Number of leaf lobes?

[Bud Good]

I was just wondering what determines the number of lobes on a leaf. I always assumed it was the genetics of the plant. I was reading yesterday and found something that suggested, but did not say outright, the number of lobes is dependent on the health of the plant.

I also have several leaves on my plants that have even-numbered lobes. Most of the even numbers are eight, with a few sixes. Early on I had a couple with four. I had low pH early on that caused some problems. Could that be related? The plants look great and are growing good now, but I'm still getting a few eight lobed leaves.

 

[AKgramma]

I gotta see a picture of that! I've not seen any pics of even-numbered fingers. I grow bubblelicious, which has given me up to 13 fingers and OGK, which has grown up to 7 for me, but can grow 9 if the plant is big enough.

 

[jhfhklsnhfldk]

I just ran a Super Auto Sativa that had the middle finger (lol) missing from the leaves on a few of the lower leaves. It looked crazy. This left even numbers of fingers. The plant was in perfect health.

 

[Bud Good]

I gotta see a picture of that! I've not seen any pics of even-numbered fingers. I grow bubblelicious, which has given me up to 13 fingers and OGK, which has grown up to 7 for me, but can grow 9 if the plant is big enough.

So it's more of a size thing than a health thing then? Makes sense, as most of my earliest were 3s, and some of the newest are 9s. I switched the numbers four and eight around in my head. Most are four. Two with eight now, I think I had at least one more that came off with a cutting for cloning.

These have eight, and I believe the deformation is caused by a faulty FIMing, I think I took it too high and just removed the tips of the leaves. Not sure why they grew so dense. It's also been about a week since FIMing, and that part has barely grown. The rest of the plant did grow some.

These all have four, and grew that way, I didn't do anything that could have caused it as far as I know.

I may have been imagining/miscounting the sixes, or I could have defoliated them. I defoliated two quite a bit as an experiment. Leaving them on unless taking them off is necessary seems to be the way to go.