This experiment would be better run with an indoor grow IMO. Outdoors every leaf is getting some sun all day long. With wind they are moving around so much no one gets stuck in the shade and the plants get light from a different angle ever minute as the sun moves across the sky.
More leaves = more captured photons = more food made = faster growth and bigger yields. On paper for sure but an experiment like this should show some differences.
This is my one outside girl. A 20:1 CBD strain that was supposed to be an auto but grew as a photo and didn't start flowering until a little over a month ago on Aug. 16 I figure for a date. We've already had frost twice as I'm way up in northern Alberta tho the days have been warm and sunny half the time. Very little rain but a bit of ash from way down south or maybe from the fires in Siberia. No fires up north here to speak of.
Anyway I have a big sheet covering the top and front tonight as there is a frost warning. Little heater in there too that keeps it around 50F when it gets cold but I've left her open in front down to 33F with no ill effects. Still 41F at 10pm so the heater is off. I have a remote temp/rh sensor hanging in the centre of the plant and it hit 81F in there today even with the wind.
I've never removed a healthy leaf from her yet and very few bad ones. She's just shy of 5ft tall and I'm hoping the cutting I took a month ago starts showing reveg growth soon but it's well rooted. She is growing in the ground using a mix of various mediums the bulk of which is ProMix HP. Only watered a few times all summer and recently given a good feed high in K to get them buds busting! 4 weeks to go I figure. This is an experiment for me.
My other experiment is inside.
I just flipped my two Monkey Banana Kush plants last Friday. Yesterday I found a thrip on one of the tiny lower leaves so lollipopped both of them and took a lot of the little sucker shoots off the remaining branches. Will make it a lot easier to hunt for any remaining thrips with all that little crap gone too.
The plant on the left has been fed nothing but Greenleaf nutrients. MegaCrop 1-part for the base nutes, Big Up - 0-52-34 for it's P/K boost and have Rock Steady - 0-0-62 for a K boost later.
The one on the right is eating AN nutes. 3-part for base nutes and Big Bud - 0-15-35 with 10%S 20 aminos and citric/ascorbic acids. Had a little Bud Factor X left over so am giving it a bit of that too.
Both as close to being identical clones from the same mother as I could select from 7 and get some things in common like the medium. Both in the same mix of ProMix HP with some added biochar, lobster/crab shell and the DynoMyco for beneficial fungi and bacteria. Each will get the Carbo to support the myco and also Epsom Salts plus a vit/supplement mix of my own with Zn, Se, Fe, Vit.B1, Ascorbic acid, (Vit.C) and some citric acid. Equal amounts of all that stuff to keep the experiment on the level. So far the AN plant has done a bit better and got a bit bigger but the proof is in the final product and yield.
I consider this well lollipopped. Just did it yesterday. They are under a 600W Hortilux Super HPS and already stretching. Kept those long branches on the far right as I want to spray them with STS to get some fem pollen for making fem seeds.
Trimming out the lower stuff is a good idea tho. Most of the time I've just left it and end up with too much little popcorn to fuss with but not this time. I don't defoliate at all either. One big fan leaf can make more food for the plant than the tiny bud leaves on a dozen lower buds. Any lower buds will grow fine with shade over them but they will need light to ripen up. To that end I crop in stages by taking the big colas off and removing any upper fan leaves then letting the lower, smaller colas green up good and the trichomes get at least 50% milky before taking them off.