Pruning after flipping to flower

bomber12

Active Member
Hi all, so recently I flipped my plant to 12/12 it’s got white hairs so it’s a female thank god as I didn’t know, but I have a lot of large fan leaves which are shading lower bud sites, can I trim these off so I can get more light to the bottom ?
 

twentyeight.threefive

Well-Known Member
Hi all, so recently I flipped my plant to 12/12 it’s got white hairs so it’s a female thank god as I didn’t know, but I have a lot of large fan leaves which are shading lower bud sites, can I trim these off so I can get more light to the bottom ?
Unless you have so much foliage that it's restricting airflow I'd probably leave it. Pics?
 

bomber12

Active Member
Photo don’t do justice for my lightning I currently have 2 led uv growlights on top and then a floodlight on side to get the undergrowth but I feel that it’s not really making much difference I’m only 2 weeks into flower
 

bomber12

Active Member
I put the plant into flower at 19inch not expecting a great deal off it don’t even know what to expect as first grow, using bloom nutrients which are used every 3rd water fan on and 2 led uv growlights what do u think it would produce ?
 

Star Dog

Well-Known Member
It doesn't seem logical taking away a big leaf to expose a small one, leaf area is what counts for plant food production.
 

Hobbes

Well-Known Member
Bomber I completely defoliate on days 1 and 21 of flower. I find that these plants produce more than undefoliated plants.

There's three thoughts on why this works:

1. More direct light on the buds.
2. More airflow
3. Plant response to loosing so many leaves

I don't think it's #2 because we'd all be running fans on our plants for airflow and higher yields.

Check out my journal linked below this thread, on pages 3 & 4 there's defoliation.

.
 

bomber12

Active Member
Bomber I completely defoliate on days 1 and 21 of flower. I find that these plants produce more than undefoliated plants.

There's three thoughts on why this works:

1. More direct light on the buds.
2. More airflow
3. Plant response to loosing so many leaves

I don't think it's #2 because we'd all be running fans on our plants for airflow and higher yields.

Check out my journal linked below this thread, on pages 3 & 4 there's defoliation.

.
Hi there thank you for the reply, don’t see no link?
 

lusidghost

Well-Known Member
It doesn't seem logical taking away a big leaf to expose a small one, leaf area is what counts for plant food production.
From what I can tell the fan leaves are for growth in vegetation and possibly storing water in flower. They use the large fan leaves to push the small plant into a mature size as fast as possible. Once you remove them they never grow back as big.
 

A.k.a

Well-Known Member
It seems obvious that light hitting the bud is important since all the bottom stuff stays underdeveloped.

if it was just about light hitting fans then the whole thing would develop evenly right?
 

mudballs

Well-Known Member
yes remove the leaves that block tops if you want...try not to over do it...every day i have to pluck off maybe one or two leaves cuz they're laying right on top of another budding top. depends on size of plant but yes go ahead
 

Star Dog

Well-Known Member
This bud developed without ever being in direct light.
Also I can go just now and take photos of well formed buds that are under leafs.
_20210409_133617.JPG
Here's another that only the top seen light.
_20210804_165127.JPG
I see buds as a by product of leafs.
 
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