Fan leaf use, defoliation.

i was wondering what the consensus was on use of defoliated fan leaves. i know sugar leaves during the flowering stage are used for concentrates, but i heard that even fan leaves have .3% thc and you can make tinctures out of it. does that mean even during the veg cycle when you defoliate leaves covering bud sites that those, while still green or raw, can be soaked in alcohol and made into a tincture. also when making a tincture do you have to decarboxolate?

...best left on the plant ? Endless arguments about defoliation aside..

I've heard their best use once off the plant is as compost.

No; if they are no visible trichomes there are no active cannabinoids present to extract. Even sugar leaves can’t be processed into anything useful unless trichomes are present. I’ve heard of ppl juicing the leaf but that’s not going to get you high; juicing is only for the health benefits of green plant material itself. There’s nothing active in the plant; only the resin from trichome glands contains cannabinoids. So yeah toss the leaves in a compost bin or as an amendment to recycle the soil but it has no other practical use.

All that being said....If you want to make a tincture, canna-butter, or coconut oil any kind of edible for that matter you will need to decarb your weed before processing further. Just don’t bother with leaves.

yeah i have a really nice and bushy indica that loves LST and in order to get good light on those newer bud sites that appeared once i trained her i had to take some off and it benefited the plant immensely. i was just curious if they actually did have trace thc amounts because its better than wasting it. compost is probably last resort as it doesnt result in any direct product .

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Great thread on the subject:


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Hobbes said:

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Great thread on the subject:

Defoliate vs didnt do jack vs lollipop

Sup RIU. Was in another thread about why defoliation is such an at odds topic. I had mentioned I was doing a side by side by side comparison of the 3 styles. I will show some pics of begining of flower and document them going forward for all of us. Some variables that probably will cause many...

www.rollitup.org

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Click to expand...

Only he was asking for leaf use.
And the thread you posted didnt use clones, also admitted to overly lst'ing the didnt do jack plant. A pretty useless thread comparison.
Definately did do jack

Boatguy said:

Only he was asking for leaf use.
And the thread you posted didnt use clones, also admitted to overly lst'ing the didnt do jack plant. A pretty useless thread comparison.
Definately did do jack

Click to expand...

Ha. Yeah, I liked the idea of that thread, but it isn't really too decisive.

So we're still waiting for someone to science the shit out of this question....

And the post afterwards confirms that the didnt do jack was overly trained

interesting quote from this article
"Some growers only value parts of the cannabis plant based on cannabinoid content. Hence, the flowers are the most prized structure. Fan leaves do indeed contain cannabinoids, but only in trace amounts. The average fan leaf contains around 0.3% THC and 0.7% CBD. Many growers may scoff at these levels, but we’re not suggesting to roll a 2m joint for a half-baked high. Fan leaves are a decent source of dietary cannabinoids and can be incorporated into many culinary creations."

In this article the 0.7% is given as a maximum (albeit on 1970s plants), but indicates that some fans from their limited selection contained zero THC. They do however provide a link to the original research paper.

Worth noting that the strains in the paper with the highest THC content in the flowers had lower level in the fan leaves then the lower THC flowers...so the comment in the article that more modern stronger strains are likely to have more THC in the fan leaves doesn't necessarily follow.

great articles