Defoliation

[Conformist]

I'm 28 days in flowering and i have removed all the big fan leaves on my main stem.

But, what about the leaves on my branches?
Should i remove them as well?

 

[Skunkpassion]

You will get a lot of mixed opinions on this.. Some will say never remove leaves, your best bet is to see what works best for you and your strain..

I personally would only remove or push to one side leaves that cover a bud site from forming or stopping it from receiving enough light...

 

[Conformist]

You will get a lot of mixed opinions on this.. Some will say never remove leaves, your best bet is to see what works best for you and your strain..

I know it is a controversial topic but, i had no choice but to remove all fan leaves.
The reason being my plant was sick as hell and all the leaves were burned due to pH fluctuation caused by a low quality pH down.

I personally would only remove or push to one side leaves that cover a bud site from forming or stopping it from receiving enough light...

Alright, thanks

 

[HatchBrew]

Go organic and you could stop worrying about ph up or down and all the other chemicals. Mix happy living soil and feed that, plants will thrive. Use soil grow after grow.

 

[Raw_Dog]

Do not remove the fan leaves, rather cut tips of the leaves off leaving the palm of the leaf attached. The leaves are the solar panels for your plant. If leaves are blocking the bud sites from receiving light then cut half the leaf, do not remove the entire leaf, this will effect taste and overall potency of your plants. Good luck.

 

[AloeRuss]

I started removing leaves after 2 years of growing for the first time.
I remove all that block the bud sites or the ones that block the light to go deep through the canopy. The difference is day and night for me.

 

[Easy7]

Conformist is gone. I'd say it depends on the strain. Some leaf will just suck to keep itself alive. But more leaves are good to keep if your at risk for harming the plants. More leaves and the more you can absorb damages. Less leaves and you will cut closer to the heart. Leafy kush plants do well with some stripping of the canopy. Same with afghans.

 

[otis33]

do a thread search, there's at least one decent sized one... people are serious about those fan leaves, so the debate gets heated at times... personally, I do it, it's strain dependent, you'll have to experiment and find what's right for your situation

 

[AloeRuss]

At first I started removing fan leaves because a lot of buds were hiding under them and to me it's just a shame not to give those bud a decent chance to grow and get big.

 

[Primalraindrop]

I remove every fan leaf on "somestrains" off the main stem only. It allows for the plant to bush properly imo. Also... buds are better smoke than fan leaves... so you want to choose what you want.

 

[AloeRuss]

Defoliation is just another trick in a tool belt of any decent grower along with toping, pruning, etc.

All those technics add 60 percent to my yeald. At least that is the case for me.
No MOAB or Cal Mag or other nute can match a properly pruned and topped plant. So, if you add a proper defoliation approach to the mix, you are golden. You are a pro.

 

[Black_Horse]

Hey, I'm conformist, the OP of this thread.
I had to delete my account for security reasons.

Anyway, the plants i defoliated never recovered from my abuse.
The leaves became crispy and turned yellow with black spots all over them.
Then a few weeks later, the disease spread to the bud leaves and forced me to harvest a week early.

The plant i didn't abuse yielded 3 ounces and all the others 1 ounce.
I might try LST this run since it's risk free unlike all the other methods.

 

[Perpetual Nooch]

I never cut the leaves off the branches I want to grow bud. I do prune off branches so as to concentrate bud growth on just a few branches that I want per plant.

Do this experiment. On the main stem of one plant pick off the leaf at the base of one bud, at a single node. At the end of the grow compare the size of that bud with the buds at the other nodes, where you didn't pick the leaf off. You will never pick off a leaf again.

 

[otis33]

ouch...

 

[AloeRuss]

Perpetual - this may be strain dependent because I did compare on mine. I am certainly for removing on my strain (Loui)
The size is about the same but the number of good size buds has increased.
I will compare overall weight in a week.

 

[Perpetual Nooch]

I'm not following you.

How can you increase nodes by removing leaves? There is one leaf per node. One bud per node. Remove that leaf and you stop one vector for feeding the node. Nodes do not increase in number.

 

[AloeRuss]

I tried cloning Buds per node but that didn't work Bud count stays the same as it should. However, The size of the bud has visibly increased. Especially those that are hiding under the large fan leaves and normally get no expose to light.
Also, the buds in the mid section has increased in size as well. That being due to the light penetration deeper into the plant.

 

[Perpetual Nooch]

Here's the thing with plants. You tear off a bunch of leaves, they're going to grow a whole bunch of more smaller leaves to make up for the loss of energy production. That's why they, in your words, "bush up."

There is nothing wrong in pruning plants but you either have to "top" them, or prune a whole branch, so the energy goes into the remaining branches. Not just tear off leaves off the branch. In which case the plant puts its energy into replacing those leaves.

 

[VerdantGreen]

i would strongly advise any new grower to get used to growing plants as nature intended before they experiment with defoliation. At least then you will have a comparison.

personally i try to remove as few as possible, i would prefer to tuck them out of the way if i can rather than remove them. i get great yields.

 

[AloeRuss]

Nooch - no one is talking about bushing up. You strike me as a grower with some experience. If this is the case, you should know the difference between bushing up and the size of the bud.
You are trying to get the point across to me. A person who experienced growing with and without defoliation, and I grew enough to know which bud looks and weighs biger.
Your theory looks good to those who cannot make an educated decision on what to do with their grow.
As to me, I learned and tried so much both ways that I can decide what works for me, my friend.