Fan Leaves. Leave em, or Pull em?

[swampdank]

lemme know whatcha think. for years i have akways left everything on the plant until the plant decides to get rid of it, at which time i assist by gently pulling the leaves off.

will removing the fan leaves help or am i right in my idea that they are there for a reason and dont mess with em?

 

[FunkBomb]

As the plant matures it will take the nutrients from the fan leaves and send it elsewhere. There is no need to stress the plant by taking away its food supply.

-Funk

 

[Shcrews]

In General, I think you should leave the fan leaves alone.. UNLESS they are hogging all the light. With my grow I have to trim the fan leaves or else they will block the light for the bottom branches.

As an experiment, I left one of my bins' leaves unpruned. The plants in that bin have grown taller faster, and the buds, now in day 43 , are larger and more mature. However, the bottoms got no light in my dense SOG and
are all scraggly..

The bins whose fan leaves I did prune didn't grow as tall as fast, and the buds are not as enormous, but there is not that much of a difference in top cola size, and now the bottom branches are receiving light too so they are getting fat.


The answer to this question depends on what strain you are growing, how you are growing it, and how much light you are using. sometimes in a SOG pruning leaves is very beneficial, but pruning WILL make your plant grow a little slower and have smaller (albeit more plentiful) nugs.

if doing outdoors or large indoor plants with plenty of light, definitely leave the fan leaves and just trim off the small bottom branches... lollipopping in these situations will give huge yields

 

[straight reggie]

both, i lst so the budsites are close. and some fan leaves are blocking some sites. i tuck some but the very next day they pop right back up lol. so i do cut some. shit i have so many i dont think it hurts my plant to much

 

[happyherb]

dont think ive ever grown a plant that i havnt pulled a leaf off or 50...yeilds have depended on size of plant and have been happy to very happy over the years....if i saw a problem i'd stop doing it!.HH. =]-~

 

[esbe]

i pull leafs when they are almost yellow or is sick.

 

[Hermit43]

If it aint broke.....dont fix it.

 

[Hank Hemp]

I only prune leaves that have started to yellow.

 

[swampdank]

thanks for the replies ya'll. i just want to see where everybody stands here. i usually tuck em in but sometimes they break.

the thing that has me curious about this is the size of the fan leaves on my current cro0p. they are huge!!!!! by far the largest leaves on any of my indoor plants recently.

 

[talos4]

I lst so I always pull a few off because they get in the way and block light. Never seen it hurt anything. I would never pull very many off. Any that yellow or die can come off. I feel funny when i lop off two huge fan leaves when plants are a week into flower but i'd rather have the light

 

[Pirate]

If I have a strain that has HUGE fan leaves that blocks light to other good bud sites I trim the leaf in Half.

I run a SOG so many upper fan leafs get trimmed to half their size.(cutting off the tips) Have not had any problems with this method and it opens up the lower parts of the plant for more light penetration.

Pirate

 

[THCforus]

Shcrews mentioned lollypoppin by prunning of all the scraggly little branches way under the canopy. Does anyone know when it would be too late to do that during flower?
I don't mean to go off topic but since he mentioned it here i thought I'd ask. If i could get a response to this i'd greatly appreciate it. I've looked into this in my "library of books" but can't get any definative answers
THC

 

[Whatever]

For the most part I'm a very aggressive pruner/trainer indoors or out. It's partly strain dependent, how long you veg for, hydro or soil. Indoors I'm anal about things indoors but outdoors let em run a bit but still fairly heavy handed. Here's some pics of a prune I did 2 weeks into flower then the final shot. If I had 8' ceilings instead of 6' in that spot the canopy would have been allowed to run a bit more vertical...oh well. If I had 8' ceilings the canopy would have looked more that single spike sticking up...just a whole bunch more of em...lol.

 

[toodles]

I like to leave all of the fans, every one of them.

The link in my signature gives good arguments for leaving them.

That said, if growing scrogs and sogs you have to remove many of them.

I do just the opposite of most folks I guess. I remove the lower flowering nodes and leave the fans. The fans are left to manufacture even more "goodies" for the remaining upper flowering nodes.

I like being different though.

Toodles

Kinda like I did this clone I have in flower. I admit this style of growing doesn't produce as much yield as a sog or scrog, but I love to grow plants like this


Something magical about those big fans IMHO (from clone above)



SwampDank This leaf is from one of my SSH x SSH plants I have in veg now. Plant is 30 days into veg, and about 15" tall(main stem been topped once) The plate is 7 1/2 inches in diameter. I love those huge leaves. I hope this one's a girl LOL!! The pic in my avatar is a leaf from another wonderful SSH x SSH girl from my last grow. These plants are vegging under 4 T-8 fluorescents.

Here's the plant.


I'm transplanting this one ASAP and going to flower. I just don't have the setup for it in my flower tent yet. This plant has a really nice root system going along with it's big leaves, thick stem, and really great overall vigor. I sure do hope it's a girl!!!

 

[Whatever]

I like to leave all of the fans, every one of them.

I do just the opposite of most folks I guess. I remove the lower flowering nodes and leave the fans. The fans are left to manufacture even more "goodies" for the remaining upper flowering nodes.

What good are the fans gonna do once they get buried under the canopy? Here's a SIDE view of the canopy as I was chopping it up from the same cycle I posted pics from above...

 

[toodles]

What good are the fans gonna do once they get buried under the canopy? Here's a SIDE view of the canopy as I was chopping it up from the same cycle I posted pics from above...

They won't do much good at all.

I think I said that scrog and sog guys **do** have to remove fans.

Nice looking grow you have there.

Toodles

 

[58FLH]

Fan leaves have a purpose don't strip them off. Evelotion would have gotten rid of them if they weren't needed. They help regulate temps, store water and nutes. Plus the production of food for the plant

 

[CrystalsCrystal]

chopping up your plant is what noobs do... theres NO reason to trim the bottom branches off... other than to have FUN doing it and ti get LESS herbals

 

[Whatever]

I think I said that scrog and sog guys **do** have to remove fans.

Nice looking grow you have there.

Toodles

Thanx...missed that part about the scrog/sog thing. My experience is canopy manipulation plays a big part in maximizing yields. That also includes thing like LST. Every situation is different.

 

[uninformed]

If say for example, you had ignorantly pulled off too many leaves (lack of experience) and the new growth ultimately developed the same issue (however there is fresh growth underneath the new sickly growth) and several leaves are in the process of dying off would you remove the leaves?


Here is the plant in question:







Now the leaves in the pictures have become even darker, those that were dying, and the tips of the leaves are curled and dry, the issues is that the leaves are so close to the buds, there isn't much length to seperate the leaf from the bud as you can see...


So, do I let them die off and then remove them, or do I pull them off while they are still firmly attached? Keep in mind they now look 40% worse than they do in these pictures.

I feel like had I not pulled off the majority of leaves when this issue first developed these leaves would not have also developed the same issue. That those leaves would have been the affected ones and the new foliage would have been free of issues as the plant would pull its nutes from the dying leaves.

(problem was high PH, chlorine in water, low nutes - since resolved)

Now I'm just trying to heal this plant and I don't know if cutting the dying leaves would be a good idea.