Defoliation - removing fan leaves for higher yield

When I see all this miss information floating around like "cut off your fan leaves for huge buds", it explains a lot to me.

It explains all these posts (much like this one) where the title is "Look at these monsters" but when you open it, all you see is a sick little runt.

Keep it up guys, it just never gets old.

Werry420 said:

i do also remove all my fan leafs but NOT till the final 2 weeks of flowering and i still get great buds

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Not as bad as some who start plucking when the plant is in vegetaion, but if one understood horticulture they'd realize what a mistake they're making. I know folks are more comfortable to go along with The Herd (same with buying crap products sold by cannabis specific vendors) than learning what makes a plant tick. With experience and research comes understanding.

Contrary to "popular belief" in cannabis forums (which I've found to be wrong 99% of the time) you should strive to keep your fan leaves in a green and healthy condition RIGHT UP TO HARVEST with your primary interest being the mass production of foliage going into the flowering response. Forget about the buds people, concentrate on the root system and foliage. If you can't or won't retain healthy foliage, you've either failed as a grower or have embraced stupid, ill founded forum advice, or, a little of both.

Now, which is it guys?

UB

Uncle Ben said:

Not as bad as some who start plucking when the plant is in vegetaion, but if one understood horticulture they'd realize what a mistake they're making. I know folks are more comfortable to go along with The Herd (same with buying crap products sold by cannabis specific vendors) than learning what makes a plant tick. With experience and research comes understanding.

Contrary to "popular belief" in cannabis forums (which I've found to be wrong 99% of the time) you should strive to keep your fan leaves in a green and healthy condition RIGHT UP TO HARVEST with your primary interest being the mass production of foliage going into the flowering response. Forget about the buds people, concentrate on the root system and foliage. If you can't or won't retain healthy foliage, you've either failed as a grower or have embraced stupid, ill founded forum advice, or, a little of both.

Now, which is it guys?

UB

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Beautiful. I also prefer colas the size of my arm.

I have experimented with various forms of mutilation (pinching, FIMming, topping, LST etc.) over the years and I found that removing fan leaves reduced the harvest significantly.
I've found that buds in the shade have far more trichs and are literally dripping with oil.
The whole idea of growing is to encourage the plant to grow to its full potential. LST and side lighting are far more effective ways of providing more light to lower branches than hacking leaves off. My Hydro Dr. told me that removing leaves diverts energy from flowering into replacing lost leaves. That may or may not be scientifically proven but it sounds good to me.

let me post this once again if it is so wrong to do y does sub himself tell us to do it? this is a copy and paste stright from the man himself
TGA Subcool Seeds Deep Purple is a strain that was created to lock down more of the Urkle dominant traits and bring out more of the musty grape taste that Urk is famous for.
Deep Purple produces a wide range of female plants and not all of them will exhibit colours at all. The ones that do however are highly sought after and several people consider their Purple Grape females among their best Indicas strains. Deep Purple can be cultivated both indoors and outdoors and flowering for cannabis seeds take between 50-60 days. Best way to grow is long veg and remove some shade leaves to allow light under. Not a huge producer or a fast growing plant but it makes up for it in taste and high quality. Deep Purple is calming, relaxing and very fun to smoke

your pictures make a nice point they look like some nice cola's

dont think i will be cutting any fan's though i just try to tie them out the way so i get the best of both methods either way without harmin my plant

Rusty Crutch said:

Beautiful. I also prefer colas the size of my arm.

I have experimented with various forms of mutilation (pinching, FIMming, topping, LST etc.) over the years and I found that removing fan leaves reduced the harvest significantly.
I've found that buds in the shade have far more trichs and are literally dripping with oil.
The whole idea of growing is to encourage the plant to grow to its full potential. LST and side lighting are far more effective ways of providing more light to lower branches than hacking leaves off. My Hydro Dr. told me that removing leaves diverts energy from flowering into replacing lost leaves. That may or may not be scientifically proven but it sounds good to me.

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The plant usually replaces that which it loses, depends on where it's at regarding its development.

Apical dominance, a hormonal response, is the reason why upper buds/colas are larger, has nothing to do with light at lower levels..... the latter being another cannabis forum fallacy parroted from one new crop of noobs to the next. Compared to the large photo collectors of healthy fan leaves, there isn't enough leaf material at bud sites to make much difference regarding production.

I had 2 peach trees this year that produced literally over 1,000 premium quality peaches and that's after I dropped hundreds (thinned while tiny). Those peaches that were totally shaded, found in the center of the canopy, were every bit as good as those exposed to sun. They were not as well colored regarding the sun's ability to increase crimson colored anthocynanins, but ever bit as juicy and sweet. The foliage on those trees was dark green and thick, very heavy which supported a HUGE crop. Same principle goes with cannabis. I hit them hard with N and water.

sven deisel said:

let me post this once again if it is so wrong to do y does sub himself tell us to do it? this is a copy and paste stright from the man himself
TGA Subcool Seeds Deep Purple is a strain that was created to lock down more of the Urkle dominant traits and bring out more of the musty grape taste that Urk is famous for.
Deep Purple produces a wide range of female plants and not all of them will exhibit colours at all. The ones that do however are highly sought after and several people consider their Purple Grape females among their best Indicas strains. Deep Purple can be cultivated both indoors and outdoors and flowering for cannabis seeds take between 50-60 days. Best way to grow is long veg and remove some shade leaves to allow light under. Not a huge producer or a fast growing plant but it makes up for it in taste and high quality. Deep Purple is calming, relaxing and very fun to smoke

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If you're into falling for some jive based on purple anthocyanins=quality=potency, then go fer it. Another jive is folks thinking heavily trichomed buds drive potency, it does not. It's just another photo op to sell their crap. The size and trike density field is driven by genetics with indica dom buds having a dense field of trikes with extended stems and sativas having such a limited field and small resin heads/stems that you most times you can't see them with the naked eye. But, folks love that eye candy, the seedbanks hype it to the max....and there goes your money out the door.

Killer Vanilla said:

your pictures make a nice point they look like some nice cola's

dont think i will be cutting any fan's though i just try to tie them out the way so i get the best of both methods either way without harmin my plant

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You do what you want, but tieing them "out of the way" is a waste of time. It is another one of those noob "feel good" drills.

UB

i hope you guys like cut and past
are thes popcorn
he took his leaves off

thats one plant

TehBosh: Some argue that the less foliage you have, the less photosynthesis the plant will do because the leaves are the main transport of energy and light. However, with results and pictures like this, it is definitely a method of pruning that is worth a try. Simply take off fan leaves that shadow potential bud sites throughout the plant, and note the results. (Photos courtesy of k33ftr33z)

accountant said:

Thanks for the quote - removing "suckers" is actually pretty common when growing tomatos and does not hurt the plant. Lollipopping is a similar technique we use in SoG to promote the development of a single cola with no popcorn buds.




What were the consequences when you removed leaves? what stage was the plant in? what strain(s)? I'm not doubting you—just curious because my plants are doing fine plucked.

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What I meant is besides normal trimming I don't remove fan leaves until last weeks of harvest...and those are usually yellowish brown and toasted.
Before when I was using the bending method I would cut nilly willy...trying to get light down to the pop corn..
The results were lower yields....better chance of nute burn...as the nutes are more concentrated in fewer leaves...sure I got a lot of pop corn...but I also got nute burn which fried a lot of leaves..( Which were not going to magically reappear anytime soon)..but I don't even bother with popcorn anymore..I trim them off at first sign...I want colas.
Popcorn is never as good as cola...by bending I can get up to 40 colas per plant..
I don't harvest until 80% of the leaves are yellow..pure yellow.

But if it's working for you...? And from your pics it seems to be..

I grow strictly organic...so my set up and end results are probably going to be different.
My aim is to copy nature....

Like going from 12/12 in the last 2 weeks of harvest to 10/14 for one week and then final week 8/16..and then 2 days in the dark in a cool place..like 50 degrees cool.

I just know my end result is fantastic and some of the best around...my SD is so sticky and crystalline I'm surprised it doesn't glow in the dark...even the later fan leaves are crystalline.

But to each his own...happy smoking : )

A few of my autos had purple buds this year. They were less quality than the green buds; I was a bit disappointed but not surprised.

Cutting leaves off to increase bud size is like getting a stomach staple. The leaves are the factories for the food production for the flower. Even if you fertilize on a regular basis the plant still needs to photosynthesize to convert the sugars to food. Many people are under the impression the bud sites must be in the light to grow. This is just not the case, the energy for growth comes from the leaves not the flowers. Sure there are a few small 1-3 bladed leaflets in the buds but they cannot provide enough nutrients by themselves. Would you rather have a New York strip or a childs In-and Out burger.

As correctly stated above, a fruit tree has the leaf canopy on top of the fruit not the bottom, and I have never in nature seen this inversion. To grow the biggest buds you need to grow the healthiest plant possible and the heavy fruiting will take care of itself. Keep your hands off the pruners.

Lil Czr said:

When I see all this miss information floating around like "cut off your fan leaves for huge buds", it explains a lot to me.

It explains all these posts (much like this one) where the title is "Look at these monsters" but when you open it, all you see is a sick little runt.

Keep it up guys, it just never gets old.

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Sorry, but I'm going to have to agree with you on this.

Although, IMO.. it does kinda get old.

People refuse to realize that growing cannabis.. IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE!!!!

How many times I gotta say that? You people tend to make things SOO much harder than they are.


Plant your seeds, veg the plant until your ready to flower, then switch them to flowering, leave them be!!! until they're ready for harvest.. and WALLAHHH! Your done!.. and! you have properly grown buds for your enjoyment!

But, unfortunately.. people don't listen. So, I shall keep doing what I do every other day.. and go about my business hoping that I helped someone realize that growing isn't Rocket Science. Period.

It basically boils down to common sense.. if you have common sense.. just even a lick of it.. your good to grow. But some of these people.. man.. I just wonder if they even have that one lick of common sense to begin with.. and if they don't.. then IMO they shouldn't be growing cannabis.

Well, that's my input.

peace.

ganjaluvr said:

then IMO they shouldn't be growing cannabis.

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or reproduce

Dwezelitsame said:

i hope you guys like cut and past
are thes popcorn
he took his leaves off

thats one plant

​

TehBosh: Some argue that the less foliage you have, the less photosynthesis the plant will do because the leaves are the main transport of energy and light. However, with results and pictures like this, it is definitely a method of pruning that is worth a try. Simply take off fan leaves that shadow potential bud sites throughout the plant, and note the results. (Photos courtesy of k33ftr33z)

Click to expand...

Taking fan leaves can stunt growth, trust me. Why cut them when you can just tuck them and tie them aside any ways?

i will never understand how people can think trimming the fan leaves promotes better yields.

I'm taking the big ones off now
I let ya know how it goes

i wouldn't trust pictures.

who's to say they didn't grow it with ALL LEAVES and then cut them off RIGHT before the picture?

Agreed ! Blind leading the blind . And then you back it up with an experiment that only produced a couple tenths of a gram that amount more than likely was just due to somrthing different you did on the second one and never relized it . You need a control plant then your 1 that you dont trim and one you do at least.

On grow one I did trim fan leaves. Six plants small space. Being first timer, I was just spending time with my girls,playing. But this gave me good bud,but I think less hands on plants and more on lower lights and soil, and air flow. Next grow will still be learning and we always feel we can do better.: I did learn to keep it small and simple {3} plants seens to give you less stress. Stress is not good for grower or plants. Could hurt both.

People please take the time to understand a bit of simple botany!

a plant will adapt to its enviroment to be as productive as it can, consistency is the most important factor

ANY altering of what it has performed to adapt will result in lower yields period!

some things are productive ie: topping when young (giving the plant time to adapt)

most other things are non-productive, understanding this will increase your yields

read the article he is talking about look under hydro grow it is a sticky pics show results and is interesting read havent tried it myself but is very interesting