now that i have completed a few harvests using more aggressive defoliation and observed a few others in our group that have used Heavy defoliation, I thought i would add a few remarks to help guide anyone about to try this for the first time.
If you read my previous post you will see that i am quite happy with the extra yeild and density with HDT during veg and flower vs my previous "late flowering" defoliation, accompanied by lolipoping. The effect of Heavy Defoliation as a growth regulator is profound. On plants that were defoliated during the first 2 weeks of flowering I saw almost NO stretch at all, the plants react as if treated with a chemical growth regulator. this could be very helpful to a sativa grower, with headroom issues....but damaging to someone growing indica dominant strains, shorter to start with, unless it is planned for in advance. I kinda like a little stretch and have amended my defoliation schedule accordingly. like everything else, there seems to be a middle balance that is unique to every individual variety and situation.
defoliation during veg seems to encourage a ton of nodal development, done too early (5-6") , it seems to stunt the plants too much. too late (right before flowering) and you dont get those "branches full of nodes"
also:
the advice i took when i began HDT a few grows back was "do not prune any nodes at all" and I will agree that the popcorn buds DO swell considerably when heavily defoliated. However...even big popcorn, is still popcorn. I share the opinion of many growers when i say that i would sacrifice 10 oz of popcorn for 5 oz of "bag ready" buds.
so i have also started to prune wee sucker buds during week 2 of flowering....not lollipoping mind you, but i do remove anything that looks pathetic in mine eyes.
so my new schedule goes something like this:
no Heavy defoliation until my clones are at least a foot tall and well developed. then i pluck em completely. two weeks later and you cant tell they have been touched, they get another good pluck. then no more defoliation until after flowering. this seems to give me a good balance of nodal density and vegetative growth.
I dont defoliate at all during the 1st 2 weeks of flowering. then i hit em HARD. and take nodes that offend me (i grow vert so they are mainly in the middle of the plant...if growing horizontally, these would be the bottom buds).
four weeks in (when i start with my p/k boost) i hit em again...and from then on i see no more fan leaves trying to emerge.
six weeks in, I take scissors and "pre trim" the colas, leaving some leaf but getting as close to the bud as possible without damage. this seems to help ripen any buds that are still shaded.
other growers in our collective have remarked on the varied response of different strains. some seem to stress waaay out, herming when defoliated late in flower. others exhibit no stress at all. something to be considered when trying this on a new cultivar.
overall, I think HDT is the best tool i have added to my arsenal in the last decade. a powerful growth/stretch regulator as good as bushmaster, or an equivalent poison.
Once again, this glorious plant has let me in on a few more of her secrets. like everything it's up to the grower to strike a perfect balance that works for them.
I have tried defoliation and my plants totally stopped growth. Two weeks after the defoliation and I see almost no progress in plant development. Very sad.
You can check my grow journal, the link is in my signature.What stage of growth did you take the leaves during?
It appears that you took only leaves on the apical shoots and not under the screen. Is this the case?
What kind of strain is it, (sat or ind) and how much does it typically grow at this stage?
Your grow looks legit, it's possible that the plant you have is just very sensitive.
On the bright side of things they still look healthy, if just a bit delayed. In the past when I have stunted plants from taking leaves (but I took way more than you) the yield was fine provided it wasn't pre-stretch, it just took a bit longer.
Thanks for coming and sharing your experience.
From what I've read/seen posted here, deffo and its results are strain dependent. My plants(bag seed) are like my face was in my late teens. As soon as I cut all that shit off it grows back more full and bushier within the week.
Some other guys with the pricey beans aren't getting as good a luck it seems...regardless...I'm a "plucker" for life now.
In response to your analogy, how much good do ten solar panels all stacked on top of eachother do?
If each was a panel by Konarka (which is more like leaves because leaves don't stop all light from passing thru...unlike what you're saying), it would do just fine. And leaves grow alternating for a reason.....not stacked on top of each other. What ya got now?
In order to photosynthesize a leaf needs to *absorb* light. Each time a leaf absorbs light it is now unavailable to any subsequent leaf.To insinuate that it is feasible for all leaves to work equally as efficiently whether stacked or not is simply false. That's not reasonable at all.
he said 'will do just fine', not will 'work equally as efficiently'.
he also said leaves do not grow 'stacked', but their placement alternates.
I don't understand what the fuck all the speculative analogous arguing is still over.
Some methods of leaf pruning work well on some plants in some garden paradigms... 'nuff said, nothing to argue over.
I guess if you really want to get technical, then we should formulate some equation instead of giving vague loose analogies.
The equations should be based on things like:
What percentage of the leaves below is shaded?
How much photon density is lost between the distance of the leaf to the distance of the lower leaves?
How many photons can a given leaf actually use over a given time period?
How many usable photons can pass thru a leaf at a given photon density?
Also, I kind of like the idea of selectively pruning a small percentage of the 'shading' leaves, and doing so over time, because of the following:
Growth is not stunted significantly.
Lighting to leaf surface ratio can be somewhat improved.
Some plants seem to have some 'invigorating response' defense mechanism as has been previously speculated, and selectively pruning a few 'unnecessary' leaves might stimulate that response in plants which are capable of that response.
There is plenty of experimentation which can be carried out by those wishing to play around with training and pruning techniques, and the more experiential information gets gathered, the more complete the understanding of those techniques will be. Snappy comebacks to unsubstantiated speculation are as useless and out of place as the unsubstantiated speculation itself is.
you describe several good questions indeed - now that's the spirit.
duh!! welcome to the defol thread.
Your just arguing LST vs HST application of same technique - and your reasoning _seems_ to be the same to me - ResPekT
works pretty damn good for me as well, i think all strains could benefit if you do it right, i had some ssh hates it when i strip her more than once in flower, she got completely stunted, but madness on the other hand, when i strip her once she get all leafy on me, strip her 3 times during flower cycle and she threw out double the bud sites or mroe ...
this is after sometime after the defoli in dirt
more bud site
this one got stunted but bounced back
im still learning but so far im loving it, they gonna get a good prune again next week, advices to this technique learn your strains
cheers,
red.
and that the technique being practiced is not actually defoliation, merely leaf pruning. I've only seen one example of actual defoliation this entire thread, but I've seen a half dozen or more different techniques of leaf pruning.