Ive removed some of my fan leafs as well. I do have a question though. I've seen the pictures posted in this thread where a person has done some defoliant method. What are the leafs called that are right around the actual bud sites? They look like fan leafs some what but their not as big as a normal fan leaf. I'm seeing that people are leaving all those leafs on that are around the bud/flowering sites. So I'm guessing those leafs around the bud sites aren't considered fan leafs as well? Thanks for the help in advance!
Defoliation during flowering for greater yields!
- Thread starter lngtimepro
- Start date
WOW, That's just what I did with my plants back in the 70's and 80's. When I first started on 420, I would read u guys post and ask a lot of questions. Some where I got the ideal not to cut fan leaves off, Think they said that it would slow the growth down, and maybe lower the thc content. Well I could go on and on about this but I won't, Just strange coincidence I thought.
Good Luck guys and gals
Good Luck guys and gals
For the longest time I thought that defoliation was a big mistake only done by delusional people. I partly got that idea because I did a grow once with a guy who was pretty clueless, and besides 'teaching' me a bunch of stuff that was just plain wrong, he was always itching to pull leaves off all the time because they were 'in the way', and I was always trying to stop him.
However-now I don't think much of training/topping/twisting and defoliating the plants however I see fit. It doesn't mean I always know what I'm doing or that the plants always love it, but they often do- and if they don't, they bounce back pretty quickly. If you look at any fruit orchard, or really- any sort of farming operation, commercial or not- you're going to quickly discover all kinds of plant torture techniques. They're just tools in the grower's tool box really.
However-now I don't think much of training/topping/twisting and defoliating the plants however I see fit. It doesn't mean I always know what I'm doing or that the plants always love it, but they often do- and if they don't, they bounce back pretty quickly. If you look at any fruit orchard, or really- any sort of farming operation, commercial or not- you're going to quickly discover all kinds of plant torture techniques. They're just tools in the grower's tool box really.
yooper rex
Well-Known Member
Good explanation, my friend, whether you agree with the practice or not.
UncleCannabis
New Member
While there will always be those for and against defoliation, IMHO any plant that has very dense growth that would limit air circulation would likely benefit from at least a light defoliation/pruning to improve air circulation. This applies to all plants, not just cannabis.
1973loftygrow
New Member
Hi all, I am starting my third grow and have read all 12 pages of this thread.
The techniques here are unreal and I am going to try the screen and topping.
One of my plants is about 3 weeks into veg - To early to top??
Growing in a single IWS Oxy pot supplied with 60ltr air (from stone) and using Samurai nutes and under a 250 MH.
Cheers all
The techniques here are unreal and I am going to try the screen and topping.
One of my plants is about 3 weeks into veg - To early to top??
Growing in a single IWS Oxy pot supplied with 60ltr air (from stone) and using Samurai nutes and under a 250 MH.
Cheers all
Hi all! I'm gonna get caught up with this post. Got a quarter of the way and have to go. It's an exciting time for us today!!!
11/3/2015
Big Big day today! I encourage everyone to get out and vote YES for legalizing medical marijuana!!! It is not what a majority of Ohioans would have liked to have seen put forth, but it's a foot in the door, people. Remember there are thousands of people who will benefit medically with this and the release of hundreds of non-violent pot convictions.
***YES***on issue 3
***NO***on issue 2
Let's get this thing passed, PEOPLE, VOTE!!!!
11/3/2015
Big Big day today! I encourage everyone to get out and vote YES for legalizing medical marijuana!!! It is not what a majority of Ohioans would have liked to have seen put forth, but it's a foot in the door, people. Remember there are thousands of people who will benefit medically with this and the release of hundreds of non-violent pot convictions.
***YES***on issue 3
***NO***on issue 2
Let's get this thing passed, PEOPLE, VOTE!!!!
JimmyIndy
New Member
I defoliate all the way thru flower to open sites up
Sretchin the plant open helps a lot to. DNA white walker
Top/Tying are critical for the high yields and plenty of tops
Top/Tying are critical for the high yields and plenty of tops
I'm a fan of defol as well. Have a look at my journal. I've just defoliated my sour chiesel and put pics up.
Will catch up on this journal now. Should make for some interesting reading.
Will catch up on this journal now. Should make for some interesting reading.
Wow, there are some impressive grows happening in this thread. Inspiring!! I don't defol as heavy as some of you guys though. Then again, I'm still fairly new to defol. Also only have 4 grows under my belt. So still learning plenty.
Just curious if your lovely lady came out of the shower says, gee my hair smells fantasticMax, dont hesitate to literally take the whole clone /plant,,,put it.under the faucet, shower if bigger, upside down..great way to rid a plant from mites, the plannt will suffer no damage and pop right back when dry..people r to fragile with plants..remember, in the wild they r exposed to rain,wind and all other issues mother nature brings..if i ever have a rooted clone with mites, i hold it at the base, tip it upside down, run soft warm water over it, gently brush the leaves as the water falls..u will knock off every mite and egg on the girl.. Last night i put three 4 footers in the shower for a sec when i noticed a few mites.they r 2 weeks into flower..people underestimate how manly u can handle your lovely lady.
first pic is right after the shower, second is 20 minutes later, the love a bath when done correctly
cannilingus
Well-Known Member
i think super cropping, at least what i do, is injure the limbs. the highest ones. gives the lower ones time to catch up. i cut the very centers out of the tops, two, maybe three times. try to injure the tallest ones. and hopefully, when they are mostly even, i PLUNG them into bloom. lol. about a week before i do, tho, i remove near half of the plant, from the bottom up. i have found, nothing much turns out on the bottom, but more crap to trim. some, dont like being messed with at all. but, in the years i have been doing this, i havent sweated it. i keep it simple. i like the look of the wire cage technigue. not sure what that is. sea of green? looks like it would not work for me, for flushing reasons. but, i can see how hydro would be a gas. looks to me, you are doing fine.
four201976
New Member
This is my 2nd grow. 1st with proper genetics $$$. I have 1000w mh/hps Sunleaves hooded system with Hydrofarm 8" exhaust and a homemade carbon filter(works great). Using a soil, perlite, moss mix in equal parts. Three 5 gallon pots and two 14 gallon pots. The space is 5'x5'x5' The strains are Nirvana indoor mix(hope everyone helps in the guessing game to come) and a Dr. Krippling's Grand Heft Auto. The GH is in a 14 gallon and is the only one that has not been touched aside from recent defoliation. The other plants I have done LST, topping and super-cropping and all have been defoliated. Should I take more and will it hurt the auto to defoliate? This is day 68 from seed and day 4 of 12/12 cycle.
lendee
New Member
Heavy defoliation makes sense done right and using a scrog total weight of harvest beats most all systems. But & this is a big BUT you must be dialed in lights, strain, air, humidity, etc etc. Just look at the grow journal of AK Greenlover here at 420 it's loaded with good info for anybody using defoliation. I've tried both ways from total defoliation to now where I try to keep defoliation to a minimum keeping bud sites open & leaving the rest but I use a 4'x4' scrog DWC hydroponics & defoliation schedule, for plant stress considerations, on the 15th,30, & 40th days of bloom otherwise no defoliation in between I defoliated as needed in veg. Hope this helps.
Ripples
Well-Known Member
I am a big fan of Defoliation! Works great with my Chronic Grow (combo of AK47 and NL)... Have 3 new strains going (Cheeze, Super Skunk, LG), will have to try with them as well and see? Great thread!!!! Will post pics when ready...
four201976
New Member
Thanks. I definitely didn't go heavy the first time. Headed into week 3 of flower and they are crazy looking. I am going to clean them up again and hit them even harder underneath. I'll keep everyone posted on the progress the nodes are so close together. I'm stoked!
I never updated the results of that side-by-side defol experiment I did here because too many things went off the rails with that particular flowering cycle, and I figured it wasn't worth posting just to try and explain that. Mostly grower error- some nute burn, some of the good ol' ph issues, and a timer malfunction.
However, due to high demand (ok it wasn't really a demand, but he was high) I'll proceed anyway with the worthless post about the results, and my questionable impressions.
In the end the defoliated plant did produce more, but like I said there were a lot of other issues involved which rendered the whole experiment useless.
I was attempting to follow AK Greeenlover's method of major defoliation and weaving into a scrog. Removing basically all the big fan leaves, which (I think) is meant to cause a major explosion of small buds from every node, leading to a very full and very even screen. So this is quite a different sort of defoliation than just trimming undergrowth or a few fan leaves that are blocking the light.
My defoliation definitely set the plant back. For a two weeks it pretty much stood still, while the non defol plant carried on growing. It's been pointed out that for this method it's important to do defoliation during veg, to get them 'used to it'. I hadn't done that so maybe the plant was more shocked than it would have been otherwise. Also- conditions weren't perfect and there could have been other reasons for slow growth. But in my case, the major defol did set it back a lot and it was three weeks before it was properly moving again.
It crossed my mind that maybe this method is more suitable for led lighting, which I'm told has less penetration. The defoliated plant, with the limbs woven back into the screen- did produce many more buds, but naturally they were much smaller, and trimming all those little buds wasn't fun. I don't find trimming all that much fun anyway, but this was much less fun than usual. Personally I'd rather have a smaller number of large or medium size buds even if yield was reduced a bit. However, I have no idea whether or not the defoliation does increase yields. I wouldn't mind trying it again sometime, if I had the right strain. People say that the Kush strains take to it. I'm sure my sativas wouldn't.
As for other forms of defoliation, I do that regularly. All foliage under the scrog screens is removed after about three weeks flowering, and I take some of the undergrowth out during veg as well. I go through and snip off the small lower bud sites. If I don't do it sooner, I'll be doing it later. Towards the end of flowering I pluck leaves fairly often as they yellow and die. In my experience the plant naturally tells me what direction it's going in. By late flowering it seems to need much less foliage and wants to show off its buds.
It's less common for me to remove healthy green fans up top during early- mid flowering, but as long as there are other leaves to carry the load, I do snip some of them when they're covering up likely buds and don't want to bend out of the way.
However, due to high demand (ok it wasn't really a demand, but he was high) I'll proceed anyway with the worthless post about the results, and my questionable impressions.
In the end the defoliated plant did produce more, but like I said there were a lot of other issues involved which rendered the whole experiment useless.
I was attempting to follow AK Greeenlover's method of major defoliation and weaving into a scrog. Removing basically all the big fan leaves, which (I think) is meant to cause a major explosion of small buds from every node, leading to a very full and very even screen. So this is quite a different sort of defoliation than just trimming undergrowth or a few fan leaves that are blocking the light.
My defoliation definitely set the plant back. For a two weeks it pretty much stood still, while the non defol plant carried on growing. It's been pointed out that for this method it's important to do defoliation during veg, to get them 'used to it'. I hadn't done that so maybe the plant was more shocked than it would have been otherwise. Also- conditions weren't perfect and there could have been other reasons for slow growth. But in my case, the major defol did set it back a lot and it was three weeks before it was properly moving again.
It crossed my mind that maybe this method is more suitable for led lighting, which I'm told has less penetration. The defoliated plant, with the limbs woven back into the screen- did produce many more buds, but naturally they were much smaller, and trimming all those little buds wasn't fun. I don't find trimming all that much fun anyway, but this was much less fun than usual. Personally I'd rather have a smaller number of large or medium size buds even if yield was reduced a bit. However, I have no idea whether or not the defoliation does increase yields. I wouldn't mind trying it again sometime, if I had the right strain. People say that the Kush strains take to it. I'm sure my sativas wouldn't.
As for other forms of defoliation, I do that regularly. All foliage under the scrog screens is removed after about three weeks flowering, and I take some of the undergrowth out during veg as well. I go through and snip off the small lower bud sites. If I don't do it sooner, I'll be doing it later. Towards the end of flowering I pluck leaves fairly often as they yellow and die. In my experience the plant naturally tells me what direction it's going in. By late flowering it seems to need much less foliage and wants to show off its buds.
It's less common for me to remove healthy green fans up top during early- mid flowering, but as long as there are other leaves to carry the load, I do snip some of them when they're covering up likely buds and don't want to bend out of the way.
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
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...
I'll update in a week or so if it lives lol.