Defoliation during flowering for greater yields!

It looks like I'll have to do another reap of fan leaves in 5 days. Which will be day 30 of flower on these two girls.

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I don't trim unless dead or dying, think of fan leaves as solar panels, if your so concerned about popcorn leave those to mature when harvesting.
 
I didn't defoliate much before reading AK GreenLover's post here on this thread I followed his system and the post from BlazinThat about 420's look into defoliation again posted on this thread I used a combination of both check out my video - it worked for me i can't believe the the people that without trying chunk this method in the trash. The bottom line here is if you do it right defoliation can bring big rewards to your final harvest but like anything else you have to know what your doing and at least try it before you condemn it.
 
Man, that music on that video is killer. :(

Not, really. But, I agree with your methods.

I did a big defoil 21 days into flower, three days ago, and my SCROG is loving it
 
So for once I didn't defoliate on or around day 30 due to life and my busy schedule. Instead I'm going to hold out for day 44ish to do one final cull. I've done my best to tuck any fans that covered flowers. I'm kind of skeptical about changing it up this time but it is what it is. I just hope my over all quality and yield aren't effected.
 
Hi: I'm so glad you are running this journal I thought I was using your method but actually seeing what your doing let's me know that I was not getting it all right. Your method is quite unique & just using some of it I've gotten great results on my last 2 grows and I plan to merge into your system a little slower than I originally planned. I grow 3 sour diesel & one cannatonic per grow the cannatonic is a very difficult plant to grow "very viney" & node distance of 6" to sometimes 8" apart which translates to lower bud production and it's stretch is unbelievable it will flat take over your lights if not careful so this is the plant I'm going to try 1st on your method. I'm in day 20 of bloom & I am going to attempt to defoliate & weave into the scrog as you have done the cannatonic to at least get an idea of how to do it. I can't wait to see the bud production now that you've defoliated & weaved I know I won't do as well I use 2 HPS 600w lights & on the 17th I lost one of my ballast so I had to use a 400w blue hortalux as a replacement until I get the new ballast things will be running a little slower & the cannatonic is affected by this but still I can get started on it & see what happens.
 
leaves are solar panels, no? so, how do you get so much more yield, by removing leaves? i mean, i remove ragged leaves, yellowed. spent. on the other hand, i have been wondering why i never get any yeild. regardless of watts, pots size, or nutes.
 
cannilingus said:
leaves are solar panels, no? so, how do you get so much more yield, by removing leaves? i mean, i remove ragged leaves, yellowed. spent. on the other hand, i have been wondering why i never get any yeild. regardless of watts, pots size, or nutes.
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Yes but in nature the weaker ones drop cause of excessive conditions ie: wind, heavy rain, heat etc etc

When we build these optimal conditions they tend to well over thrive. You need to open up the plant to light to yield.

Big pot=more pot
High wattage= more pot
More wattage penetrating= more pot


More lights= more pot.


I heavily defoiliate around 2 weeks before they go into bloom. Then again around week 4 of bloom.
 
Cannilingus check out my journal. The explanation is there. To sum up though by stripping all fans you hyper stimulate your sugar leaves to grow larger quicker as a response to the reap. They do this in order to stimulate growth in order to produce new nodes that can grow a fan. Timing is everything though if you plan to defoliate. Do it right and you will be rewarded. Do it wrong and you will stunt your plant and loose yield.
 
Thanks Dutty. The ones I want to try defol on are past 3 weeks flowering- and I think they're still stretching. If they seem to be past the stretch by this weekend, which will be about 30 days in, I'm going to give it a shot.
 
You can do a defoliation 2 weeks before flower, let them build flower nodes until day 21-24 flower (after stretch) and then again day 45-47. (8 week strain) Sativa's don't like being defoliated, so don't even try or think about it, hybrids usually do well, start slow and the strain will let you know if they like.

I have noticed that over the years if you defoliate, you get rock hard nugs down the stem, no defoliation I tend to get more fluffy/airy buds (larf). So, this is my opinion...the flowers love light, makes sense.
 
To be honest I spent years convinced that it made absolutely no fucking sense at all to go stripping all those leaves off. But after seeing the results Dutty and the others are getting - well- those results make sense. The reality is I don't have a clue what's going on - in my mind I could convince myself either way re. the leaves being there as solar panels/the leaves getting in the way. I'm not a botanist and I don't know really what's at work here. I don't know where the plant gets the 'extra' energy from, to make better flowers after its foliage has been decimated like that. But if it works it works. Seeing is believing, so I'm going to do a side by side as best as I can and see what happens. I'm still a little unclear on exactly what leaves to strip but it looks like any individual fan leaves, and basically all the large fans.
 
Alright. Here goes nothing. I have two " Jack Herer" so called- the Greenhouse Seeds co version. I haven't harvested any of this strain yet so probably shouldn't be too cynical about it yet, but I have my doubts somehow. In any case, I'm not overly attached to it, and I have two exactly the same so I'm going to do this drastic defol on one and leave the other.
Here's the before pic. It's at exactly 25 days of flowering and I figure it's mostly done stretching. The scrog screen it's in is 19" by 24

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Like I said I have one other one. I could upload the pic but really, it looks exactly like this one, just trust me.





Here it is after the hack.
It ain't pretty. Don't laugh...


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I'll update in a week or so if it lives lol.
 
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