I really don't understand the whole issue behind pruning anyways. BT, when you take shears and cut a branch or stem, you are prunning. Topping is simply one of many pruning methods. I don't understand why you guys get so ugly in these pruning debates. You claim that anyone that cuts off leaves doesn't have any botany sense? That is plain ridiculous. Look at scrog grows.... everything beneath the screen gets removed, yet the plant produces more than if she were left alone. In fact, by growing horizontally and cutting off unecessary growth, the plant is flowing with auxin and branching like mad. Once flowering starts, we generally have removed everything that needs to go and the flowering takes place unhindered.
There is a MASSIVE difference between removing a very small amount of immature leaves at a very early stage during vegetative growth and removing many to most of them while in flower.
You can claim SCROG to be unnatural but in a way it isn't. The leave beneath the screen remain, they do not die out like mad for loss of light and they continue to perform their necessary duties. Where is is not all that unnatural is in nature at times some plant or plants or new bush will end up growing under an existing bush and much of the plant(s) or new bush will remain trapped under the bush and parts will push or work their way through. Maybe you have never seen anything like that but I have tons of woods around me and when I walk in them I see that sort of thing fairly often.
You claim that anyone that cuts off leaves doesn't have any botany sense?
No, not; "sense," knowledge or education is what we say, not; "sense," and that is true.
I routinely prune back my roses to encourage new growth.
Rose plants are perennials, cannabis plants are annuals. You are comparing apples and zebras. Also part of why they are trimmed is for the reason you said but also because if not they would become massive unruly bushes and they are in part pruned for aesthetics, for looks, they are an ornamental. That is something else that is very different from cannabis plants, cannabis plants are not ornamentals and not grown and then pruned to be pleasing to the eye.
Some of the same can be said about trees. Again, they are perennials and they are also trimmed to be pleasing to the eye. Have you ever seen a maple tree that has grown totally wild and one that was well pruned from day one? There is a night and day difference, but it is only for looks, not for the betterment of the tree regardless of what you like to believe and claim.
That is my opinion,. of which I'm free to have and share on the public forums.
I agree, and I am very happy to see that you admit that what you say is only an opinion and nothing more. What Uncle Ben and I say is backed up by scientifically proven botanical facts. That is where the difference between your opinion and what Uncle Ben and myself say is found.
I'm merely asking that we all get along and quit the name calling and Brick Top insuations that anybody removing a leaf can't grow a plant..... He might as well just come out and say it, rather than obviously alluding to it.
Now that was a total misrepresentation of what I have REPEATEDLY said. I have said over and over and over again that cannabis plants are tough rugged plants that can be abused and grown in horrible conditions and still do at least fairly well if not pretty decent. I have never said anyone that uses a growing technique that involves removing some or most or all fan leaves; "can't grow a plant." Hell, there is too much evidence to the contrary for me to ever be so foolish as to say or even imply such a thing.
But what I have said when saying the above is just because a cannabis plant is rough and tough and will stand up to abuses and tortures and can still produce well that is not in any way evidence that growing in such ways is the best way to get the most out of a cannabis plant and what someone who grows like that ends up with in the end that impresses them would have been even more impressive had they not tortured and abused their plants and removed what are in plants nearly the equivalent to being vital organs in a human.
At times I really wish sites like this had never been thought up and made. Growers would be vastly better off if they were to research actual facts, real true scientifically proven horticultural facts and not attempt to use ornamental perennials and other types of plants and trees and bushes as examples or evidence of what is best for growing cannabis plants unless it is something that is something that is scientifically accurate totally across the board about plants and bushes and trees.
Sadly opinions tend to win the day over facts on sites like this because so very few members have any education at all in horticulture. They believe that experience growing in a basement or a closet or a store room or a garage or an attic or a PC case or in a tent or in a greenhouse or a backyard trumps scientifically proven facts and will, or has, taught them everything and has taught them accurately. The thing is it doesn't.
I grew for decades without knowing anything about plants other than what experience taught me but when family members earned degrees in horticulture and grew and I pumped them for information and we opened a nursery and read their old text books and researched facts online and then applied all that to what I do I then realized that while I thought I had known it all, instead I knew squat.
Only when that happened did I learn that sites like that should be storehouses of factual information are instead universities of ignorance. Opinions, unfounded beliefs, myths, urban legends, misconceptions, half-truths, total inaccuracies, voodoo growing techniques and old hippie folklore are passed from one grower to another like an uncontrollable unstoppable virus ... all due to the lack of a true education in plants.
You said; "
I don't understand why you guys get so ugly in these pruning debates." and you also said; " I'm merely asking that we all get along"
Well I have seen far more people getting ugly on the side of removing fan leaves than those who say do not remove them. When I first joined the site almost no one other than Uncle Ben spoke out about it being wrong. Since then more people have joined in but with the large numbers of people who swear that some degree of defoliation is beneficial and the number of times people have posted pictures and then said there's your proof, now take that you ... fill in your chosen expletive ... that has far outweighed the number of times I, or Uncle Ben have merely pointed out the lack of actual factual scientifically proven plant knowledge that so many here, and on other sites like this, suffer from.
Would I like it better if everyone got along? Sure I would. But it will never happen until everyone is on the same page, on the same level, share the same factual knowledge rather than so very many relying on nothing more than opinions, unfounded beliefs, myths, urban legends, misconceptions, half-truths, total inaccuracies, voodoo growing techniques and old hippie folklore.
When that happens we will be better able to get along, well when that happens and when the misrepresentations stop, you know, things like; "and Brick Top insuations that anybody removing a leaf can't grow a plant..... He might as well just come out and say it, rather than obviously alluding to it," when I have never once said that or inferred that or insinuated that or anything close to it, even though you seem to wish for people to believe I have.
I have never said the various different methods of growing that involve some degree of plant defoliation flat out do not work. There are instances when due to situation and circumstance and what someone has to work with space/room/area-wise something like SOG might very well be the very best way for them to grow. But regardless of their results it would not mean or prove that it is the very best way for plants to grow.
You have attempted to make it sound like I have never suggested to someone any other way of growing other than natural 'bushes' or 'topped bushes,' but that is not true. There have been times when someone said what their area/space for growing is like and what lighting they would be using and I said something like SCROG or SOG might be best for their situation. But when the discussion is strictly about how plants grow best, that is a horse of a different color and you fully know my position on it and my position is based in scientifically proven facts unlike your; "opinion" that fits right in with all the unfounded beliefs, myths, urban legends, misconceptions, half-truths, total inaccuracies, voodoo growing techniques and old hippie folklore that so many here, and also on other similar sites, hold so near and dear and tragically put their faith in.
I highly doubt that more than just a small handful of members here actually know what each essential element actually does, what each individual element's actual function or functions are and their individual importance to plants, like which are needed to produce proteins and amino acids or nucleic acids, and which become cell wall components and which are components of enzymes and which activate enzymes and which are ion catalysts and how all those things factor into needless little things like fan leaves if a plant will ever have a chance to do and be all it can be.
Likely many can look at a plant or a picture of a plant that has a deficiency and name it, but that would be as far as it would go. They would not know why the deficiency caused what happened. I doubt that many here truly know the actual difference between mobile and immobile elements and what pathways they take inside of plants and how that factors into needless little things like fan leaves.
But they don't need to know such things because they learned all sorts of things that are fare more important and that are far more accurate than scientifically proven facts. They have learned opinions, unfounded beliefs, myths, urban legends, misconceptions, half-truths, total inaccuracies, voodoo growing techniques and old hippie folklore on sites like this and also in their basement or closet or store room or garage or attic or PC case or tent or greenhouse or backyard and as we all know, those all trump scientifically proven facts every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
Frankly I am to the point where I do not give a damn what anyone does no matter how absurd it is or how many people they tell to follow in their totally misguided footsteps. I have become worn down by it. Attempting to educate the ineducable has become too much for me. I have finally realized that attempting to stop and then reverse the tsunami of ignorance on this subject is as impossible as stopping and reversing both time and tide.
Your side, the side of ignorance, has won the day, but only because your side is like the Borg and resistance is futile. Your side will never give up because your side will never become educated and learn the errors of their ways.
I bow out of this subject, not only in this tread, but from now on. I, and a handful of others, have made an attempt to educate you and all those like you, but you and all those like you refuse to allow yourselves to become educated, so I will no longer waste my time attempting educate and help on this subject.
You no longer will have to read or reply to anything from me on this subject and from now on you have a totally free hand to express your; "opinion" and it will fit in perfectly with all the other unfounded beliefs, myths, urban legends, misconceptions, half-truths, total inaccuracies, voodoo growing techniques and old hippie folklore that so many here so desperately want and need to believe in because they have nothing else to rely on, nothing else to draw on, nothing else to tap into for information since people like you want scientifically proven facts to be verboten here since they prove what you preach to be utterly incorrect.
Message ends .......... have a nice day.