Defoliation: Hi-Yield Technique?

[bs0]

hey bso! what is the sound of one hand clapping? you are wasting your time, buddy!

the folks who don't try it themselves will never know what happens to the plant.

I'm more interested in the people who have not had success, I really would like to help them (and myself) understand what went awry. Defol is a fickle beast, in that no two people seem to do it the same and no two plants seem to respond in the exact same manner.

Like you, you said you can defol @ the beginning of 12/12... I've never been able to take many leaves from a plant at the beginning of 12/12 without negative effects. My plants start about 18", where I imagine yours start larger. So from seemingly the same 'technique' we achieve different results. My plants don't become tightly packed until after the stretch, perhaps yours are tightly packed from the beginning? Larger plants are also naturally more resilient.

Likewise, I think I know how and why this method works, but I could be wrong.

I have a list of theories of what is going on...

1) Light penetration increased leading to increased lower bud growth
2) Root-mass and vegetative mass become unbalanced with removal of leaves leading to the plant trying to balance the two by growing the only parts that are still growable: buds.
3) Increased airflow allows for stronger branches which in turn are able to transmit more nutrients to the buds for more effective growth
4) Maintaining a non-productive leaf (one fully shaded) could feasibly consume more energy than it produces. Thus addition by subtraction.
5) ????

Any of my above theories could be either right or wrong. I simply do not know, but I would like to.

Curious observations:
My defol plants consume less nutrients than they used to pre-defol.

My defol plants seem to respirate less and I have noticed slightly slower times for my dehueys to fill up.

My defol plants, once I have their tolerances for leaf removal understood, seem to finish a week or more faster. I really don't get this one.

So what I mean after this rambling is: I know that what I am doing works. I just don't know exactly WHY it works. So I'll keep asking questions

 

[Budley Doright]

thank you! no one can bring me down. i'm too busy digging the scene and having a good time spending my defoliating money on expensive toys and dinners with my beautiful wife.

did i mention i'm buying land and building a house? i figure with my defoliating money i should do a little long term investing now that i can afford it.

lmfao!

take care, bro! i've been planning on giving your beans a try. you've got some neat looking stuff.

This all sounds great...

however we also know you chnged ferts too....

thats like 2 variables me thinks.....



So which do you think it was most....


the new jack peters hydro ferts or the defoliation???

 

[Yes4Prop215]

i dont understand why some people think defoliation is so bad...just do it in stages, i usually just remove 1 or 2 fan leaves out of each 4 leaf segment. whenever i see a fan leaf covering other bud sites, its clipped. i dont chop more than 4-5 fan leafs each clipping. it helps out ALOT especially with being able to cram more plants together...i used to waste so much space to fan leaves bumping into eachother...now they fit much more nicely used to only fit 12 per tray now its 16. plants dont seem to mind at all!

 

[delta9nxs]

This all sounds great...

however we also know you chnged ferts too....

thats like 2 variables me thinks.....



So which do you think it was most....


the new jack peters hydro ferts or the defoliation???

this was your problem previously. you don't do your homework.

in response to your question i'll ask you one. when did i begin using the jack's program and when did i begin defoliating? you don't know, do you? all you know is that i started both sometime in the last year. you have 10 minutes to respond with the correct answer.

again, i run a plant a week and i know very fast if something is working or not.

besides all that, the ten week run i described in the earlier post, 5 untouched and 5 defoliated, were all done with jack's. consecutive plants with no changes.

 

[Budley Doright]

NO I cant tell you for sure but Im betting you can....


I just wanted to hear what you had to say about it....


I think you are doing an excellent grow...


I defolitated my plants about 2 weeks ago and will again this weekend....


No science just playin.....


By the way.....your thread is pretty much a mess and takes a major effort to get through it...


YOu would be doing the community a big favor by starting again with what you are actually doing....


jmo....

 

[Budley Doright]

before utilizing it my largest plant was around 12.5 oz's. average about 8-10 oz's.



Here is one of your comments....


Ive read pretty much all of your thread in peices....


but I dont recall you having any plant on jacks like 8 oz....


Can you tell me in 10 minutes or less where I can find that???


jk.....

 

[delta9nxs]

Quotes by Bso

“I'm more interested in the people who have not had success, I really would like to help them (and myself) understand what went awry. Defol is a fickle beast, in that no two people seem to do it the same and no two plants seem to respond in the exact same manner.”


yes, at this point it is more of an artisanal technique in that you can't take all the variables and apply them universally in all situations. You can't write an instruction manual on the technique that a new grower can pick up and execute properly on their first attempt.


“Like you, you said you can defol @ the beginning of 12/12... I've never been able to take many leaves from a plant at the beginning of 12/12 without negative effects. My plants start about 18", where I imagine yours start larger. So from seemingly the same 'technique' we achieve different results. My plants don't become tightly packed until after the stretch, perhaps yours are tightly packed from the beginning? Larger plants are also naturally more resilient.”


first I did a series at end of stretch, then a series done at onset of 12/12 and then again at end of stretch, and now i'm 8 plants/weeks into beginning early in veg as k33ftr33z does.

The first two approaches both yielded well. I just put my first plant DF'ed in veg into flower 6 days ago. About 8 weeks to go to get the verdict on it.

I don't know about the degree of “packing” but my plants are naturally bush like with dense foliage. I also run intense lighting at close range. I very well may have an atypical responder.

I am amazed at the speed with which they re-leaf. I do think large plants are tougher.


“Likewise, I think I know how and why this method works, but I could be wrong.

I have a list of theories of what is going on...

1) Light penetration increased leading to increased lower bud growth
2) Root-mass and vegetative mass become unbalanced with removal of leaves leading to the plant trying to balance the two by growing the only parts that are still growable: buds.
3) Increased airflow allows for stronger branches which in turn are able to transmit more nutrients to the buds for more effective growth
4) Maintaining a non-productive leaf (one fully shaded) could feasibly consume more energy than it produces. Thus addition by subtraction.
5) ???? “


I agree on the light penetration but also feel strong hormonal changes are happening. More on that later.

Agree too on the unbalancing and this is also linked to the hormonal response.

My reading on senescence indicates that individual leaf production slows way down at full expansion. I think that in the wild it then becomes a food bank for flower. As we continue feeding while cultivating this is not so important for us anymore.

Remember earlier in the thread you confirmed my suspicions that root growth also slows down at end of stretch.


“Any of my above theories could be either right or wrong. I simply do not know, but I would like to.

Curious observations:
My defol plants consume less nutrients than they used to pre-defol.

My defol plants seem to respirate less and I have noticed slightly slower times for my dehueys to fill up.

My defol plants, once I have their tolerances for leaf removal understood, seem to finish a week or more faster. I really don't get this one.

So what I mean after this rambling is: I know that what I am doing works. I just don't know exactly WHY it works. So I'll keep asking questions “


my plants consume less nutes and water but only slightly.

My humidity also dropped. 7-8%

Mine are finishing earlier which is the most inexplicable thing. Yes, that's right, you disbelievers, earlier and bigger.

Later on, d9

 

[Boerman]

I and many others have not seen one ounce of documented success in the whole 126 pages of this thread. What we have seen is evidence contradicting the claim that defoliation inceases yeild provided by the very people that claim it works. How ironic..

I think the word you were looking for is "moronic", not "ironic". Nice of you to offer the confession, though. lol...can't see the forest for the trees.

 

[Boerman]

I claim I decreased yields because I defoliated.

Sucks for me, right?

I believe you. I believe that you could screw up LST, SOG, SCROG, lollypoping and any other method people use to improve yield and/or quality. But that doesn't mean that they don't work. It just means that you couldn't make it work even though many others have. Maybe if you spent as much time trying to figure out where you went wrong as you spend trashing this method, maybe you could improve your yields, too. The fact that you can't do something doesn't mean that nobody else can do it either.

 

[delta9nxs]

Burnt rope

You don't pay attention either. In this thread about defoliating the following statement by me, ”besides all that, the ten week run i described in the earlier post, 5 untouched and 5 defoliated, were all done with jack's. consecutive plants with no changes.”,makes all of your remarks and questions thus far pertaining to defoliation irrelevant.

This conversation is not about fertilizer regimes. But I will point out once more that all of the plants in the above mentioned run were run with jack's. I think that effectively eliminates jack's from the discussion here.

Quote by you
“By the way.....your thread is pretty much a mess and takes a major effort to get through it...
YOu would be doing the community a big favor by starting again with what you are actually doing....”


editing to add: "Reading, A Major Effort", an extremely short story by Burnt Rope. maybe just a pamphlet? a paragraph or two?


irrelevant in this thread. But I am sorry that it is a “major” effort for you. Sometimes you have to actually work for your information.

 

[bs0]

My camera is horseshit but here is the rack that is closest to completion... only 1 week or so to go.

There are 4 plants in there, and I don't know how evident it is but that pile is nothing but colas (no fan leaves). In addition to removing essentially all of the fan leaves I've done a fair bit of training (tons of twisty ties). I think this will be my best one yet, if it's less than 24 zips (under a 600w) I will be dumbfounded. Also for reference the rack is 4' deep into the image. Removing the fan leaves has obviously harmed the plant and made it small.

Plant in the image is rez's CDxCD-D. What is amazing to me is that this rack was shocked when I transplanted because my dumb-ass thought I could transplant from 75*-76* to 83*-85* and I shocked the plants. Yes, it could have been bigger. There is always next time, there's always something new to learn.

*edit*
I did no training during veg outside of topping once. I do all my training during the stretch.

 

[delta9nxs]

My camera is horseshit but here is the rack that is closest to completion... only 1 week or so to go.

There are 4 plants in there, and I don't know how evident it is but that pile is nothing but colas (no fan leaves). In addition to removing essentially all of the fan leaves I've done a fair bit of training (tons of twisty ties). I think this will be my best one yet, if it's less than 24 zips (under a 600w) I will be dumbfounded. Also for reference the rack is 4' deep into the image. Removing the fan leaves has obviously harmed the plant and made it small.

Plant in the image is rez's CDxCD-D. What is amazing to me is that this rack was shocked when I transplanted because my dumb-ass thought I could transplant from 75*-76* to 83*-85* and I shocked the plants. Yes, it could have been bigger. There is always next time, there's always something new to learn.

*edit*
I did no training during veg outside of topping once. I do all my training during the stretch.

lo siento mucho! i'm very sorry but isn't it obvious where you screwed up?

if you had not DF'ed you would have gotten twice as much!

honestly, i don't see any more room for bud. nice job.

 

[stickykool]

Wow this is an extremely long thread for only to be going about 5 months lol.....

But I'm gonna have to give it a try and see what happens. Makes sense to me so I'm gonna see how is goes.

 

[Blunt_69]

Its a bonsai technique for "hi yeild"
In theory it should work on all sized grows because if it works it works. You may just have to add an extra month or two the grow time if that makes sense?

.... not really at all actually....

This method gives me more equal sized buds, more dense further down, with zero waste. More light to more bud sites = more bud.
Like I said before, if you have a ton of space with huge ceilings and 1000 watt lights everywhere...this might not be your thing. For people in smaller spaces, where light penetration is the key to an increase in yield...it works well

umm.. dude. i grow in a 5X7X8 space.. that's smaller then most tents and a little bit larger then an average closet. You got it right BANG on, it's all about light penetration.!!. Its also what i call production-per-limb. or ppl for short.ppl = growing massive buds in a limited space to increase overall yields... I have been perfecting this style with a 1000w hps air-cooled.its a wonderful thing.lol.

Everything your talking about maximizing yield in small spaces... is well....> what i do. Ive been doing it for years now..

....When you dont grow the lower shit at all, instead of trying to open it up by removing fan.. but deleting it entirely, more production goes into the top growth(ie where light penetrates best).. i am a fairly agressive pruner myself. I take alot of lower shoots, multiple times through veg and flower.i shape plants for sure, but not leaves. I delete all the shit growth. When your dealing with multiple top grows (ie branches, true bonsi branches) you don't have alot of fan leaf period, only whats left on your chosen shoots.

 

[huntingbb]

Well, after reading the recent developments on this thread i'm going to put up a few pics as an illustration of what defoliation has done for me.

None of these are “side by sides” as I don't do unit grows.

I harvest a plant a week, perpetual style.

So I can show pics of plants that have been run the same exact way except for defoliation.

I grow small trees with good lighting so you can't call this a bonsai technique.

Pictures, whether they are of side by side plants or of consecutive plants or plants that were grown weeks apart, cannot show true weight. There is no one that can tell the actual weight of a plant by looking at it.

You can just provide relative size indicators and allow the viewer to make their own decisions. And all you can do is report weight.

You can use my 5 gallon buckets as relative indicators if you like. Or perhaps a yardstick in the foliage. Or maybe put several plants in front of a 36” wide door.

I think you all will agree that these things I have mentioned are acceptable relative indicators.

In addition to that I keep accurate weight records expressly so that I can track the differences my changes make.

So I can show you a few plants and tell you how much they weighed. And that's all I can really do as this is a pot site and it is still illegal in most places.

But this still meets the scientific criteria of qualifying as empirical data. This is defined as data that has been gained from measurement and/or observation. Either measurement or observation alone are acceptable for presentation.

I have measured and observed very carefully.

All you real scientists out there know that in the scientific world one party makes claims and puts up evidence and arguments and then other, interested parties who may want to prove or disprove something try parallel or similar experiments in an attempt to replicate results to satisfy themselves.

Why should the world of cannabis be any different?

If you want to prove or disprove this try it for yourselves. It is the only way to really know.

Meanwhile here are a few pics.

This first series has been put up on this thread before but seems to have been forgotten or purposefully ignored.

In this post you see the same plant. It was vegged 8 weeks without defoliation. Then flowered to the end of stretch without defoliation.

At that point I radically defoliated the plant by removing every fan leaf that had a stem. I left single stemless leaves growing out of bud sites. All re-leafing you see in the final series of photos occurred after defoliation.

So, two pics before DF'ing, two pics after, and four pics just before cutting and trimming.

The plant was dried to the point where large bud stems snap.

It weighed 18.38 oz's dry.

It was and still is the largest single plant i've ever grown.

This is a reprint of an earlier post showing some numbers;






k33ftr33z and lifeless, thanks for the compliments on the monster!

i just weighed last weeks plant and it only went 15.80. i guess i screwed up somewhere.

so my last five consecutive defoliated plants went 11.96, 12.35, 14.74, 18.38, and 15.80 for a total of 73.23 or an average of 14.65 each.

my last 5 plants before defoliation averaged 10.49, or 52.45 total oz's.

a total difference of 20.78 or 4.16 zips per plant.

i have been doing a series of changes over the last year to drive up yield and this one, defoliating, has made the largest difference.

at this point i'll stop posting pics and weight here as i think i have proven this technique.

thanks k33ftr33z!
__________________
Passive Plant Killer

these figures are accurate!

Since the 8th of august I have not had a plant under 14 oz's. Some were over 16 oz's. I would say i'm averaging around 15.5 oz's per plant now with defoliating.

Sincerely, delta9nxs

...

hey delta, to go with your defol and flowering would you mind stating for the record your total veg time and how many sharing what wattage? 6 under a 1k right? Just one per week period or so?

 

[VerdantGreen]

does anyone measure their grams per watt?

if so i would be interested to hear the gpw for the same cuts with and without defol.

pretty epic thread now

VG

 

[stoney419]

Well I've gave this leaf plucking a shot I plucked every big leaf I could find first at 2 weeks in veg on my under current XL8 and then at 4 weeks and then fliped them and let me tell you they blew up every bit of 3 ft a round now I just started week 3 of flower and took every leaf of exept the little ones on the bud stems then I got carried away and attacked 2 sog tables out of 4 just starting week 4 of flower so I'll see what happens but let me tell ya they look naked after wards I'm nerves I hope it works we will know in about 5 weeks I'll post some pics of the massacre later today so stay tuned

 

[VerdantGreen]

i see there has been discussion about grey mold / botrytis

Botrytis needs a food source as it seeks to invade plants . Nutrients leaking from wounded plant parts or from dying tissue such as old leaves provide such nutrients.

VG

 

[Budley Doright]

Burnt rope

You don't pay attention either. In this thread about defoliating the following statement by me, ”besides all that, the ten week run i described in the earlier post, 5 untouched and 5 defoliated, were all done with jack's. consecutive plants with no changes.”,makes all of your remarks and questions thus far pertaining to defoliation irrelevant.

This conversation is not about fertilizer regimes. But I will point out once more that all of the plants in the above mentioned run were run with jack's. I think that effectively eliminates jack's from the discussion here.

Quote by you
“By the way.....your thread is pretty much a mess and takes a major effort to get through it...
YOu would be doing the community a big favor by starting again with what you are actually doing....”


editing to add: "Reading, A Major Effort", an extremely short story by Burnt Rope. maybe just a pamphlet? a paragraph or two?


irrelevant in this thread. But I am sorry that it is a “major” effort for you. Sometimes you have to actually work for your information.

Im not sure why you are being so mean to me....

I just pointed out that you seemed to underestimate how much your jacks fertilized plants weighed....

You keep saying Im not paying attention.... the higher numbers look right to me....

But your comments about comparing how much your jacks non defol vs jacks and defol is simply bad science....


really bad....

Along the way you made another change which imo was bigger than jacks and bigger than defol.....

thats top feeding....

I have little doubt thats the the biggest variable in your improvements in yield and you dont even mention it here....


for the record.... and please do answer....


how much did your first top fed all the way plant weigh.....

Dont be mad..... I love science too.....

Fabulous grow by the way.....


Just an observation..... your last plant that wieghed in less


vs the monster just before.....



you might look at your methods of defoliation between those 2 plants for an answer....
Im willing to bet they were done differently.....




peace......


Just for the record..... I was a mentor on og and Im no idiot.....


However I feel I have been treated pretty shoddily by delta..... Im not sure why that is.....

 

[Budley Doright]

By the way....delta you did a nice job showing the effect of defoliation using jacks...

6 plants jacks no defol then 6 plants defoliated....


great stuff.....


If you could do the same thing with top fed vs not top fed I think it will be telling....

last 6 plants before any top feeding vs your first 6 top fed all the way thru.....


What is nice about deltas system that makes it like a lab is the fact he uses the same clone...