Over-Defoliation Technique

[jochhe1998]

Hey everyone,

So I had a go at the week 3 flower defoliation technique. For those of you who don't know this is where you remove every major fan leaf during week 3 of flower. Before you say I'm insane there are lots of people who use this method and achieve over 3+ lbs per light (look up threealigtht and garden first if you don't believe me).

My question is for those of you that have tried this strategy before and have been successful/unsuccessful (if you're just going to say plants need fan leaves for photosynthesis please refrain from commenting).

I believe my canopy might have not had enough nodes for this to work properly and I am curious about people's experiences with the process.

How did it work for you? How dense was your canopy? Would love to hear some opinions.

Before and After pics attached.

 

[oill]

Hey everyone,

So I had a go at the week 3 flower defoliation technique. For those of you who don't know this is where you remove every major fan leaf during week 3 of flower. Before you say I'm insane there are lots of people who use this method and achieve over 3+ lbs per light (look up threealigtht and garden first if you don't believe me).

My question is for those of you that have tried this strategy before and have been successful/unsuccessful (if you're just going to say plants need fan leaves for photosynthesis please refrain from commenting).

I believe my canopy might have not had enough nodes for this to work properly and I am curious about people's experiences with the process.

How did it work for you? How dense was your canopy? Would love to hear some opinions.

Before and After pics attached.

Works well on some plants... on others it has caused them to hermie.

Your plants look ok and they will recover and give you some good budsnif everything else is good.

 

[jochhe1998]

Works well on some plants... on others it has caused them to hermie.

Your plants look ok and they will recover and give you some good budsnif everything else is good.

Hey Oill,

Thanks for stopping by the thread buddy! I hope your prophecy comes true .

Have you tried this method before?

 

[FidelCa$hflow]

Is this the very beginning of week3 or closer to the end of three? Those plants look very healthy. All the same strain i presume and looks like you mainlined them... i got some many different strains and my room is more crowded. I wonder if i could get away with trying that...

 

[jochhe1998]

Is this the very beginning of week3 or closer to the end of three? Those plants look very healthy. All the same strain i presume and looks like you mainlined them... i got some many different strains and my room is more crowded. I wonder if i could get away with trying that...

This was day 19 from 12/12 switch.

 

[rkymtnman]

so how close were you to 3lbs?

 

[jochhe1998]

so how close were you to 3lbs?

Very far. this cultivar's nodes were too spaced. No CO2. I also think I did more harm than good with the defoliation in this circumstance because my canopy was not dense enough. If you're trying this technique for the first time I would recommend leaving a couple of big fan leaves on just to be safe.

 

[MidnightSun72]

I like to defoliate pretty heavily, remove an branches bottom third of the plant. And kill off any scraggly branches as well.

At 2-3 weeks in I do another defoliation take off every single inward jack and inward node. Plus anything that doesn't look like it will get big enough to carry a fat ass cola.

Then I just remove any yellowed leaves immediately and do some sensible defoliation/pruning from there (like leaves shading bud sites etc).

I get no where near 3lbs a light though. .75 to 1.5 on the high end lol.

 

[jochhe1998]

I like to defoliate pretty heavily, remove an branches bottom third of the plant. And kill off any scraggly branches as well.

At 2-3 weeks in I do another defoliation take off every single inward jack and inward node. Plus anything that doesn't look like it will get big enough to carry a fat ass cola.

Then I just remove any yellowed leaves immediately and do some sensible defoliation/pruning from there (like leaves shading bud sites etc).

I get no where near 3lbs a light though. .75 to 1.5 on the high end lol.

Do you run VPD and CO2 as well?

 

[MidnightSun72]

Do you run VPD and CO2 as well?

Those yield numbers are from a 4x8 tent. Just started flowering in a new room with CO2. So the jury is still out on how that will do for yield.

 

[jochhe1998]

Those yield numbers are from a 4x8 tent. Just started flowering in a new room with CO2. So the jury is still out on how that will do for yield.

Nice, Let me know how it goes!

 

[Hobbes]

.

I defoliate heavy (schwazee) days 1 and 21 of flower, I've been doing this for 2 years now and I find that I get better harvests.

Check out the pics in this thread:

(6) 4 strains under 1000W Black Dog LED (pics) | Rollitup

.



.



.

 

[HydoDan]

I hate the term "defoliation". I call it productive thinning! Been doing it for decades..

 

[jochhe1998]

.

I defoliate heavy (schwazee) days 1 and 21 of flower, I've been doing this for 2 years now and I find that I get better harvests.

Check out the pics in this thread:

(6) 4 strains under 1000W Black Dog LED (pics) | Rollitup

.

View attachment 4919049

.

View attachment 4919050

.

What do the end plants look like!

 

[MidnightSun72]

Everyone worries about it affecting the plants. But they fill in so fast it's almost necessary in my opinion

Day 0


Day 4


Day 10

 

[Hobbes]

What do the end plants look like!

Here's a pic from later in the thread, the leaves grow back closer to the buds. I don't know the science behind the schwazee technique but it seems to work.

.



.



.

 

[jochhe1998]

Here's a pic from later in the thread, the leaves grow back closer to the buds. I don't know the science behind the schwazee technique but it seems to work.

.

View attachment 4919634

.

View attachment 4919635

.

nice and thick

 

[jochhe1998]

Everyone worries about it affecting the plants. But they fill in so fast it's almost necessary in my opinion

Day 0
View attachment 4919603

Day 4
View attachment 4919604

Day 10
View attachment 4919605

Do you defol at 21 as well?

 

[MidnightSun72]

Do you defol at 21 as well?

Yes will probably do it earlier than that. It's a jungle in there right now. I don't like a bunch of shade in my canopy.

After the 2-3 week defol I still continue to defoliate but just leaf management on a case by case to unshade bud sites and take out inward facing jack leaves.

 

[UpstateRecGrower]

Yeah you want a thick/dense canopy for complete fan removal. Sea of green double trellis net 6" squares, ideally you'd have a branch vertically in each square.