There's always this:
"Schwazzing
From Joshua Haupt’s 2015 book
Three a Light, schwazzing takes the idea of defoliation to the next level. According to the book, this practice removes the entire canopy of fan leaves within the first few days of the flowering cycle and then again at the third week.
Joshua Haupt coined the term “schwazzing” to describe the sound of scissors and snipping that takes place during the process. The book’s title refers to getting three pounds of cannabis per light, or about twice as much yield in a harvest or even more.
By the entire canopy, he really does mean every fan leaf below the top two or three nodes. The caveat to this risky maneuver is that the stripped plants must receive proper after-care through a high concentration of nutrients following both defoliations. This is crucial to the recovery process.
By removing the fan leaves on the first day of flowering and again on day 21, the plants will be able to replenish the lost foliage before all of their energy transitions toward bud development. By supplementing with a high-nutrient feeding, the plants should push through any shock they may have undergone.
What’s the Upside to Schwazzing?
According to the book, the successful implementation of this technique can promote a massive uptick in the yield of a plant. But keep in mind, neither the book itself nor any review of schwazzing—also called heavy pruning or heavy defoliation—has given an exact explanation for why the practice is so successful.
Some growers suggest that the practice of removing such a large amount of foliage from a plant in this stage of its development may trigger a defense mechanism, tricking the plant into developing more buds as a survival technique.
One possible explanation points to the fact that cannabis is a wind-pollinated species, and the removal of a massive amount of fan leaves may trigger growth hormones to swell buds as a last ditch effort to receive incoming pollen from a nearby male stamen.
Another possible explanation is that the removal of fan leaves promotes airflow throughout the plant and in turn, more vigorous bud growth. However, these hypotheses have not been backed by any study.
The Downsides of Schwazzing
Despite praise and success stories, there is a high risk of crop failure with this method. When it comes to overall plant health, even the heartiest of cultivars will experience some amount of shock after this process.
Unless the grower has expertly dialed in every other aspect of their growing process—including lights, grow medium, temperature, humidity, airflow, CO2, and more—simply feeding a plant more nutrients won’t suffice.
Even if everything is dialed in and plants are properly cared for, there is still a chance that they will die under this extreme stress. Some genetics might never fare well under such circumstances and some may handle the process better than others.
The bottom line is that although schwazzing may work under ideal circumstances, it’s not a method of defoliation that should be practiced without proper experience. This is not recommended for novice growers or anybody working with sub-par genetics or below-average equipment."
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