Defoliation: Hi-Yield Technique?

[JackTheGrower]

ya'll are crazy. it's called tucking. tuck the leaves so they're out of the way of the nugs. very simple. plants use leaves to absorb the light for photosynthesis and move all of those nutrients throughout the plant. I am of the firm belief that leaves should stay on the plant until they are no longer useful to it.

it's like someone saying "hey take those solar panels off of the roof so we can have a skylight to heat this room up" well if you take the solar panels off you're losing a lot of energy from the rest of the house to create a bit of energy in one spot.

when was the last time you saw an outdoor grower or commercial grower plucking leaves to increase yield? after all that is what those type of growers are after, you'd think a commercial grow would have a team of "defoliators" constantly stripping leaves so the nugs get light.

okay, so your lower nugs don't get light... solution.... strip the lower branches. problem solved. why sacrifice the engine of your colas to possibly beef up a few other nugs?

I too am in this camp however, I am approaching this with an open mind.

Since Buds are actually modified leaf structures there is a certain logic that an increase in bud weight and overall volume of produce would occur if the plant is handicapped in it's biological functioning.

So since you and I are on the leave it alone side and we look at our HID's in reference to the Great HID in the sky we might ask why cut the whole leaf?

I am only part of the way through this thread and I thank twrex for the conversation that alerted me to the debate as I might have kept looking at my own..

So the first thing is the plant makes the effort to have the foliage and leaves are the food factories and store house of nutrient reserves. Yet, we are the plant's god so we are the giver of nutrients and the controller of the season.

So far I read that there needs to be a slow and reasonable reduction in overall leaf. But why remove the leaf? Why not do as something feeding? Eat parts of it.
Why not trim the leaves back rather than have a removal process. Yes I assume at some point the trimming back will be the same as removal but it seems to be an easier way to achieve the slow removal for the average person.

Myself I am breeding now so production isn't on the radar but this is interesting.

I have a picture here.. It may offer an example of how Buds are really modified leaf structures. I had a cycle of "Fox-Tailing" or should I say Cat-Tailing since this is the Tiki-jo line I am working, named after a beloved feline.



The above is from a Re-veg project I am working on.


So pardon if this has been asked.. And i don't know how the flow of the end of the thread is going yet but why are we removing when we can make it easier on the plants to simply round off the leaves slowly with some Scissors?
Am I being clear? The goal seems to be shift more plant function to the buds to increase harvest weights. Obviously this isn't good for seed making plants but i do get the concept.. Just not sure the whole leaf removal is the best way to get there.

Interesting thread.


Ernst

 

[dev0n]

So pardon if this has been asked.. And i don't know how the flow of the end of the thread is going yet but why are we removing when we can make it easier on the plants to simply round off the leaves slowly with some Scissors?

That's a great question. I've never tried this but am genuinely curious as to whether the difference in the outcome justified a process that was orders of magnitude more laborious than merely plucking leaves. I might try this on a couple plants sometime to see what happens ...

 

[Greyskull]

the thing with scissors is the cut/slice will leave an open wound....
imagine getting your arm lopped off by a sword - youre gonna be gushing out some goo

plucking/pinching closes off the wound ends...
imagine getting your arm crushed off between 2 big gears - the blood loss will be minimal (even though your arm is gone)

my mentor used to tell me there was no need for all those big leaves indoors - that inside the light is more intense (due to source proximity??? i forget.... i just defoliate!!!) and the big fan leaves just get in the way.

outside is a whole different thing though and you need to keep your leaves...

 

[delta9nxs]

howard sid thomas, who has been studying leaf senescence for thirty years, believes senescence begins at the point of maximum leaf expansion.

maybe a progressive defoliation starting at the bottom of the plant and working upward taking whole leafs might be a less stressful approach.

 

[JackTheGrower]

Agreed that it "Could" have issues but we are exploring things and we are talking about taking the whole leaf anyway?

deVon if you do that since I am not set up here for such a program I would be grateful.

I mean if one is already removing leaves why not try rounding them down?

I just looked and electric scissors are modestly priced from about $10 US and up.

 

[Tropic]

Agreed that it "Could" have issues but we are exploring things and we are talking about taking the whole leaf anyway?

deVon if you do that since I am not set up here for such a program I would be grateful.

I mean if one is already removing leaves why not try rounding them down?

I just looked and electric scissors are modestly priced from about $10 US and up.

Hi Jack, while I do get your point and find it interesting, Greyskull has a good point. Besides, I'd think that if you only remove the leaf by cutting the petiole, there is only one wound (potential entryway for diseases/pests, and tissue to repair) per leaf, whereas not removing the whole leaf one would end up with more, bigger wounds per leaf (one for each cut blade, bigger because leaves are wider than petioles). Not saying that it couldn't work, though.

 

[AmberMan]

I will be definitely be doing some LST and defoliation on all of my ladies!!

 

[JackTheGrower]

Hi Jack, while I do get your point and find it interesting, Greyskull has a good point. Besides, I'd think that if you only remove the leaf by cutting the petiole, there is only one wound (potential entryway for diseases/pests, and tissue to repair) per leaf, whereas not removing the whole leaf one would end up with more, bigger wounds per leaf (one for each cut blade, bigger because leaves are wider than petioles). Not saying that it couldn't work, though.

I am not arguing ( meaning discuss ) that it isn't injury. A healthy plant has the best defence against disease and the most energy to "heal" itself.

We are suggesting that cutting off all leaves over time is a good practice and this suggestion I have made is a possible lower plant stress way to get there.
One of the Statements of wisdom in this thread is that this "defoliation" needs to be done slowly. Well if the leaves are rounded and possibly even removed over time we may get the best of both worlds. Benefit of growth energy that leaves are meant for, storage of nutrients and exposure of bud sites that will fill in for the loss of the green. Sure in the end it may be a Nude plant but the slow-defoliation and plant vigour may be better served with Rounding.

If I try this "defoliation" I will be rounding. I don't see the benefit of complete leaf removal when my light energy is so nice here but i am curious on this technique in the vein of production levels as a skill.


So I am studying the practice with an open mind. If there is some proof that we will introduce some disease then I am open to read about it.

Still this theory of mine needs to be tested. I can see newbies ruining things trying to look the part and if Rounding makes it more fool proof then Rounding is a wiser suggestion in the long run.

It will be many weeks before I have clones to work with. So if someone one wants to try please do and share your observations.

I do see how folks using lower power lighting may benefit from a completely nude plant that has had it's leaves plucked slowly but that is just one end of the scale IMO.


Again Interesting thread.

 

[twrex]

My thoughts on this are along this line: if a leaf is damaged by a forager (or a grower 'rounding' as you put it) the leaf is going to be a larger drain on the plant to heal than to simply remove it entirely due to having a larger wound. Not to mention that this is a larger infection vector due to more exposed tissue.

Another way to think of it is like this: if you were a plant where would you put your resources, into fixing a damaged leaf or into growing out new fully functional leaves? If anything I think that damaging the leaves on the plant would cause those 'rounded' leaves to begin senescing prematurely and not produce as well as otherwise. So, by my estimation you'd end up with the worst of both worlds - less useful leaf area (since you cut it), a larger open wound to become infected, a larger drain on the plant's resources to fix, less output from the area that's left than normal due to early senescence, and a leaf which is still partially shading lower sites. Again, this is all information I pulled directly out my ass, but I feel the assumptions are sensible enough.

I'd say if you're worried about defoliating the better method would be to take it slow and just completely remove a few leaves here or there. This way you're not doing as much damage to the plant (stripping it bare OR leaving large open wounds), having less of a drain on resources, and you're still allowing the added light and beneficial stress hormones (assuming these are the mechanisms by which this works) to take effect.

Again, I could very well be wrong on this, and I think that a test should be tried to see, but my gut still feels that just removing fewer whole leaves would do better than rounding a larger number of leaves.

 

[Nynexx]

Strain: NYC Diesel

^^^Image before I did some defoliation!!

^^^ a week or so after, i chopped the fan leaves!!

 

[smokincheeze]

^^^How many days were you at when you took the fans off?

 

[HybridHydro]

I have some folks coming to work on the pipes in my basement this week so to play it safe I hacked my baby down, she has a nice main cola, tons of side branches, I ended up with 16 and 1/2 ounces(wet). Figuring 2/3rds water weight, so, figure about 5-6 zips out of one plant(400w/hps x 250w/mh x DWC x General Hydro full nutes.). That's my best so far. I will provide pictures of harvest later. Her hairs never turned colors, about half the trichs are clouded, her growth slowed right down to a crawl, but, I tend to like to pick just a tiny little bit early so that I end up with more of a thc high than a cbd high.

She was smelling to high heaven, to risky to have strangers in my house with that smell.

End judgement is.... DEFOLIATION WORKED FOR ME!

 

[GaMs]

I noticed that after defoliation buds become a little thicker and more compact ,hairs become brown like the plant is getting ready to harvest but buds and new hairs continue to grow and they are much more compact.Anyone noticed the same thing? Have to wait few days to see weight of dry buds.
Looks nice .

 

[Spiritu]

is this technique equally effective with different types of lights? cfls for example have very little light penetration.

 

[Beach Bum420]

GREAT THREAD

GREAT THREAD

I have really enjoyed reading this thread. Most of my grows are SCROG and I have been using a similar technique for about 20 years or so. Like every serious grower I never stop eperimenting and trying new things.
In my experience the plant is stressed less by removing the entire fan leaf rater than trimming the leaves. I cut the leaves and its stem about 1/4" from its base ant treat the stub wth a pruning selant gel (avaliable at your local garden shop).
IMHO .... if you are growing indoors and not SCROGing, defoliating, and clearing out ALL the lower vegitation, you are wasting a lot of plant energy as well as nutes. In the early days I just removed the lower leaves and baby branches to get good ventilation beneath the screen to prevent mold and fungus growth. this in and of itself improved yeilds by about 10%.
In later grows I began to remove fan leaves that were shading bud sites (instead of tucking them under the screen). This gave me another 15% or so improvement in bud production and weight. Eventually my grow experiments evolved into removing all the fan leaves. This did not improve things much at all until I realized that my buds were showing a nitrogen and some trace element deficiencies. after boosting the N and the trace elements in my nutrient mix I found another 15% improvement in bud production and weight
A word of caution though....don't over do the extra N.....sats espicially will start trying to reveg if you do. Also flush really well before harvest. I flush the last 2 weeks in ph adjusted( w/citric acid) R/O water with 1 tbls mollasses and 1 tbls honey per gal. For the first 7 days I change out the water every day Then in absoloute darkness for the last 7 days with no water changes. Two days before harvest I remove all water from my resvoir turn the heat up to 95 and set the de-humidifier to 25% rh and let it run like that till I harvest.
This system works very well for me and the strains that I grow.
Every grow and grower is different. My best advise is to experiment and find what works best for you and the srains that you grow.
Happy Growing;
Da Beach Bum

 

[puff adder]

My first try at defoliating came about because I needed to open things up, I had a mild case of PM and air movement was bad, so I took all the fans at day 30 of flowering. This did stall the plants but they finished fine, but yield was affected, although yield was probably the same as it would have been trying to finish being too crammed in, or with PM out of control.

Here's some pics of my new room, where I've taken many fan leaves gradually, strategically taking any fans that covered budsites, especially in the center of the plants. I still left the fans that weren't covering anything. This time I did Not lollipop, but direct light is now getting to the lower growth, and all the lower budsites that normally would either be gone (from lollipopping), or fluffy and unuseable, are now fattening up nicely, and I am positive I will see a big increase in yields. Things are looking great so far at day 35.

 

[TexasToker]

,hairs become brown like the plant is getting ready to harvest but buds and new hairs continue to grow and they are much more compact.Anyone noticed the same thing?

Yep, I never really paid attention to that. Notice though this is also strain dependent. Some of mine start to turn red and others do not...It seems that Sativa dominant plants are more likely to demonstrate this.

 

[LifeLess]

I took down 2 Apollolicious today at day 47. Defoliated at day 16 bloom and day 24. Things turned out better than expected. Not only did the lowers get to finish up the middles got larger than usual. There 3 more plants in there that need to finsh 1-bg and 2 chemd.

Day 16 before defoliation


Day 16 after


Day 20


Day 24 before 2nd defoliation


Day 24 after


Day 28


Day 32


Day 36


Day 40


Day 45



Whats left to go 1 bg and 2 chemd

 

[SumDumGuy]

Excellent job bro,
That's a nice looking haul you have yourself there. That should keep you medicated well through the next grow

 

[Rox]

Excellent work Timeless.