Damn, hallelujah. I'm sick of people talking about how the leaves are supposed to fall off. If you keep a plant healthy from start to finish you should only lose a couple of leaves the whole duration of the plants life. The main mistake people make is feeding some 0-50-5 food or something like that during flower. Plants need nitrogen during flower FFS.
potpimp said:
They will lose a few during the last couple or three weeks but that's due to them using up the nutrients stored in the fan leaves because they are not getting them from the soil.
Now I admit I am no master, I am still a learner most certainly. I however would like to relate my experience. It has been my experience that adding N during flowering promotes considerably greater foliage production during flowering. I prefer to push for the greatest calyx to leaf ration I can achieve not only do I believe that excess foliage contributes a "green" less smooth flavor to the final product I also really dislike having to trim large amounts of "sugar" leaves off to expose the dense core portion of the bud.
There are many reasons for this IMHO Ive heard so many complaints about "loose" buds over the years I just don't even want to hear it anymore so I trim the shit out of my weed if it is going to be publicly scrutinized. I am not worried about having the largest buds, I want the tightest most potent buds. While I accept larger buds may be achieved using a bit of N (just a tad) during flowering, however overdo it and taste and potency will suffer especially if you can taste the N in the final product.
Next I feel confident a certain amount of stress induced during flowering will increase overall potency and scent.
I theorize that any particular plant produces X amount of THC and related compounds per volume and if those buds be tighter and smaller while containing the same amount as a larger looser bud then they are going to be more potent because the same amount of thc is packed into a smaller area.
I also believe that plants collect and store nutrients in a way that nutrients can be remobilized as needed to support plant tissue in other parts of the plant a necessary. I put forward the plant knows better than we do what nutrients it wants to use in what proportions. Allowing the plant to naturally use it's own selected nutrients will create a danker weed than force feeding unnaturally high amounts of compounds that the plant is forced to use to keep itself from choking over it's food, as it where.
SO, I say stress the plant, force the plant to contribute it's own life force to the potency and density of the buds, allow it to transfer unwanted waste products into it's dying fan leaves and drop them to the ground.
You will not get the most or largest buds but you will get the sweetest, densest, dankest, most natural buds you can grow.