Increasing yield with defoliation indoors: What's it mean? How to do it?

id have to side with bassman on this, ive used his method and not used his method,
the biggest buds i got using this method with a 2ltr dwc hempy 12-12 from seed was the size of a 2ltr pop bottle, thats 12-12 from seed,

defol seems to work very well with some strains and not so well with others, i know the sensi star strain ive grown for 5 grows now produces bigger buds when i defol, when i dont defol the top buds are a decent size but then everything below is small and popcorn buds, but when i defol i have multiple main colas grow up and all buds are worth keeping, so the defol method works and ive had great results using the method myself.
light wattage, nutes, temps etc etc also play a big part but ive had strains that produce huge fan leaves bigger than my hands and these block all the light to the rest of the plant, this leaves very little growth lower down the plant and the only time this other growth does grow is when i flip 12-12 then node spacing lower down is way to big and i end up removing this stretched lower branches, so some strains i always defol on and when compared with not doing it the end results are always better, im not going on bud size here im going on the end dry weight.

i know bassmans method works and he has always posted honest posts.
ive had strains that respond poor to a defol though and growth pretty much stopped but other strains respond very well and benefit from the defol i give them.
 
My 2 cents on the defol, the jury is still out.

I normally rely on LST and supercrop to get the most out of a grow.

Maybe I'll stop back in a few months and show the results at my frist major defol attempt.

I got 3 CBD cheese seeds. the first was grade A plant and smoke. the third seed is alive and well.

The story is of the second seed
The second seed I started actually popped out of the root cube and has a total twisted root ( sort of like you'd straighten out a safety pin) I stuck it back in and it has been growing very slow. I hate to give up on seedlings unless they dont grow at all.

Anyway here she is 6 weeks old before and after defol and then at 9 weeks. since then I have topped twice and did more selective leaf removal.

G16_Ch2_6wk.jpg

G16_Ch2_6wkdefol.jpg


G16_Ch2_9wk.jpg

G16_Ch2_9wkdefol.jpg
 
very nice, to me it looks like a good candidate for defol, fan leaves seem to be pretty big so these will be blocking light the rest of the plant. i grew big buddha cheese a while back and defol'd that as the top couple sets of fan leaves was stopping all growth at the nodes, the stem just kept growing and growth was very slow due to it not getting much light, i cut off the 2 top sets of fan leaves and within a matter of a few days the lower growth was doing well and grew much quicker in them few days then it had in a few weeks.

some strains tend to slow down if you defol them but once they pick back up it does well, so it can set up back a week or 2 in veg depending how long you veg for, but then other strains i defol and their is no slow down in growth, the sensi star i defol last time round didnt slow down at all after defol. it just grew like crazy and instead of being an xmas tree shaped plant with 1 main cola it ended up a nice fat round bush with lots of nice sized colas.

we all use different methods and im sure each grower will say their method is the best and produces the best results, im sure we are all guilty of this, but we all grow different strains so diferent methods work better in different environments, but from my own experience its ok listening to advice and listening to whats best but until you jump in with both feet and give it a try you will always wonder if you could of done better, i mean worse case you give it a try and you get poor results, well then its lesson learned and you might not use that method again, but lets say you try it and you get much bigger yields then your more likely to use it again and even suggest to others that it might be something they want to try.

theirs not much i havent done, ive pretty much tried everything, the only thing ive not tried is a scrog due to me growing several strains at once.
but what i can say for sure is that all the methods we use seem to work and seem to produce great results, lst,hst,topping, fim all seem to produce good results, it just shows how resiliant these plants are and that they will pretty much put up with what ever method we use.

so now i use a mixture of methods, if a plant is growing to tall then ill either remove the top set or 2 sets of fan leaves so it slows upwards growth and this then allows the rest of the plant to catch up, or ill lst or top, i cant say for sure which method is a clear winner.
im very happy with the results i get no matter what training method i use.

the most important thing has to be the grow conditions, if we over water, mess light schedule up, get temps wrong then this will cause problems. as long as everything is where it needs to be then any method we use will produce amazing results, get the grow room right and dont over water then the plants seem to thrive, get this wrong and no matter how much defol or topping you do wont increase yield, in fact it might even put you off using a certain training method.
 
I'm currently growing Dutch Passions version of Blueberry and also a Power Plant.

Here they are at day 18 from seed and I just gave them the first defoliation, leaving the lowest set of leaves on. I plan on not topping them this time but I'm just gonna let them do their thing and react to the defoil and go from there. Also experimented with some organic soil additives from my kitchen this time; adding coffee grounds, used tea and pulverized chicken egg shells to the soil and letting it compost for a few weeks watering occasionally with dilute black molasses and mixing the soil like crazy to aerate the entire thing and get those microbes going. We'll see how they like the soil but so far so good.


Dag_18_01.JPG

Dag_18_03.JPG

Dag_18_02.JPG




Peace! :peace:
 
Hi Bassman59 and all other,

thank you so much for this tutorial, I've searched this for so long time!
I'd like to translate it to german, because this technique is still very unknown in Germany and people are partly too skeptical to try it out.
Unfortunately I have no suitable photos for the translated version so I need to use your ones...

I'd be so thankfully, if it's going to be okay for you :)
Of course I will note you as the source.


Greetings from Germany,
Stuck
 
I have no problem with that stuck. But you might want to obtain permission from 420 girl on the pics. Since you don't have 50 posts to pm her, I will send her a pm.
 
Hi,
thanks a lot for you permission and for contacting 420 girl for me.
German growers will be very grateful for sharing this technique with us.

Greets, Stuck
 
I'm sure she'll respond. But it's pretty early in the morning here.
 
Bassman59 said:
I have no problem with that stuck. But you might want to obtain permission from 420 girl on the pics. Since you don't have 50 posts to pm her, I will send her a pm.
Click to expand...

Actually you can PM 420 Staff members just not other members until you reach 40-50 posts or something like that.
 
oh ok, there ya go, shoot a request to 420 girl, just likes the bolded.
 
Hash hound,

Looks like you snipped off some nodes. I don't generally do this myself. But it also looks like your leaning towards flux technique too. I may be doing a combo flux-defoliation as well in the near future. If I can do a flux something close to Light Addict's plant I will. Otherwise, I'm intending on leaving all the nodes up there and just sticking with removing fans like I normally do.

I can't say if either is better, but I lean towards flux-defoliation. I love what LA did to his girls. If I can get a cycle like that going it would be awesome for sure. I know LA does remove some nodes as he spreads out the girl in his flux style and it's working great.
 
Hey Bassman59.
Thanks for this great thread and all your other journals!

I´m having fun growing my first plants out of some random bagseeds.
I set up a DWC system with 270w LED lights (GrowNorthernMS0006) in my closet.

Sometime during the veg phase I stumbled upon this thread and decided to go with heavy defoliation. Both to avoid humidity/mold and since I´d rather have a ton of good buds then a couple of huge colas.
I did NOT top or supercrop.. So I´m looking forward to the next grow to get into that.

I know I have screwed up and been a little of on the PH and nutrition, luckily the plants are forgiving :)

Soo... Now I´m on day 76 since start of 12/12.
I´m hoping that I still got a couple of weeks with swelling before harvest, but I´m not confident.

Anyway.. Just wanted to show you my plants so far.

Day66(12/12)
Test0105-220114.jpg

Day 72(12/12)
Test0204-280114.jpg

Test0102-280114.jpg

Test0103-280114.jpg

Test0001-280114.jpg
 
Grats on your 1st grow man. As you gain some experience, read more & learn, it will all start to come together and you'll soon be growing nice solid buds. Just keep learning and experiencing.
 
I swear by all that is holy I will get thru this thread. lol. I started at the beginning and am now on page 16, but had to post the abuse I have dished out to my beloved plants. 2 days later they are continuing to flower like crazy and I do see continuation of growth. I think this technique is the bees-knees, thanks so much for the free education!

DSC_02265.jpg
DSC_02256.JPG
DSC_02244.JPG
DSC_02236.JPG
DSC_02225.JPG


Back to reading and learning on here. Oh, maybe I will get some work done too even! lol

As always, PLEASE send any comments or info / suggestions! I want to hear it all, I love to learn and I love :circle-of-love: these plants even more! lol
 
Bassman59 said:
Hash hound,

Looks like you snipped off some nodes. I don't generally do this myself. But it also looks like your leaning towards flux technique too. I may be doing a combo flux-defoliation as well in the near future. If I can do a flux something close to Light Addict's plant I will. Otherwise, I'm intending on leaving all the nodes up there and just sticking with removing fans like I normally do.

I can't say if either is better, but I lean towards flux-defoliation. I love what LA did to his girls. If I can get a cycle like that going it would be awesome for sure. I know LA does remove some nodes as he spreads out the girl in his flux style and it's working great.
Click to expand...

Bass,

I normally just use a lot of LST and supercrop to manipulate the plants.
This seed was a very slow starter and I never like to give up on a seed. If I gave up on a slow weak WW, I would not have experienced some of the best I have ever smoked. And I knew I had time to wait for flower room space, so slow growth by pruning and low light was no big deal as long as she was healthy, and she is.

I have been nursing it along under a cpl cfl's and trying out the pruning. I have her right now at 8 main colas.
Which is about how many I can get with some good LST, but they are all different length branches, and a lot of lower waste. She might get flowering in a week or two.

I'm gonna try nipping just the topmost shoots of growth after the stretch is done and let all the side shoots fill her out instead of big thick colas. I read that in some other journal and tried it on a few colas last grow and it does make the cola open up a bit. Buds seem to stretch away from the main stem instead of hugging it.

From experience, the thicker the cola the more prone to bud rot and more severe. That's why I'm a big fan of LST. You can manipulate buds at almost any time of growth.
 
@Guestimator, Would have loved to seen the pics of just before you started yanking fans. Your girls look good. They are going to releaf heavily too. Keep us posted!

@Hash Hound, I hear ya there HH.
 
Back
Top Bottom