PlateausOfLeng
Member
Well, I am anything but an expert, but I turned up an interesting article on this very subject: here. It is cited in-text, but I can't find the "works cited" section to double-check the citations. The article seems to support both ideas in different areas, as seen in this selection:
the linked article. (Emphasis Added) said:The leaves at the top of a plant tend to supply the top growing shoots. The leaves at the bottom of the plant tend to supply the roots. The middle leaves can go either way as the demand changes. During flowering and fruiting, only the very bottom leaves supply the roots and the rest of the leaves try to get as much energy as possible to the flowers of fruits. For this reason, the more leaves are unshaded and in good light, the more chance the plant has of creating extra storage of energy that will ultimately go into yield (Leaf, 03.13.2002). However Jeast (03.13.02) believes that the rich green leaves emerging from the bud are a sufficient energy source of solar energy for the plant's floral development. Therefore the old fan leaves are once again rendered useless and only drain energy from the developing part of the plant (Jeast, 03.13.02). Fan leaves store mobile nutrients, these stored nutrients are essential in the later stages of flowering. When flushing a plant the fan leaves will lose their color quickly. This is because the nutrients are being mobilized to the atypical meristem (grow tip, bud site). Draining your fan leaves with a flushing period will increase floral development (Ca, 13. 03.2002). Fan leaves therefore serve as a nutrient deficiency buffer zone for the plant (Higstar, 03. 13.2002). Nutrient burn usually causes bottom leaves begin to die however DaGnome (03.15.2002) observed that if you do not remove the leaves then they will absorb damage as premature removal generally results in more leaf loss.