OK so how can u say defoliation does not happen in nature insects high winds hard rain and in nature is it raining pureblend and liquid karma root booster ever 2dayz we recreate environments best we can but we add extras so wat happened in nature really has no bearings on how my girls do in my grow room but thks anyway
Umm, yeah. You keep on believing that.
Plants are not mobile organisms. For us when it gets too hot or cold or something is about to chop our limbs off, we can get up and walk away. A plant cannot do that; a plant has to stick around and be able to tough out the conditions where ever it sprang up. If a plant loses a part of itself it will usually regenerate so long as enough foliage is left and it does this because it has to in order to survive. If the dominant meristem is damaged or severed the axillary meristems will take over; when we do this intentionally indoors we call it topping. How it actually works, for those who don't know, is the apex (top) of the dominant meristem is producing auxin, a plant hormone which inhibits the growth of those axillary shoots. Remove the apex and growth of those side shoots is enhanced; one or more of the top most shoots should take over. Of course, this undoubtedly happened outside in nature before it ever happened in anybodies grow room... and why does the plant do this? Probably because
it has to in order to survive.
The point is that topping a plant results in a definite, observable response the outcome of which is typically overwhelmingly favorable and can be predicted. Plus the phenomenon can be explained.
Plants certainly are not
asking for insects, high winds, or damage to their foliage in general. In the outdoor environment they're certainly likely to incur some abusive forces at some point and for the species as a whole it is entirely inevitable; they just have to be able to recover from such damage. I cannot explain this any other way. Indoors we're supposed to be able to give our plants more ideal conditions so they don't necessarily
have to deal with such stressors.
Why are we cutting off the big fan leaves, again, what do those things do? They are only the most efficient producers of energy on the plant, after all. But they are 'shading' some lower growth or inner side shoot? I assure you that plants do not 'see' light the same way that humans do (look up human eye anatomy and how our eyes adjust to see between light levels, it is fascinating) and light does actually pass right through the upper canopy. The upper leaves are likely utilizing the higher-energy wavelengths of light (blue) while the lower energy yellow-green wavelengths are probably used more by lower growth.
The side shoot will grow (stretch) to get more light if it wants it. Plants should be kept short\within what is reasonable for your lighting, or lower growth removed before flowering. Otherwise if somebody is so damned concerned about a leaf 'shading' a bud or a lower\side shoot, why not just move or tie it out of the way a bit?
Or why not look into some side lighting? How can a leaf be too big and why does it have to be removed? Can a plant can be too healthy, or something?
