DEFOLIATION - How Much

mufinman · Jun 3, 2016

I'm not new to growing and I have in the past defoliated but by the remarks of others here and I give those members enough respect to ask: How much is too much defoliation or it could use more?

It's been written here recently (cant remember by who but in one of the PPK threads, sorry) that one can not defoliate too much in veg but I know if I cut her off at the base shes not going to do so well.

Here are 4 pics each of one of the girls in the tent there are 4, all defoliated today. The first 2 were put in rooted clones (11th day veg in tent 600w), the last 2 went in 12" tall and have been in there 4 days longer. (Day 15 veg in tent).

Sorry the pics couldn't be better but photography its not one of my strong points.

I'll come back in a week or so with more pics but your comments are welcomed. Too much? More!?? :dunno:

I am not looking for why I shouldn't doit, too late..

stasis · Jun 3, 2016

People sometimes go too far on this. The Bigger leaves are the Solar Generating Centers. Try to not take too many. I remove the bottom third after about 1 week or so in flower. And any extraneous inside branches that will not result in buds of size due to light not getting in.

One grower I knew, also pulled any leaf that pointed into the center of the plant, instead of pointing toward the outside.

Good Luck.

corky1968 · Jun 3, 2016

Why did you take off so many leaves?

I can see a person taking some off to increase light to allow the budding sites to create branches like I have.

But not taking 80% of the leaves off like you have. Your plant is going to be set back quite a bit.

who dat is · Jun 3, 2016

stasis said:
People sometimes go too far on this. The Bigger leaves are the Solar Generating Centers. Try to not take too many. I remove the bottom third after about 1 week or so in flower. And any extraneous inside branches that will not result in buds of size due to light not getting in.

One grower I knew, also pulled any leaf that pointed into the center of the plant, instead of pointing toward the outside.

Good Luck.

corky1968 said:
Why did you take off so many leaves?

I can see a person taking some off to increase light to allow the budding sites to create branches like I have.

But not taking 80% of the leaves off like you have. Your plant is going to be set back quite a bit.

What these two guys said. You have to remove fans systematically for best results. Remove a couple here and there as well as sucker branches during veg if any of them are obviously not going to do anything. Do this again one or two weeks into flower and lastly around week 3 when the plant has finished stretching and you know what will end up being sucker branches for sure. Defoliating to the extent that you did will most certainly stunt the plant and it will take a while to get over the shock. I defoliated a plant once just like this to see what would happen and it quit growing for several days-week before it resumed and it barely produced after that.

usda101 · Jun 3, 2016

Its all a crap shoot but i have stripped them clean with no harm to plant or yield . Its another thread where i posted pics .

mjlifestyle · Jun 4, 2016

Wow, you really stripped them good! I'm not trying to bash you or anything, as I'm just a rookie, but that looks way too much. After all, the real food for your plants is not water, not nutrients, but light. And now your plants are starving like crazy, being switched like that from the "full diet" they had to the crumbs they feed onto now. I do understand the point of defoliating and I did 2 sessions of that on my girls so far, but not to that extent...

I just don't see why you'd remove a perfectly mature (not old, but mature) leaf that points outward and doesn't shade anything. I know they'll recover eventually, but I am very doubtful that by the time they do recover and have new growth, that extra growth they'll have (which you did this for in the first place, I assume) makes up the lost time. This just looks too extreme...

On the other hand, I've read something about this outrageously priced marijuana growing book (Three a light, $500 or something, I'm sure many of you know about it) and it looks like the author promotes this sort of thing, maybe with something else along the way. Check this clip here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2ODAWf_Ioo , starting at the 1:05 mark you can see how extreme he's defoliating... Maybe this is the last untold secret about pot growing?

However, I for sure am not prepared to abuse my girls like that.

I'll definitely check back on this and see how it turns out. Good luck!

krunchbubble · Jun 4, 2016

mufinman said:
I'm not new to growing and I have in the past defoliated but by the remarks of others here and I give those members enough respect to ask: How much is too much defoliation or it could use more?

It's been written here recently (cant remember by who but in one of the PPK threads, sorry) that one can not defoliate too much in veg but I know if I cut her off at the base shes not going to do so well.

Here are 4 pics each of one of the girls in the tent there are 4, all defoliated today. The first 2 were put in rooted clones (11th day veg in tent 600w), the last 2 went in 12" tall and have been in there 4 days longer. (Day 15 veg in tent).

Sorry the pics couldn't be better but photography its not one of my strong points.

I'll come back in a week or so with more pics but your comments are welcomed. Too much? More!??

I am not looking for why I shouldn't doit, too late..

They look great! Thats exactly how they are supposed to look...

Take a pic in 10 days....

Strip again the day you put em into flower and around week 3, do the same stripping....

This is the kat who taught my how to strip plants correctly...
https://www.instagram.com/p/BE4ArV0teai/?taken-by=miami.mango

Snook · Jun 4, 2016

stasis said:
People sometimes go too far on this. The Bigger leaves are the Solar Generating Centers. Try to not take too many. I remove the bottom third after about 1 week or so in flower. And any extraneous inside branches that will not result in buds of size due to light not getting in.

One grower I knew, also pulled any leaf that pointed into the center of the plant, instead of pointing toward the outside.

Good Luck.

so you think I took off too much. that's OK.. NP.. I hope youre wrong.. :tiphat:

I just did the same thing. thanks for the input.

Snook · Jun 4, 2016

corky1968 said:
Why did you take off so many leaves?

I can see a person taking some off to increase light to allow the budding sites to create branches like I have.

But not taking 80% of the leaves off like you have. Your plant is going to be set back quite a bit.

I'm guessing 90+%.. we'll see.. hope you're wrong. :tiphat:

mr.brunch · Jun 4, 2016

Why would you want to take away the plants ability to produce sugars from light by removing its leaves?
Not criticising, just curious-

Snook · Jun 4, 2016

who dat is said:
What these two guys said. You have to remove fans systematically for best results. Remove a couple here and there as well as sucker branches during veg if any of them are obviously not going to do anything. Do this again one or two weeks into flower and lastly around week 3 when the plant has finished stretching and you know what will end up being sucker branches for sure. Defoliating to the extent that you did will most certainly stunt the plant and it will take a while to get over the shock. I defoliated a plant once just like this to see what would happen and it quit growing for several days-week before it resumed and it barely produced after that.

thank you too, wdi, expecting a little stunting, I'm in no hurry. :tiphat:

Snook · Jun 4, 2016

sorry for the hijack MM.. high as hell + tequilas

who dat is · Jun 4, 2016

This is a pretty common debate that pops up all the time. Ultimately you're just going to have to try it out like you did and see for yourself. I know I did. Some people swear by it and others will call you a jack off. Let us know how it works out for you :yes:

mufinman · Jun 4, 2016

how did it work out for you whodat? you have an opinion?

NP, S its all good.

mufinman · Jun 4, 2016

krunchbubble said:
They look great! Thats exactly how they are supposed to look...

Take a pic in 10 days....

Strip again the day you put em into flower and around week 3, do the same stripping....

This is the kat who taught my how to strip plants correctly...
https://www.instagram.com/p/BE4ArV0teai/?taken-by=miami.mango

now your killing me KB.. 3 times!? I used to do it only at week 3 of bloom and am pullin a Christopher Columbus here and sailing out to the unknown of defoliation (to me). Hey, I see youre looking for a job, is the rest of the MJ world up to speed with this type defoliation?

who dat is · Jun 4, 2016

mufinman said:
how did it work out for you whodat? you have an opinion?

NP, S its all good.

Being completely honest, I think it's bullshit. I will never defoliate to such an extent ever again but will instead opt for the systematic removal with at least a week in between to give the plant time to adjust. Also, this helps stagger the work out so it's not such a daunting task of removing everything in one setting. :yes:

stoned-trout · Jun 4, 2016

you can take off all you want but at some point all your doing is setting the plant back...I take off big fans first then, next size smaller leaves and then I quit fucking with my females and let them do their thing...yeehaw..I would never defoliate that much but that me..maybe do a comparison one time with no defol,partial and radical like you done....I have in my gardens long ago...radical slows my cycle indoors ,,, makes me need to increase veg time...

MrBungle · Jun 4, 2016

I agree with Trout... I used to defoliate a lot when I first started.. "if its ugly make it go away" and the plant would always bounce back eventually, but over the years maybe it was just me getting sedentary in how i did things.. but i cut back less, and as I got better at growing I had less leaves that were ugly and had to go away, so I stopped defoliating as much... and my yield went up...

anyways enough about me... I'd like to see what happens with this much defoliation... if that instagram link is what it looks like, then you might be on to something.. but 2 side by side pics doesn't prove anything to me.. I need to see the plants through the process...

Carry on brave one

who dat is · Jun 4, 2016

MrBungle said:
I agree with Trout... I used to defoliate a lot when I first started.. "if its ugly make it go away" and the plant would always bounce back eventually, but over the years maybe it was just me getting sedentary in how i did things.. but i cut back less, and as I got better at growing I had less leaves that were ugly and had to go away, so I stopped defoliating as much... and my yield went up...

anyways enough about me... I'd like to see what happens with this much defoliation... if that instagram link is what it looks like, then you might be on to something.. but 2 side by side pics doesn't prove anything to me.. I need to see the plants through the process...

Carry on brave one

Yeah, I'd rather see a timelapse video of that picture. I have a hard time believing that it works like that. When I did it to my test plant it was so pissed and didn't yield shit.

stoned-trout · Jun 4, 2016

if it sets me back 3 weeks or so I loose yield over time so I don't care what the end is unless it was absolutely amazing and made up for the loss.....but alas in my gardens them radical plants were a waste of time...yeehaw..my cycle requires between 45 and 60 days and doing radical would screw it up....but hey its good to play and learn

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