Disclaimer! This is what I saw in my grow area with this specific strain under these conditions. Your mileage may vary ... greatly!! I even see differences in results from the phenos.
Trying to keep those differences in mind, I noticed the defoliation looks to have hurt total harvest amounts, but resulted in a higher percentage of the flower being on the main colas instead of in the smaller bud sites, but there also looks like an increase in the percentage of larf. Lollipopping appeared to have the least larf and the biggest colas. To get that you tend to give a little in the total weight, but is probably well worth it for the higher amount of better flower. It was also the easiest to trim. The one that had nothing done to it was the worst to trim. Also remember that #2 ended up being a triple node so its total is likely a bit higher because of that.
One other thing to keep in mind is that there was no training done to any to expose any of the lower bud sites to extra light. I only topped each to 4 main colas and defoliated.
I am also pretty sure training can effect these results greatly. Like a scrog or quad lining.
Defol does appear to set them back a little bit. Possibly from shock.
Defol did make the main colas a bit larger in ratio to how big the secondary bud sites are, but it did increase the amount of larf.
Things I will likely change in my grows based on this:
Defoliation not worth the time it takes to do it (in this case). Only pull leaves to improve air flow, if they are spent, or directly blocking light from the top few bud sites if it cant be tucked.
Anything untrained will likely get lollipopped at flower. How many nodes left will depend on the strain.
4 main colas is not enough in this case.
Blue Dream #2 is currently being reveged. The pollen I tried from the Drunken Gorilla was likely not any good anymore and I did not see any seeds develop. I will plan to use colloidal to flip it and breed it back to itself as well as to two Skunks that I will be reveging along with this one. I will also try to take some clones and try this whole process again hopefully eliminating some of the pheno variances. I was not able to flip the skunk I was putting colloidal on but I think it was mostly from the tent just being too cramped. The lower branch I selected just did not develop well When I try again there will be only three plants in the tent.
