I'm seeing some trends from posters in the thread. I'm going to make some comments to these trends. Take it as you will. It's just my opinion based on my learning and experience.
1. Waiting until flower before starting to defoliate.
Comments: Not preparing in veg is like not having an hour of foreplay. Sure, you'll get off, but the build up from foreplay may just make for an awesome explosion. Preparing, by defoliating in veg makes tighter internodal spacing (more bud in condensed area). You learn in veg if your strain
likes defoliation by how it responds over the next 5-8 days. This can mean bust or boom, and if your strain doesn't like it in veg, you'll have wasted far less time than if you were to find out 3-4 weeks into an 8 week flowering period. Besides, can't we all say we'd love to see more bud in a tighter area thanks to closer internodal spacing? i.e. more yield per cubic foot.
2. Taking only a few leaves at a time, over a longer period to prevent
stress.
Comments: I lol at this. They won't stress out! They will just put even more energy into creating more nodes and with that an explosion of even more leaves. All in a 5-8 day period. Or would you rather spend two weeks pulling just a few leaves at a time and not really do much of anything? I've posted pics of the progression in veg from a fully leafed out plant, then stripped, and regrowth results @ 3, 5, 7, 10 days after stripping in my journals and (I think) in this thread. Don't worry about stress! Hit'em hard. They recover insanely fast, and I believe the results are much better than long, incremental, minimal defoliation.
3. Indica vs Sativa
Comments: I have not grown Sativa. My experience is limited to Indica dominates with the exception of recently growing two Martian Kush which are supposed to be mostly indica but have massive insane stretch. Indica dominant plants are obviously bushier and more squat. As a result they are also much leafier and thus light penetration is more limited through so many leaves. Indica plants get even tighter internodal spacing through defoliation in veg. And in flower these nodes tend to generate plenty of small sugar leaves for transpiration and become very solid good sized nugs all nice and close together. Again, more bud per cubic foot. Being shorter, in the most simplistic terms, your light tends to have to travel a far less distance to go from top to bottom of plant. This means more light by HUGE margins is delivered per cubic foot. In a sativa grow, your plant is obviously taller and naturally less light per foot as you get so much further away than you would with the indica.
4. Overall not delivering enough light to the plants.
Comments: This imo is the biggest sin. After all, the whole idea behind defoliation is to deliver tons more light. I believe in this wholeheartedly. Not enough light is generally as a result of too low wattage per sq foot or cubic foot. I direct you to this light depth chart:
How far of a distance? Lets look at 400w HPS for example. According to the chart, optimal distance range for a 400w hps is from 5" to 21" away from the bulb. This means that anything further than 21" from the bulb is not receiving enough proper light. Or basically, more than 21" away it's getting less than 5200 lumen. For example, at 36" away from the light, it's getting about 1700 lumen or 1/3rd of optimal. If your plant is 5 foot tall, you probably have more than three feet or 60% of wasted plant and growth period! That's HUGE!
Yet with a 1000 watt light, you're also only getting optimal penetration 36" away from the light. Notice the light is 2.5 times stronger, but the penetration is only about 75% further. That's Diminishing light. So even with a 1k watt light we're really only looking at a maximum height of plant at about 26 inches or so.
WOW! READ THAT AGAIN! (this obviously only applies to horizontal lighting)
However, if we can get 10-12 oz from each plant less than 30" tall, under 1k watts, is that not quite a boon? Or does one believe vegging 3-5 weeks longer to get a 5-6 foot tall plant with donkey dick colas yielding 16oz is more efficient? Personally, I'd rather have 10-12oz with 7-9 gram big buds (dry) and tons of 2-4 gram buds, and have used 3-5 weeks less power with huge $$ savings.
If we were under the sun, growing 6 foot tall indicas, the plant would be getting over 10k lumen (I know we dont really measure in lumen, but it's good for this context) from top to bottom. That outdoor plant is not so limited to proper light as the 1k watt or worse yet the 400 watt 6 footer would be.
Some personal observations:
OMG, dont center your rectangular hood in a confined space! While your hood may be 25" x 35", the light will not really send equal amounts over that entire area. Take a look up into your hood with the light on and you'll see. My hood is 35" WIDE. But the receptacle is inbound a substantial distance from the outer edge. To further complicate things, the bulb is x long and the element doesnt even start producing any light x number of inches further in. As such, I have 12-13 INCHES from the receptacle edge of hood too the point of light production. This means everything "behind" that 13" is getting less direct light! My results have shown now through two grows before realizing this, that the plant in that specific area of less direct light is at least HALF as dense at harvest. Sure the nugs are big, but they are light as hell and fluffier. While any other buds, even those from the same plant but directly under the actual direct lighting are tons heavier. I now have my hood shoved further to the inside edge of the tent and expect much better results. This actually makes me lean further to the idea that two medium sized hoods with 600w bulbs, bulbs facing opposite directions would yield well more than the 20% more total wattage so long as I keep my plants under 28" tall.
More importantly however, is that above seems to prove out even more how important direct light is to the overall yield and density, which even further illustrates how defoliation can be so beneficial when done properly.
Here s how she looked :
