Fan Leafs. Blockers of Light Or Energy Producers???

[Uncle Ben]

I wonder why it works for so many people if it's so wrong?

You tell me.

Kinda like America re-electing Obama - "a thousand flies on a pile of shit can't be wrong".

 

[donmagicjuan]

Well UB when I read statements like, "but on that note anyone who believes defoliation isnt beneficial dosent realize that when a leaf casts a shadow on one below it that leaf becomes useless", its makes me laugh my ass off. Yep, these guys really know their botany!. Fact is its just easier for them to believe the unbelievable rather than the scientific facts presented. Let them prune away, good for them.....

if you have shadows ur plant is too tall for the strength of the light. u have too many leaf sets for ur space and light grow a smaller plant with equal yeild or fewer plants and lst nice and wide

 

[crazyhazey]

Source?...

first hand experiences, im not the type to keep a list full of URLs to post on here but when i say something i say it because ive seen it myself. look on the internet and im sure youll find popcorn nugs(or any growth not towards the top of your plant) arent as mature as buds that are closer to the light(it make more sense a plant would focus more energy on the bud closest to its light source, its working towards getting more lumens, come on dude i dont need to give you a source for that). so since these lower, insignificant bud sites arent given the nutrients to mature(i also noticed the tops of top buds are usually the most frosty part of the plant, the first pistil always appears on the top node as well, more proof that the highest bud spots gets the most energy), they lack potency, and their calyxs arent given the chance to swell and fill with resin.
however the higher bud sites will come out more dense and potent since the calyxs were allowed to fully mature and fill with resin, increasing your yield since you dont have energy diverted to insignificant bud sites blocked by leaves. in the end, we all know buds in direct light fill out the most while popcorn nugs left in the shadows only takes energy from the plant, anyone who has grown w/o training/properly defoliating knows this. and another example why shadows arent good can be learned by growing outdoors for years, you realize spots in the shadows are a waste of time, not enough lumens for them to get a good yield. there ya go bud.

 

[stumpjumper]

if you have shadows ur plant is too tall for the strength of the light. u have too many leaf sets for ur space and light grow a smaller plant with equal yeild or fewer plants and lst nice and wide

Why the fuck would I grow a smaller plant to yield less than I would by growing a larger plant and defoliating as needed. Your logic is flawed.

 

[Shivaskunk]

Well side by side tests and comparisons along with peer review IS actually how science is done. The neat thing about science is that it is always growing and learning. Some long held hypothesis have been replaced when a better one comes along.

Having a closed mind and claiming to KNOW is what stagnates scientific discovery. Being unwilling to even experiment for yourself only proves that you are a follower with no ideas worth hearing. I dont doube that you grow good dope UB, but you are unbearably arrogant.

 

[crazyhazey]

Well side by side tests and comparisons along with peer review IS actually how science is done. The neat thing about science is that it is always growing and learning. Some long held hypothesis have been replaced when a better one comes along.

Having a closed mind and claiming to KNOW is what stagnates scientific discovery. Being unwilling to even experiment for yourself only proves that you are a follower with no ideas worth hearing. I dont doube that you grow good dope UB, but you are unbearably arrogant.

ill do a side by side next season if i got a good spot, or someone ask one of the hundreds of people on here starting new grow from clones to do it and im sure they'd accept if they got a few to spare. its not always easy to take someones word when theres so many myths about it, and some think defoliating means stripping your plant of all fan leaves except a few, but i assure you a plant defoliated and trained to fully expose all growth and by keeping all the bud sites equivalent distance away from the light you get more yield and potency due to the equal spread of nutes/energy, exposing all growth isnt exactly achievable without a bit of trimming and training(except some indica strains that have small leaves and larger node separation dont need really any trimming, however training is always beneficial if done right). and i know ub has been a bit hard headed but give him a break, everyone on this forum questions everything everyone says(and i dont blame them, this thread alone proves why you should question things), even i have to sometimes try to clarify the most obvious facts to some of the more arrogant users but some things are hammered into people heads. but we arent here to bitch at each other for not being sure of something, we want to know what is good for cannabis and what isnt, when someone tells you something different be open minded, hostility isnt necessary, smoke some bowls and relax before you make a fool out of yourself(not towards anyone directly, more or less anyone on riu that resolve arguments by acting completely ignorant).

 

[perdrick l. hapley]

You tell me.

Kinda like America re-electing Obama - "a thousand flies on a pile of shit can't be wrong".

It's as if shivaskunk took the words from my mouth. UB is so sure he and his novel writing buddies from the 60's got everything right there's no need for critical thought or testing. He knows 'what makes a plant tick,' and that's all that matters.

If you knew anything about science you'd realize you don't know as much as you think you do. You keep saying that you base what you do on 'science,' but when you won't accept empirical evidence that says defolication CAN (in the right circumstances) increase overall yeild and plant vigor you are, by definition, rejecting it. Understanding science means understanding you don't have it all figured out, buddy.

Speaking as someone who will graduate in may with a bs in biological science and international studies, fuck you. Stop masquerading as someone who understands 'botany' or 'science'. From your statements it's vividly clear to me that your political ideals are as woefully misguided as your understanding of these topics, and you aren't capable of understanding much of anything.

 

[donmagicjuan]

"look on the internet and im sure youll find popcorn nugs(or any growth not towards the top of your plant) arent as mature as buds that are closer to the light(it make more sense a plant would focus more energy on the bud closest to its light source, its working towards getting more lumens, come on dude i dont need to give you a source for that). "





plants dont use lumens lumens are seen by the human eye. u need a source and a half idiot

 

[donmagicjuan]

Why the fuck would I grow a smaller plant to yield less than I would by growing a larger plant and defoliating as needed. Your logic is flawed.

a smaller plant will get you the same yield in a quicker time period since like u say ur wasting your lower leaf sets

 

[TriPurple]

Ahhhh the question is....... how many of you foliators (non-fan leaf trimmers) FLUSH?............ I have a theory.

 

[stumpjumper]

No it wont. I didn't say I was wasting shit. I said I was turning popcorn into solid, ripe nugs. Maybe you should go back and reread, quit grasping for straws on something to argue about.

 

[Uncle Ben]

first hand experiences,.....

.....more anecdotal evidence, seeing what you want to see, seeing what you think you'd see, etc. etc.

and im sure youll find popcorn nugs(or any growth not towards the top of your plant) arent as mature as buds that are closer to the light

Look, the MAIN reason why buds "close to the light" are bulked up more versus those found at lower plant levels is due to apical dominance and timing, they are produced first. The plant will focus "its energy" on what was produced first. It's mainly a hormonal response. I'm not gonna get into light quality as I've beat that subject to death too.

I just harvested outdoor plants and I did several things, as usual - I topped to 4 main colas and come harvest time, took out the bulked fat colas and left the plants for a couple of weeks or so to bulk up the lower buds. It was mostly worthless regarding the Haze as they were more air than calyxes but worked well on the mutts (Peak19 backcrosses).

BTW, those plants got considerable shade during the day, filtered sunlight from to bottom, and did just fine.

UB

 

[TriPurple]

I think it gets blown out of proportion, it's not like were saying cut off ALL fan leaves in every condition. Some people have crowded grow spaces, trimming a few fan leaves gives better light penetration & air circulation. The whole idea of indoor growing is that YOU become mother nature, think of all the other things we do to tweak our gardens.

 

[skunkd0c]

It would appear from the tone of the neanderthals on this thread, Uncle Ben being the prime culprit

not only will leaving too many leaves on your plants whilst flowering spoil the potential of the overall yield and cola quality
lack of defoliation / correct canopy management would also seem to affect human mood

why are these leaf lovers such miserable cunts ?
while the rest of us enjoy our well trained plants

it is futile attempting to convince these imbeciles of their ignorance, they do not possess the strength to admit they were wrong
let them smoke hay, enlightenment is beyond their grasp
some folk are simply unable to think outside the prison box they have placed themselves in

peace

 

[Uncle Ben]

You keep saying that you base what you do on 'science,' but when you won't accept empirical evidence

You mean "anecdotal evidence", which is based on subjective feelings, thoughts. Empirical evidence is based on careful field/indoor studies using a control group and replicated at least 3 times in perhaps several geographical areas. Feel free to give me a link or a book title/author regarding your "empirical evidence". IOW, prove it.



Another MJ nerd that needs to read Marijuana Botany. Here, I'll repeat it what has been said 15 years ago when we had this boring discussion (in the first internet forum).

Nature has provided for the most efficient (and productive) food producing plant parts you can have on cannabis - fan leaves. Notice the structure - they are large with long petioles to enable them to reach out from the rest of the plant to collect as much solar energy as possible for the production of simple and complex sugars. Do not remove the very unit that provides food for the production of the flowers. In fact, if you have ever seen my pics, you see that I strive to enhance foliar production going into flowering as much as possible. I will post a Peak19 plant that is only 2 weeks old from germ to support my position - notice the wine bottle on the right as a point of size reference. Check out the heavy foliage - they get plenty of N too.

Uncle Ben


and......

In his book "marijuana botany" Robert Connell Clarke states that:

Leafing is one of the most misunderstood techniques of drug cannabis cultivation.

He states that there are 3 common beliefs:

1.) large shade leaves draw energy from the flowering plant and by removing the large fan leaves
surplus energy will be available and larger floral clusters will be formed

2.) Some feel that the inhibitors of flowering , synthesized in the fan leaves during the long
noninductive days of summer, may be stored in the older leaves that were formed during the
noninductive photoperiod. Possibly, if these inhibitor-laden leaves are removed, the plant will
proceed to flower more quickly when the shorter days of fall trigger flowering

3.) Large fan leaves shade the inner portions of the plant, and small, atrophied, interior floral clusters
may begin to develop if they receive more light.

Few, if any, of the theories behind leafing have any validity.

The large fan leaves have a definite function in the growth and development of cannabis. Large leaves serve as photosynthetic factories for the production of sugars and other necessary growth substances.They do create shade, but at the same time thay are collecting valuable solar energy and producing foods that will be used during the floral development of the plant.

premature removal of the fan leaves may cause stunting because the potential for photosynthesis is reduced.

Most cannabis plants begin to lose their larger leaves when they enter the flowering stage and this trend continues on until senescence (death of the plant). He also states that removing large amounts of fan leaves will also interfere with the metabolic balance of the plant. Leaf removal may also cause SEX REVERSAL resulting from a metabolic imbalance

he goes on to say that cannabis grows largest when provided with plentiful nutrients, sunlight, and water, and left alone to grow and mature naturally. It must be remembered that any alteration of the natural life cycle of cannabis will affect productivity.

This book has served me very well in my 12+ years of growing--I would have to side with RC on this one--those sunleaves are there for a reason--they dont grow just for show--leave them on there and let that plant grow naturally

Good Luck

Thunderbunny

that says defolication CAN (in the right circumstances) increase overall yeild and plant vigor you are, by definition, rejecting it. Understanding science means understanding you don't have it all figured out, buddy.

Exactly how does the increases in yields and plant vigor happen as you remove the very part that produces them? Dat's some mighty fine voodoo magic ya got thar, "buddy".

Speaking as someone who will graduate in may with a bs in biological science and international studies, fuck you.

That's what I thought, hah! We got another snot nose college kid that didn't learn shit in college!

that your political ideals are as woefully misguided as your understanding of these topics, and you aren't capable of understanding much of anything.

Ahhhhhhh, and now we get into politics. OK you liberal tard, if you voted for that con man, Obama, you need your head examined.

UB

 

[perdrick l. hapley]

don't talk about plant hormones like you know anything about them. i work in a lab. i use science every day. i get paid for my knowledge, and i don't pretend to understand everything like you do.

prentending that some defoliation wouldn't occur in nature is obtuse. the plant has genetic mechanisms that respond to this. neither you, nor i, nor the scientific community in general fully understand these mechanisms. saying that a) YOU do and b) you know how manipulation of these mechanisms via defoliation will affect EVERY SINGLE GENETICALLY DISCTINCT MARIJUANA PLANT is so fucking obtuse i can't even come up with another word for it. keep spewing your nonsense.

if you knew anything about how politics worked you'd know it didn't matter who the united states elected as president. i am not liberal, nor a tard, and your haste to assume so is indicative of a larger problem in your thinking. that's all i'm going to say about that because, again, you are clearly ignorant regarding the subject.

 

[ricky6991]

Wow, this thread prob repeats itself alot lol... my post is deffinetly pointless compared to others but i can say that i WISH i could grow the plants you guys are posting... you guys should take it easy considering you are all YEARS ahead of most and grow some retarded shit an here you guys are arguing how to grow even better stuff then you guys are already getting lol... one day hopefully ill have something comparable.

Wouldnt it make a difference if your growing from seed and no topping which is nature and the fan leafs are organized and coming out to the side farther so it doesnt interfere with the one main bud that you would get compared to training which would have branchs blocking branches and leafs from each branch creating a bush that would need trimming for light to get below. If not trimming alittle when training them to grow into bushy plants then why train them, just let them grow one main cola which wont need trimming cause fan leaves stick out plenty more than the width a bud would have... but im litterally 7 days from my first every harvest. Just talking off my general understanding.

 

[ricky6991]

I can say first hand that i tried to train them into a scrog an didnt trim enough lower branches and they tiny buds cause no light but im not sure if i only topped and had 4 colas each plant and left it alone i could have bigger harvest from 4 big nugs then bunch of tiny ones. Think its all on how much training you do.

Topping to get few colas, the leafs wont block light from anything cause wont really be a bush of buds rather a bush of fan leafs. Whereas, if you train for a scrog and lollipop you could get bigger harvest so it depends what type of training your doing since we are all looking for potency and quantity. If you do a scrog and not trim all the lower stuff(lollipoping) you prob end up with a smaller harvest from popcorn buds taking away from size of colas... once you decide to train a plant your kinda defeating how mother nature wants things done so isnt this argument apples to oranges?

Example would be in a scrog, would you lollipop the plant but only cut the nodes off and leave all the bottom fan leaves below the screen? The leafs are what stores food and ive read that if leafs are green then some light is gettin to it and you want strong light for the buds, (florecants are weak and still provide enough light for leafs to do there job, the light from hid under the screen prob stronger than flor.). So why trim the fan leafs when there is enough light for them to work?

 

[crazyhazey]

.....more anecdotal evidence, seeing what you want to see, seeing what you think you'd see, etc. etc.

Look, the MAIN reason why buds "close to the light" are bulked up more versus those found at lower plant levels is due to apical dominance and timing, they are produced first. The plant will focus "its energy" on what was produced first. It's mainly a hormonal response. I'm not gonna get into light quality as I've beat that subject to death too.

I just harvested outdoor plants and I did several things, as usual - I topped to 4 main colas and come harvest time, took out the bulked fat colas and left the plants for a couple of weeks or so to bulk up the lower buds. It was mostly worthless regarding the Haze as they were more air than calyxes but worked well on the mutts (Peak19 backcrosses).

BTW, those plants got considerable shade during the day, filtered sunlight from to bottom, and did just fine.

UB

hahaha yeah i just imagined all my grows we're doing well, i grew plants in shadows and wanted to see less yield, but i guess i saw what i wanted to see when my plants yielded like 2-3x more when in direct light, not to mention the buds actually filled out a week earlier vs plants getting shadowed(this is all from a set of trainwreck x bubba clones so genetics wasnt the difference). ive been growing guerrilla for a while, if you let a bush grow too many leaves and shade out your plant you get much less yield. i shouldnt have to tell you shadows have much less lumens than direct.

and yeah to a fault your correct, it was produced first and because of that it is the highest point getting the most lumens, it put energy towards getting more energy, not just because it was the first thing to grow. you can tie a plant down and make it focus on one part of the growth that is closer to the light(or since we want to sound like botanists on here, you make it release a hormone that causes it to divert energy to a more logical point on the plant). any growth is caused by a hormonal response, that statement was pointless.

topping takes days off lateral growth not to mention it causes the plant to put out way too many leaves(some strains more than others). why not train and not stress it nearly as much, and you wont have a mess of leaves covering all of your lower buds. maybe then you could harvest all of it in one day, you know loss of any growth during any period causes stress so cutting off the top buds and leaving the bottoms isnt doing you much good especially with a haze. all that trimming would just be a pain in the ass. and plants in the shadows are just a waste, if you can get them 12-14 hours of direct light im sure you could tell the difference, all those hours of photosynthesis lost damage your yield in the long term. saying they're fine is your opinion also, you may be seeing what you wanna see

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[PJ Diaz]

I've learned from this thread that UB is far from an expert, and all of his "expert" advise should be taken with a huge grain of salt. Sorry UB, but "12+ years of growing” isn't that much. Also, to compare the sun hitting lower leaves to an indoor grow is simply retarded. Plus, Clarke's Marijuana Botany is way outdated at this point. Welcome to the 21st century Uncle Ben, where the world is no longer flat!