Fan Leafs. Blockers of Light Or Energy Producers???

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nick88

Well-Known Member
It's not the buds per say that need the light, but the small leaves coming out of the buds that need the light. I've had plenty of lower buds that were blocked from light, be a real light pale green. And within a cpl days of uncovering and exposing to the light turn the same color green as the rest of the buds.
As for flushing, I agree 100%, if people didn't use 5 million different nutrients they wouldn't have to worry about flushing.
 

Uncle Ben

Well-Known Member
The previous pictures are of 2 different large outdoor females that I pushed over. Most people do the exact opposite, they trelice and stick, and support any way they can. And that's mostly because when any part of the budding site touches the ground, especially when there is any moisture present. The bud degrades or shwags out, when this happens. Also the other main factor is, they break in the wind, and or get pushed over unintentionally....
That is some mighty heavy clay you've got there. Doesn't look like the plant minds though. Curious, did they ever set good colas or did you cut them down when temps reached 40F, before they were ready?

They say "opinions are like assholes, everyone has them" which brings me to what I would do with those plants - top and/or use a PGR like Bonzi to control their height, if that's an issue. When you lay them over like that you're butchering the roots a bit, tearing the hell outta the root hairs. I would think the corn field would provide plenty of wind protection....guess not? I did both with the O. Haze and they finished out around 7' tall. If I hadn't topped AND applied Bonzi, no telling how tall they would have been.

Tio
 

Uncle Ben

Well-Known Member
I've had plenty of lower buds that were blocked from light, be a real light pale green. And within a cpl days of uncovering and exposing to the light turn the same color green as the rest of the buds.
Don't confuse a CO2 assimilation flag with bud leaves being a good food source. They are yellow because they're not productive. The plant knows when to discard them as being unproductive based on a carbon flag.

Back to bud leaves, you always hear from a babe's mouth "buds need light". Not that they ever understand it's relative to total leaf surface area, fan leaves being the most efficient photon collectors. A cola will produce a ton of fan leaves. I used to grow orchids and I focused on producing the most foliage going into the blooming cycle I could. That's what it's all about. Of course if you don't retain those leaves up until harvest it's all a moot point.

As for flushing, I agree 100%, if people didn't use 5 million different nutrients they wouldn't have to worry about flushing.
Even if they did use too much salts, flushing doesn't do anything. A plant doesn't have a radiator where you can open a tap and flush it. You think potassium nitrate is still potassium nitrate after the plant consumes it? It's not, it's quickly broken down into ions and combined with H and CO2 etc. to make carbos, proteins (amino acids), enyzmes, ho moans, (hydrocarbons).....

UB
 

Apomixis

Active Member
In your opinion.

There you go, you don't know it all do you?

lol
But it is simple morphological fact that leaves produce photosynthate and flowers produce seed.
Saying flowers produce any sizable amount of energy is like saying we piss through our skin when we sweat. Yeah, it's basically true, but you're reeeeeeaaally stretching it there.
Green fruits produce some energy too, but you wont see a producer of grapes, apple, etc plucking leaves so the fruit can get light (at least for any other purpose than to make the fruits look more colorful, but even then they don't do it).

Vince, I will give you this: veg time does build up starches in the woody areas of the plant, and the plant can convert these back into usable sugars when it needs to: when animals or people or wind pluck the leaves off of the plant.

Now you can argue that the way we cultivate weed is more or less for one great push to bust out big flowers, and so it doesn't matter how you do it, if its good or bad for the plant... The results are your reasoning.
But the physiological truth is this: you are forcing a plant to tap into secondary metabolic pathways. These are not things a plant likes doing. They are much less efficient, and therefore undesirable. Any other production seeks to keep stressors from occurring, they certainly don't promote their occurrence.

Done. Lol. And with a smile!
:)
 

Uncle Ben

Well-Known Member
1. But it is simple morphological fact that leaves produce photosynthate and flowers produce seed.
Saying flowers produce any sizable amount of energy is like saying we piss through our skin when we sweat. Yeah, it's basically true, but you're reeeeeeaaally stretching it there.

2. Green fruits produce some energy too, but you wont see a producer of grapes, apple, etc plucking leaves so the fruit can get light (at least for any other purpose than to make the fruits look more colorful, but even then they don't do it).

3. Vince, I will give you this: veg time does build up starches in the woody areas of the plant, and the plant can convert these back into usable sugars when it needs to: when animals or people or wind pluck the leaves off of the plant.

4. Now you can argue that the way we cultivate weed is more or less for one great push to bust out big flowers, and so it doesn't matter how you do it, if its good or bad for the plant... The results are your reasoning. But the physiological truth is this: you are forcing a plant to tap into secondary metabolic pathways. These are not things a plant likes doing. They are much less efficient, and therefore undesirable. Any other production seeks to keep stressors from occurring, they certainly don't promote their occurrence.

Done. Lol. And with a smile!
:)
Kudos, that was one damn good post! Every one of your (noted) points is botanically correct, FWIW.

Respect,
Tio Bendejo
 

nick88

Well-Known Member
Don't confuse a CO2 assimilation flag with bud leaves being a good food source. They are yellow because they're not productive. The plant knows when to discard them as being unproductive based on a carbon flag.

Back to bud leaves, you always hear from a babe's mouth "buds need light". Not that they ever understand it's relative to total leaf surface area, fan leaves being the most efficient photon collectors. A cola will produce a ton of fan leaves. I used to grow orchids and I focused on producing the most foliage going into the blooming cycle I could. That's what it's all about. Of course if you don't retain those leaves up until harvest it's all a moot point.



Even if they did use too much salts, flushing doesn't do anything. A plant doesn't have a radiator where you can open a tap and flush it. You think potassium nitrate is still potassium nitrate after the plant consumes it? It's not, it's quickly broken down into ions and combined with H and CO2 etc. to make carbos, proteins (amino acids), enyzmes, ho moans, (hydrocarbons).....

UB
What does co2 have to do with light getting to the bud site? Wouldn't that be more air circulation related? I tell you what take and block the direct light from a bud and watch it turn pale green after cpl days, then unblock and watch it turn back like the rest.
 

Bud Brewer

Well-Known Member
Buds don't develop well or at all with little light I showed plenty of pics of small undeveloped bud higher in the canopy than large developed bud getting direct light.

Bud Is made of leaf not fruit these aren't apples or whatever tree you want to compare to you still leave plenty of leaves on in flower this is more of a veg technique for me to get fat bushes without slowing them down like topping but I still get my bucket sized colas.
 

resinousflowers

Well-Known Member
Don't confuse a CO2 assimilation flag with bud leaves being a good food source. They are yellow because they're not productive. The plant knows when to discard them as being unproductive based on a carbon flag.

Back to bud leaves, you always hear from a babe's mouth "buds need light". Not that they ever understand it's relative to total leaf surface area, fan leaves being the most efficient photon collectors. A cola will produce a ton of fan leaves. I used to grow orchids and I focused on producing the most foliage going into the blooming cycle I could. That's what it's all about. Of course if you don't retain those leaves up until harvest it's all a moot point.



Even if they did use too much salts, flushing doesn't do anything. A plant doesn't have a radiator where you can open a tap and flush it. You think potassium nitrate is still potassium nitrate after the plant consumes it? It's not, it's quickly broken down into ions and combined with H and CO2 etc. to make carbos, proteins (amino acids), enyzmes, ho moans, (hydrocarbons).....

UB
you keep on believing flusing doesnt do anything,,,,i'll keep on disagreeing,because whenever i give my plants a good flush the end product is always better,everytime.
 

Figong

Well-Known Member
you keep on believing flusing doesnt do anything,,,,i'll keep on disagreeing,because whenever i give my plants a good flush the end product is always better,everytime.
I'm split on this, as I can really only see 2 legitimate reasons why a flush may be required... use of systemic/multiple systemics on the plant(s) that may greatly affect the taste at chop/dry/cure time, and signs of severe nute lockout as a method of helping troubleshoot. (This in no way means I am implying that you should flush at the slightest bit of a light nute burn, in any fashion - mileage will vary definitely in this aspect.)
 

skunkd0c

Well-Known Member
Buds don't develop well or at all with little light I showed plenty of pics of small undeveloped bud higher in the canopy than large developed bud getting direct light.

Bud Is made of leaf not fruit these aren't apples or whatever tree you want to compare to you still leave plenty of leaves on in flower this is more of a veg technique for me to get fat bushes without slowing them down like topping but I still get my bucket sized colas.
Each branch will compete for light they will shade each other they do not have the ability to organize themselves in the best possible shape so we need to help them out a little
if a branch can be given good light they tend to become colas

each branch / cola is full of leaves that will photosynthesize for the buds
it is better to have an even spread of light across the canopy with good penetration down each branch

this is how a single plant can produce 20 or more colas. something like a screen of green without the screen

selectively removing blocking leaves at the top of the canopy helps to encourage lower shoots and branches to rise up and become colas
if this shaded growth is left shaded it becomes lighter green in colour and produces a lower yield

the idea that a plant should only produce 1 main cola is ignorant, every branch should be a cola that should be the goal to produce an optimum yield and quality in a given space, while keeping the plant numbers low

peace
 

SeeRockCity

Active Member
looks like you have hundreds of answers here.

i personaly trim the fan leaves off through the flowering period so that i get better air circulation through the canopy and to allow the light to penetrate to the buds that are lower down, i keep smaller fan leaves that dont get into the way of other plants bud.

you wouldnt grow a plant under an umberella.....

the fan leaves will produce the energy for photosynthesis but when you are growin sog and there are what seems like hundreds of fan leaves creating a canopy of shade to the lower buds then you have to make a decision- 1) do i want to remove the leaves and have my lower buds fatten up through the exposure to light- 2) do i want to keep the fan leaves and have under-developed immature bud under the canopy that is a real pain to manicure and usually ends up in the compost bin.

ive grown with a 1000w sog style with trimming and without trimming- the trimmed plants were easier to manicure and gave a slight increase in finished dried weight but the buds were all nice too, the un-trimmed plants were a real pain to manicure on the popcorn under the canopy and the popcorn was leafy and squishy but i kept most of it and the yield was still as good as the trimmed plants- i think there was a 1.5oz difference in favour of the trimmed plants but the bag appeal of the trimmed plants was much nicer.

it all boils down to where abouts in the grow you want to spend your time putting the work in, 1- trimming fans through flower period or 2- more time spent harvesting the under developed leafy bud.

I dont know about that man... there are a LOT of people that dont touch the leaves one bit and shade the lower buds...that get as big as my arm....
It's not an umbrella....it's that plants natural way of converting energy... if you take them off...production slows...

I have done it both ways....and I'm finding better results with not touching the fans... maybe it's a strain thing.. I'm too young in the grow world to say definitively... but I can tell you that the plants that I trimmed all the fan leaves off took foooorrrrreever to finish flowering... 12+ weeks.. vs about 8-9 weeks with the fans.... that right there is evidence enough for me....
 

Apomixis

Active Member
I dont know about that man... there are a LOT of people that dont touch the leaves one bit and shade the lower buds...that get as big as my arm....
It's not an umbrella....it's that plants natural way of converting energy... if you take them off...production slows...

I have done it both ways....and I'm finding better results with not touching the fans... maybe it's a strain thing.. I'm too young in the grow world to say definitively... but I can tell you that the plants that I trimmed all the fan leaves off took foooorrrrreever to finish flowering... 12+ weeks.. vs about 8-9 weeks with the fans.... that right there is evidence enough for me....
And there you have it. I haven't grown weed in massive amounts but I don't need to. If you understand the physiology of the typical flowering plant, you can predict how most plants will act. What RockCity just said is exactly what can be expected.
 

Figong

Well-Known Member
And there you have it. I haven't grown weed in massive amounts but I don't need to. If you understand the physiology of the typical flowering plant, you can predict how most plants will act. What RockCity just said is exactly what can be expected.
Yup, I agree completely with both of you - without question :D
 
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