So I recently started up my 1st grow and around day 21F I did a heavy defoliation and they seem well and healthy still but a lot of people are saying the heavy defoliation severally hurt my plants? They look perfectly okay to me? I’m a first time grower and don’t care much for yield I’d rather grow quality flower. Do they look like they have a problem at all?
Why is defoliation so controversial?
- Thread starter Hrdbdy7
- Start date
What was your reason for it? It doesn't look like you needed to. I'm generally against it as the fan leaves are what makes the most energy for your buds to grow. I only do it if I have extremely bushy plants where lots of leaves overlap and leave water on the other leaves, oor If a lot of bud sites and there leaves are in darkness from to many other leaves.
FastFreddi
Well-Known Member
Small....think of it like this.
You install solar panels on your home's roof, st everything to power the household.
Take one or a few of those panels away, less power to run the house.
Understand?
Peace.
FF
You install solar panels on your home's roof, st everything to power the household.
Take one or a few of those panels away, less power to run the house.
Understand?
Peace.
FF
I hand water in a 2x4x6 tent, I had 3 plants all pretty decent sized and the fan leaves were just too much. The heavy defoliation helped a lot with mobility around the tent with watering and its seemed like since the fan leaves are gone my humidity has been constant 55%.
Oliver Pantsoff
Well-Known Member
I strip cookie hybrids at day 18, and OG's on day 21. I then defoliate again later in flower. It's all strain specific tho...Defoliation can mess up your yields if you do it at the wrong time...
OP
OP
Cboat38
Well-Known Member
You are 100% right it depends on the plant grown.It’s good for air flow,lower bud sites get light,I defoliate all my plants at least twice and and always get above average yield.But when I first started I did a lot of experiments and defoliation is now part of my regimen. That and LST!! This was like 2 weeks ago
Hobbes
Well-Known Member
.
I defoliate (schwazze) on days 1 and 21 of flower, I started doing this about 6 grows ago.
I find the the harvest is greater with the schwazze, I've researched the cause but all I've found are theories such as better airflow, simulating a massive predator attack on the leaves and making big buds in a last ditch effort to reproduce. I haven't found anything other than educated guesses.
It also helps with airflow for powdery mildew.
.
I defoliate (schwazze) on days 1 and 21 of flower, I started doing this about 6 grows ago.
I find the the harvest is greater with the schwazze, I've researched the cause but all I've found are theories such as better airflow, simulating a massive predator attack on the leaves and making big buds in a last ditch effort to reproduce. I haven't found anything other than educated guesses.
It also helps with airflow for powdery mildew.
.
FastFreddi
Well-Known Member
Think how much more bud production would have occurred, had the plants not had to regrow those leaves...just a thought.
FF
Cboat38
Well-Known Member
You’ll see it all after I defoliate one last time
RadicalRoss
Well-Known Member
I just snatch some when I can't tuck them away to expose budsites or improve airflow. I'll usually walk away with a small handful every couple days for the first few weeks of flower. At that point it seems like they've stopped growing new fan leaves and I just let them do their thing.
Experimenting with this is on my list but it's lower priority. Girls seem happy enough right now and I have other things to tweak first.
Experimenting with this is on my list but it's lower priority. Girls seem happy enough right now and I have other things to tweak first.
Kushash
Well-Known Member
I stay away from these types of threads but this is my opinion.
If everyone was an experienced grower no one would care if someone defoliated because it works for them.
The problem is new growers who have one or two grows under their belt have not learned how to grow the plant yet and should first learn how to read the plant so the advice given to new growers who asks if they should defoliate is often wrong and then it makes it more difficult to help them when a dozen people jump in with opinions.
If everyone was an experienced grower no one would care if someone defoliated because it works for them.
The problem is new growers who have one or two grows under their belt have not learned how to grow the plant yet and should first learn how to read the plant so the advice given to new growers who asks if they should defoliate is often wrong and then it makes it more difficult to help them when a dozen people jump in with opinions.
Kassiopeija
Well-Known Member
Sir - just do this little one experiment for me - or just think about it:
Say you've got some new shoots coming from the middle of a plant that is in its transition into flowering - now take the next fanleave - and cover that shoot with it - fix it, so that no light reaches that shoot. However, clear another shoot next to it from shadow-causing leaves... then watch how both develop...!
My experience 100% has been that the shoot receiving DIRECT light will grow strong while the shadowed shoot will stay low - sometimes they hardly grow at all.
In nature the sun moves and can easily and fully outlight even the biggest Cannabis bush! But indoors... defol, selective pruning, lollipopping, schwazzing - all make sense to mitigate an indoors light's weak physical properties!
Leaves can get old & dysfunctional (google "gerontoplasts" for additional information) and then, they aren't doing anything at all anymore (which, in nature, is irrelevant since the plant is short of dying and motivated to just cannabilize itself and pump everything into the next generation...)
Kassiopeija
Well-Known Member
Also, sugar-leaves can nourish a bud's development much better than a fan-leave - esp. with Calcium, which is an ion very hard to shuffle around ("re-translocate") inside plants (as it would only antagonize Potassium) so it's heavily apoplastically/ symplastically severed/split up (by several orders of magnitude)
en.wikipedia.org
Bitter pit - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Dape Green
Well-Known Member
I think that if you have good light you will see the benefits from defoliation. If a plant is struggling to capture enough light then you will hamstring it by removing the fans.
No scientific proof or anything but it certainly seems this way for me.
No scientific proof or anything but it certainly seems this way for me.
Its controversial and cause it can make your plants hermie depending on pheno.
Its definitely beneficial for most phenos
kwigybo88
Well-Known Member
That makes next to no sense. Having the majority of fan leaves either increases overall photosynthesis or it doesnt. Low light conditions are irrelevant.
The benefits of minor, and i mean quite minor defoliation, are to do with air flow. You sacrifice overall photosynthetic output for an increase in airflow.
This should be done at the bottom third of the plant. Cutting fan leaves off top end colas is broscience and it's bogus. It comes from a misunderstanding about which parts of a flowering cultivar are responsible for the vast majority of photosynthesis. PS it's not the calyxes nor the sugar leaves.
Kassiopeija
Well-Known Member
So can you offer proof to what you've just said as you've just put a "broscience" label to someone else when, indeed, you are mixing up terms (defoliation with lollipopping).
Have you ever seen grows from noobs trying to defol from the bottom up? With only fanleaves at the tops. I've seen this and it makes m LOL. So the whole light either gets absorbed by the first order of leaves (overhelming them) or, if passing through, will just heat up the pot or soil....
Let's assume you really have a leafy plant - that has 10 levels of leaves. If I remove the top level of fanleaves - it WILL NOT result in less photosynthesis - as the light is simply absorbed by leaves of a lesser order. So if, at least, there's a closed canopy - all light will be captured by the leaves.
And it seems like a no-brainer if one outlights the whole plant - not just the top 20cm....
Dape Green
Well-Known Member
Like I said, that statement was based on observations and not science. Obviously as time went on I became a better grower and got better lights. So perhaps it’s like the ice cream vs murder conundrum lol. Bottom line is there are professional growers a lot better than myself that do some very aggressive strips in flower and are pumping out insane yields.
I’ll tAke the word of someone running 100+ light facilities over a random riu avatar that offers no proof and that’s not a shot at ya Kwigi, just my perspective.
I’ll tAke the word of someone running 100+ light facilities over a random riu avatar that offers no proof and that’s not a shot at ya Kwigi, just my perspective.