fan leaves for vert donuts, trees, etc.

[flat9]

I'm starting week 7 on 9 - 10 week flowering strains and I've been removing fans that seemed dead or looked a little less than lively. Should I at this point just pull most/all of them to expose the inner colas? I have read soooooo many different opinions on this in general, and honestly I still have no clue...

... DHF I think I read you saying to gradually remove them, but did you come to this conclusion after letting everything be? What's the proper amount to remove?

 

[Mr Blah]

I remember DHF saying this also and I have been pulling large fans late in flower only if they blocked internal colas. But just a few a day pr/plant.
Working OK I guess.

Do you thin out after the stretch?

 

[frankenstein2]

It really is strain dependant, and it is a learned process. I start by taking one or two from a single plant and seeing how it reacts. If it can handle it I take a few more the next day. On some strains I swear I can see the buds grow over night. On some other strains it stunts them or flat out kills them if you take more than a couple leaves off. I try and take off as many as I can without fucking shit up. I have killed my fair share of plants learning to defoliate, so don't get discouraged.
A fun way to learn is in veg. I take leaves off and get my mothers to grow how I want them to. I can turn lower shit branches into massive "arms' that compete with the main stalk in terms of girth and height. By doing this, you learn your strain, and it's recovery time(if any), and how much you can take without it effecting the plant.
In vert I believe it is essential to defoliate to achieve maximum yields. On an 8 weeker, I usually start around week 5 and continue until harvest. Hope you got something from my long ass rant, lol.

 

[Marlo]

Frank is right.... it is very strain dependent and grow style dependent also. The size of your plants and the size of your lights will make a big difference as well.

IMO, its not about removing dead or poor looking leaves. I choose to remove leaves and/or whole branches during all stages of growth, whenever I see fit. During veg to shape plants as I see fit, and during flower to control larf and to open up the plant to the light source. Works for me.
Removing a bunch of leaves at any one time is a no no for me. Especially so late into flower. I'm usually done removing leaves by day 45 or so.

What works for one grower, may not work for the next grower. So the best thing to do is, try something....document it.... learn from your experience, then try something else.

 

[flat9]

I remember DHF saying this also and I have been pulling large fans late in flower only if they blocked internal colas. But just a few a day pr/plant.
Working OK I guess.

Do you thin out after the stretch?

I cut off the bottom junk that won't get any light in all likelihood when I put em into flower, but I haven't done any trimming after a few weeks after the stretch is done.

I feel cautiously optimistic that this approach of gradually removing the fans over several days to expose the internal colas is correct, but we shall see. I wasn't happy with the growth further away from the lights, and having pulled some fans, I can tell a LOT more is penetrating. So maybe it's a tradeoff -- I may slow the growth of the buds nearest the lights a bit with the benefit of developing the buds further away.

FYI, I'm running 8 girls w/ blumats + coco 2 gal geopots in one flower 8 x 4.5 tent right now with this setup (x = light, o = plant):

o-o
-x-
o-o
-x-
o-o
-x-
o-o

The other 8 x 4.5 flower tent which I just started is the typical tree setup of

x-x
-o-
-x-
-o-
x-x

using D9's big plant ppk design. I'll run the corner lights for just 6 hours though to keep 1800 watts going (like Heath did with his vertical tree grow thread). My hope is that with this other design I won't have to do much/any fan leaf removal at all... I couldn't tell from Heath's thread if he did but it didn't look like there was much trimming other than what he did when he threw them into flower....

Cheers to all for your replies. I guess I'll just have to wait and to see for both tents...