
I like my girls to grow buds not leaves.
I let them be and they produce nice buds for me.
Happy growing.

Stay safe
Bill

BTW that's an old post , top left corner has the date.

 

[Valentino92zg]

By my understanding and a lot of looking up is that when it comes to auto flowers they can't take high or low stress training very well for they fact from seed to harvest it usually only takes 2-3 months. So, unlike photos which can take about 4 months plus to harvest they don't have time to heal and replace leaves that are removed. Not only are you messing with the leaves but your messing with your yield as well. Auto flowerings are set to produce so much bud per plant already. I wouldn't remove no more leaves okay. I'm growing some Photo seeds right now you can check my grow journal out to see how an auto and photo grows differently

I think it depends on orher factors and if the plant is healthy. Im removing leafs where they shade out bud sites,and about 70 percent of bottom leafs that are in the shade. This is the resault with auto gorilla cookies from fast buds. Its 34 days from planting the seed directly to coco in final pot. The plant wasnt topped,only some LST when in early veg.