Aggressive "Defoliation" Pruning Technique Test

So an RIU friend sends me these links dealing with increasing yields and aftter reading this link....,

http://tehbosh.blogspot.com/2010/06/defoliation-high-yielding-pruning.html

I decide its time to put it to the test as agronomicaly speaking it makes perfect sence to me and besides, it gives me one more thing to do while I'm watching plants grow.

So I decide, since I have a small grow going right now, to do two varieties with two diffrent pots. Both tests have clones that were approximately the same length of cuttings, taken on the same day, and treated the same all the way to this point.

My first variety I decided on was good ol Purple Erkle..., definate Indica



The Second variety, definate Sativa, Tatanka



I placed a wooden lathe in on of each variety selected by the roll of a die with the lathe being the vict... er I mean Test plant that will recieve the Aggressive defoliation.

So far, the only scissors the plants have seen is that just today they were topped with the FIM technique, another little bit of info from the same friend. Anyrate I'll be cutting and posting as it happens. I think its gonna be interesting.

Interesting...... I like it. Subbed.

I'd expect aggressive defoliation to not do as well. Subscribed to see how it pans out.

The sativa probably won't care for it, but I expect the Indica to flourish under it. Especially after you FIM, in 4-5 days from the initial cut, start looking for lower branches to form. When they do, you'll see new growth tips, make sure no fan leaves are blocking their light. You can cut the leaf tips off and leave the meat of the leaf if that is enough. I remove leaves and support it, but if I can just cut tips to open up light, I do.

subbed of course. I expect to see UB and BT in here in no time as well.... and Cannon, and Livingwell and 420God, to name a few..

Serapis -

You rang?

I feel a storm brewing.

Interesting take on the sativa. Running a test myself 4 from indica to sativa in variouse mixes.
Sativa started slow,, but now doing better than the all indica! Shocked the crap out of me. Not as expected.
They do have different growth agendas though.

Subbed for the conversations.

SimplySmoking -
YES, yes, yes. Do it!

Should lst one of each as well, too see which is truly best

That would be great if this was a LST test, but it's not. Since LST and defoliation aren't related, let's keep LST in another thread...

TheLastWood said:

Should lst one of each as well, too see which is truly best

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Thx for subscribing all and I'll keep up on the updates. Special hey to YoungMoola there too.. My RIU friend that turned me onto the whole thing...

Leothwyn said:

I'd expect aggressive defoliation to not do as well. Subscribed to see how it pans out.

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I dont know Leo..., my background has a degree in agronomy and alot of crops, potatoes for instance, actually increase yield with aggressive pruning.., be interesting.., in theory it should actually do better than the non defoliated.., at least thats the way my score card is leaning... And I guess I've always been a believer to that to some degree though ussually wait til later to do the defoliation.., I have a 48" Purple Buddha with quarter size buds forming that I just got brutal with..., looks horrid lol

Serapis said:

The sativa probably won't care for it, but I expect the Indica to flourish under it. Especially after you FIM, in 4-5 days from the initial cut, start looking for lower branches to form. When they do, you'll see new growth tips, make sure no fan leaves are blocking their light. You can cut the leaf tips off and leave the meat of the leaf if that is enough. I remove leaves and support it, but if I can just cut tips to open up light, I do.

subbed of course. I expect to see UB and BT in here in no time as well.... and Cannon, and Livingwell and 420God, to name a few..

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Sounds like the voice of experience speaking Serapis.. you play with this a bit also ?

Nothing like a little controversy. Subbed!

id put my money on a lesser yeild. experiments are always great tho.

subbed for sure... cant wait to see all the updates and read the convo... should get real interesting.

I'll definitely watch your thread as I think defoliation, when done well, is a useful tool for growing indoors.

Hmmm.. I agree with serapis about the sativa not liking it as well. Maybe if the pruning is started early enough it will adapt to the torture, through spread of auxins, but I wonder how. That will be interesting. Do auxins only affect new growth or would pulling enough leaves cause a redirection of growth hormones?

I hardly think it could be beneficial to strip a sativa of the few fan leaves it has, but as long as you leave some... well I just don't know... will be an awesome experiment...

Are you planning on plucking all fan leaves? Or only the ones that seem to be blocking light? In probability most will be blocking at least some light...

Well keep us updated! Subd

lol Welcome to all the new sub's. I agree gonna be interesting to say the least.

Unfortunately my first update is an oops.. on my part..., Good News is.., its nothing that cant be corrected. What I did was FIM top the 2 Tatanka plants the day I started this test. Two days later, You can definately see the first FIM was coming on strong with split tips emerging from the cut site. The other plant, however, showed the brown bruises from the scisors with virtually no new growth as can be seen in the pictures below.




FIM WORKED DIDN'T WORK





Long and the short of it..., I SCREWED UP !! Not fixin to apologize because this whole bit, growing, is a learning thing if you dare to.

Now at this point I'm thinking take this side of the test and turn it into a FIM test..., But then, I decide that I can still salvage these plants for this defoliation test by simply doing a simple, standard, topping and cut the entire growth tip off of both plants and keep on keepin on as both plants should still remain relatively the same that way.



Tomorrow I'm going to do the first defoliation on the 2 test subjects so after reading some of the input here I'm sure I have people sub'd that can offer me advice on the defpoliation. One thing that I fear is that I may not be aggressive enough on the plants so please feel free to offer insight as you see em

Frig! you missed?
Gets better w/ experience,,, but I still "miss" from time to time too. Par for the course I guess.
Could always top them all for a consistant test,, but I don't really see a need for it.

How long you planning on flowering?
Defoliating can really change how a plant grows as far as heigth and spread.
Also, as you already probably know by now, it can get really bushy,, quickly.
It is an excellent tool for making things fit and work together in your particular grow when needed.
As an example, I've a near 8 week vegging. Sativa, only 4-5 inches high and 8-10 spread. About 1/2 doz. clones coming off this week before the flip.
Considering how tall & lanky a sativa can get,, I like it!! But I went nuts on it too. IMO it is now in prime shape if one wanted to Mother a plant at this point. I'll be defoliating the shoots I'm planning on cloning today. That'll give them a couple days to re-coup before the seperation.

Your test subjects are looking good!

Okay, so got through the "missed" FIM trim, Thanks for the industry terminology on that too BTW Canon, so today was my first defoliation. The article said between 6" and 8" is the proper time to begin the process.

The only guiding bit of info I could use from the article, talking to others, and a little common sence applied, was to cut the leaves that are shading a growth tip. This turned out not to be so many with these small of plants I guess but upon counting leaves it turns out to be right at about 50% . The plants thus far are remaining relatively the same with the exception that the Tatanka defoliation plant got off to a bit of a better start and actually looks like its about 3 or 4 days advanced from the control plant.

Tatanka ( Plant with the lathe are the plants to be defoliated)
7"- 8" Tall
6 Tips
5 Leaves removed


* The defoliation subject has sprouted a sucker branch from beneath the soil line that I decided to give a couple of days. If the contol does not sprout one by then I will remove it since it was sprouted before the first defoliation and therefore was not an influence of the test so should be cut to keep the test starting point as much to identical as possible. If anyone feels differently please post within the next 2 days.

Purple Erkle ( Plant with the lathe are the plants to be defoliated)
5"- 6" Tall
8 Tips
11 Leaves removed
1 Leaf Tip Trimmed


So whatcha think.., agressive enough ??

Canon said:

Frig! you missed?
How long you planning on flowering?

Your test subjects are looking good!

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WEll hell Canon.., how long on flowering ?? Til its time to harvest LOL... Not sure but think maybe you were meaning veg judging by the rest of that post. If so, I normally try to go 90 days from clone in veg beffore I throw em to flower although as you say, this part of my room is not to be judged soley by calendar with the way things could take off growing so we'll have to play it by ear.., currently my room has only 7' ceilings.

SimplySmokin said:

WEll hell Canon.., how long on flowering ?? Til its time to harvest LOL... Not sure but think maybe you were meaning veg judging by the rest of that post. If so, I normally try to go 90 days from clone in veg beffore I throw em to flower although as you say, this part of my room is not to be judged soley by calendar with the way things could take off growing so we'll have to play it by ear.., currently my room has only 7' ceilings.

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Duh,, yup!. - sorry (F-ed Up!)

As for your defoliation?
Well, you're going in a different direction than me and don't want to 'taint your ambitions with suggestions that may alter your intents.

Without a plan to LST & super top/bend yours will be way different.

Will find your test interesting to follow. I've never grew a plant using only defoliation before. After yours, I just may.

Looking like you're off to a good start.