It is extremely important to read what is posted with a picture for the proper context. It is important to read this whole thread to get the process clearly .
Defoliation: Hi-Yield Technique?
- Thread starter k33ftr33z
- Start date
- Status
It is extremely important to read what is posted with a picture for the proper context. It is important to read this whole thread to get the process clearly .
C
Carl Carlson
I don't think it's necessary to read the whole thread in order to understand the technique.
Like you said, starting with the description of the photograph being looked at would help though.
lol
asstastic
Member
defoliation rocks i just pull fans that shade light and i do vert and it improves how many plants i can have cuz once you defoliate your light shines right through so if i had my light normal that light shining through would be hitting the bottem branches either way it works better than not
I really didn't want to come into this thread, but someone posted a link to it, so I couldn't help myself. I had to read it. You guys can put me in the camp that doesn't like this.
I can actually see some benefits to this. Yes, I do think it will reduce the stretch our plants undergo.
Far-Red light is our enemy. If the ratio of Red/Far-Red light is low, then we get stetching, and less lateral branching as our plants are focusing on stretching to get closer to the lights. If our Red/Far-Red ratio is high, then we get more compact plants and greater lateral branching.
When the fan leaves are removed, more Red light is allowed to reach the lower parts of the canopy, so we are manipulating the Red/Far-Red ratio to our benefit.
So far so good. We've kept our plants shorter, and are keeping more of our bud sites in the optimal lighting zone OP has spoken of. Our plants are also branching more now, so that just means more yield in the end.
But, I believe in doing so, you are reducing the ability of the upper canopy to produce buds. We've re-allocated X amount of usable light, that would normally go to the dense upper canopy, and spread it out amongst more of the plant after removing many of the fan leaves.
Will this re-allocation of usable light produce heavier yields in the end? I dont know. Perhaps, perhaps not.
Are the left-over bud leaves able to perform just as well as the large fan leaves that were removed? Note: I do not believe giving the actual buds light actually accomplishes much. They're job is to reproduce, not to photosynthesize, although Im sure they do it on a small scale. The bud leaves that are part of our buds are whats driving the growth of the buds, so it makes sense to give them as much light as possible.
The only way I see defoliation increasing yields, is if the increased lighting increases our yield from the lower half of the plant enough to compensate for what is likely lost from the upper buds, and then some more on top of that.
I would absolutely love to see a side by side using clones done where someone weighs the buds from the top and bottom halves and compares it to their control plants. As well as comparing bud size for the main colas between the two.
Another thing, I am surprised that has hardly had any discussion so far in this thread is about side lighting. A couple of people have brought it up, but so far almost everyone seems to think removing their fan leaves is the best option.
I would much rather invest in some side-lighting or vertical lighting between my plants to increase my yields, rather than removing fan leaves to allow the light from above to reach the bottoms. But, if side-lighting or vertical lighting isnt an option for some, then maybe this really is the best option if the things I mentioned above hold true.
I can actually see some benefits to this. Yes, I do think it will reduce the stretch our plants undergo.
Far-Red light is our enemy. If the ratio of Red/Far-Red light is low, then we get stetching, and less lateral branching as our plants are focusing on stretching to get closer to the lights. If our Red/Far-Red ratio is high, then we get more compact plants and greater lateral branching.
When the fan leaves are removed, more Red light is allowed to reach the lower parts of the canopy, so we are manipulating the Red/Far-Red ratio to our benefit.
So far so good. We've kept our plants shorter, and are keeping more of our bud sites in the optimal lighting zone OP has spoken of. Our plants are also branching more now, so that just means more yield in the end.
But, I believe in doing so, you are reducing the ability of the upper canopy to produce buds. We've re-allocated X amount of usable light, that would normally go to the dense upper canopy, and spread it out amongst more of the plant after removing many of the fan leaves.
Will this re-allocation of usable light produce heavier yields in the end? I dont know. Perhaps, perhaps not.
Are the left-over bud leaves able to perform just as well as the large fan leaves that were removed? Note: I do not believe giving the actual buds light actually accomplishes much. They're job is to reproduce, not to photosynthesize, although Im sure they do it on a small scale. The bud leaves that are part of our buds are whats driving the growth of the buds, so it makes sense to give them as much light as possible.
The only way I see defoliation increasing yields, is if the increased lighting increases our yield from the lower half of the plant enough to compensate for what is likely lost from the upper buds, and then some more on top of that.
I would absolutely love to see a side by side using clones done where someone weighs the buds from the top and bottom halves and compares it to their control plants. As well as comparing bud size for the main colas between the two.
Another thing, I am surprised that has hardly had any discussion so far in this thread is about side lighting. A couple of people have brought it up, but so far almost everyone seems to think removing their fan leaves is the best option.
I would much rather invest in some side-lighting or vertical lighting between my plants to increase my yields, rather than removing fan leaves to allow the light from above to reach the bottoms. But, if side-lighting or vertical lighting isnt an option for some, then maybe this really is the best option if the things I mentioned above hold true.
Dropastone
Member
Update
Update
Okay guys and gals here is an update of what I got going on. Any comments or suggestions are welcome.
This is day 7 in flower and my plant is 14 days since my last defoliation.
Before.
Here is the pile of leaves I removed.
Here she is after her trim.
Okay this is my first time I ever did a scrog.
I built one out of some 1x4 material I had laying around. The screen is some fence I also had lying around and I wove some string through fence to give me more to work with. Instead of putting legs on it I decided to prop it up with two adjustable shower curtain rods.
Here she is with the screen in place.
Top View.
Side view.
I super cropped multiple branches two weeks ago and today I just super cropped the main stem because she was way higher than the rest of the plant after I bent the branches under the screen.
So far I'm loving this defoliation method. The plant is responding very well with no ill effects.
The only thing I've been noticing is that my pH is dropping on a daily basis. Before I started trimming her my pH was always stable and I only had to adjust it like once or twice a week but now I've got to adjust it daily. Could defoliation be causing this?
Congratulations on the sticky k33ftr33z.
Peace.
Update
Okay guys and gals here is an update of what I got going on. Any comments or suggestions are welcome.
This is day 7 in flower and my plant is 14 days since my last defoliation.
Before.
Here is the pile of leaves I removed.
Here she is after her trim.
Okay this is my first time I ever did a scrog.
I built one out of some 1x4 material I had laying around. The screen is some fence I also had lying around and I wove some string through fence to give me more to work with. Instead of putting legs on it I decided to prop it up with two adjustable shower curtain rods.
Here she is with the screen in place.
Top View.
Side view.
I super cropped multiple branches two weeks ago and today I just super cropped the main stem because she was way higher than the rest of the plant after I bent the branches under the screen.
So far I'm loving this defoliation method. The plant is responding very well with no ill effects.
The only thing I've been noticing is that my pH is dropping on a daily basis. Before I started trimming her my pH was always stable and I only had to adjust it like once or twice a week but now I've got to adjust it daily. Could defoliation be causing this?
Congratulations on the sticky k33ftr33z.
Peace.
S
Stinktoe
Welcome to the thread. That is quite a lot of analysis.
All you would have to do is simply try this on a plant or two and watch the results. No harm done. All the extrapolations and correlations you have made are quite interesting but as soon as you strip a plant and watch the re-leaf process it is plain to see it is simply the exposure to unobstructed light that gets the lowers beefing up.
You are welcome to do your own test as that is the only way to get the hard evidence yourself. After all, we may be totally pulling your leg in a conspiracy to have you screw your plants up just for laughs....NOT.
Maybe you missed these pics....The only leaf you see is all bud leaf. These were stripped clean several times throughout veg and bud whenever I deemed them too leafy. Yield about 1-1.2gpw consistently. No 1000w lamps involved. 10-12oz plant 32" x 32" x 28" tall.
You are welcome to skepticism. It's totally understandable. That's why only experience will do for anything in life.
Several of the posters were brave enough to join the fun and not one has been disappointed. I rather like their progress. I'm a little jealous of some of them.
I not a fan of side lighting. Better to design and manage plants to fit a confined and limited amount of artificial light than to add lighting later as a stop-gap measure when plants are too tall and shading away all the reflective light.
Thanks for stopping by.
As I have said several times, side by sides comparisons are simply comparing two entirely differing techniques. Almost all of the posters/participants have complained of diminished yields in previous crops due to oversize and overcrowding. These two problems are quite easily alleviated by manually defoliating and structural training. Why resort to anything else. The idea is to first create the most potentially productive clone possible, one that is compact, branchy with tight noding. Then to preserve that hard-earned productive capability by the aforementioned defoliation and training.
Most like myself have already done the leafy way and found the limitations.
Most like myself have already done the leafy way and found the limitations.
Last edited:
asstastic
Member
your big cola theory holds water but i grow a strain that dosent grow big colas so the benifits are much greater cuz i have to grow way more bud sites then say nl to equal the same yield so defoliating helps with the over crowding
its more for bush type plants not single cola plants
Okay guys and gals here is an update of what I got going on. Any comments or suggestions are welcome.
This is day 7 in flower and my plant is 14 days since my last defoliation.
Before.
Here is the pile of leaves I removed.
Here she is after her trim.
Okay this is my first time I ever did a scrog.
I built one out of some 1x4 material I had laying around. The screen is some fence I also had lying around and I wove some string through fence to give me more to work with. Instead of putting legs on it I decided to prop it up with two adjustable shower curtain rods.
Here she is with the screen in place.
Top View.
Side view.
I super cropped multiple branches two weeks ago and today I just super cropped the main stem because she was way higher than the rest of the plant after I bent the branches under the screen.
So far I'm loving this defoliation method. The plant is responding very well with no ill effects.
The only thing I've been noticing is that my pH is dropping on a daily basis. Before I started trimming her my pH was always stable and I only had to adjust it like once or twice a week but now I've got to adjust it daily. Could defoliation be causing this?
Congratulations on the sticky k33ftr33z.
Peace.
Beautiful job. She'll be keeping you busy over the next few weeks. Keep that thumbnail in shape.
I get plunging ph at odd occasions. Never regular enough to determine a cause. Be diligent though. 24 hours in 4ish ph will slam on the brakes with limited recovery possible.
InducedSerenity
Member
Interesting bit on the pH drop.. maybe the plant suddenly pulls much more water than nutes as its photosynthesis decreases dramatically from the loss of leaves?
Is it ideal to avoid defoliating during the initial couple of weeks during flower when stretch occurs to maximize root production? I saw you guys talking about that earlier in the thread and the canopy:root ratio makes sense, but it seems people are doing all kinds of things with good results. I'm still trying to sort out if I should defoliate ~3 times during veg or every couple of weeks.. opinions?
Thanks for a great read.
Thank you k33ftr33z
Thank you k33ftr33z
I've always removed the leaf closest to the neighboring chute when the new stem is at least an inch or more with great results. Thank you for bringing this practice to light and I am sure that this method will bring out some very interesting results in the future of cannabis growing on ICMag. You have started something wonderful k33ftr33z.
Thank you k33ftr33z
I've always removed the leaf closest to the neighboring chute when the new stem is at least an inch or more with great results. Thank you for bringing this practice to light and I am sure that this method will bring out some very interesting results in the future of cannabis growing on ICMag. You have started something wonderful k33ftr33z.
Okay guys and gals here is an update of what I got going on. Any comments or suggestions are welcome.
This is day 7 in flower and my plant is 14 days since my last defoliation.
Before.
Here is the pile of leaves I removed.
Here she is after her trim.
Okay this is my first time I ever did a scrog.
I built one out of some 1x4 material I had laying around. The screen is some fence I also had lying around and I wove some string through fence to give me more to work with. Instead of putting legs on it I decided to prop it up with two adjustable shower curtain rods.
Here she is with the screen in place.
Top View.
Side view.
I super cropped multiple branches two weeks ago and today I just super cropped the main stem because she was way higher than the rest of the plant after I bent the branches under the screen.
So far I'm loving this defoliation method. The plant is responding very well with no ill effects.
The only thing I've been noticing is that my pH is dropping on a daily basis. Before I started trimming her my pH was always stable and I only had to adjust it like once or twice a week but now I've got to adjust it daily. Could defoliation be causing this?
Congratulations on the sticky k33ftr33z.
Peace.
Beautiful! She reminds me of someone. You will not regret what you have done here just be ready to continue cutting because in a week you will be back at square one with twice as much foliage!
Im Running into 1 problem with this technique. Now that i didnt trim off the lower branches and there are acutally frosty buds on them i cant get to the back pots to water without getting coated in goo. HAHA. Ill post update pics later today. Amazing is all i can say. Peace LL
i must say...
Do not cut off the fan leaves on the edges of the grow.
The far edges of the grow will obviously get a little less light, and therefore could use the boost of having the fan leaves there. Also, they're not blocking anything if they're on the edge... These smaller edge branches will then catch up to the rest of the plant, and THEN cut those fans.
Do not cut off the fan leaves on the edges of the grow.
The far edges of the grow will obviously get a little less light, and therefore could use the boost of having the fan leaves there. Also, they're not blocking anything if they're on the edge... These smaller edge branches will then catch up to the rest of the plant, and THEN cut those fans.
Dropastone
Member
Thanks to everybody that commented on my previous post. It seems I'm doing everything right. I can't wait to see how this turns out. I'll be updating regularly when she starts putting on buds.
Peace.
Peace.
haha, i am having a little bit of that problem too
having to actually pull stuff out of the way to get to things in the back, my space isn't that deep either @ 18", not a bad problem to have hehe
that plant is going to explode with phat sticky goodness! looking forward to watching it happen =)
I wont post all pics up to date but ill put a few up. Ive been growing in this space for a long time now and deff see a difference in bud size from the tops to the bottoms. Ill update in 4 more days. Peace LL
Before day16
After day20
Day 24
Day 28
Today day 32
Bud to the bottoms
A across i made Apollolicious (Indiana Bubblegum x Apollo13 Bx1)
Before day16
After day20
Day 24
Day 28
Today day 32
Bud to the bottoms
A across i made Apollolicious (Indiana Bubblegum x Apollo13 Bx1)
- Status
