Leaves shadow - Enhance lights (Pictures included)

Fan leaves are the largest most efficient solar collectors plants have. They absorb the largest amount of light rays and transform it into energy. Large fan leaves are factories where sugars/carbohydrates are created and stored for later use, as in for use during periods of darkness when plants operated on stored energy, etc.

Any healthy plant will attempt to replace any lost healthy foliage, until fairly well along in flowering anyway. When you remove fan leaves a healthy plant will divert energy that would otherwise be used for continued upward/outward growth, and when in flower for bud production and also THC production, and use it to attempt to replace the lost healthy foliage.

The idea of removing fan leaves is based in a flawed pseudo-logic. People assume a plant has X amount of energy to use and then assume that those large fan leaves have to use a great deal of energy plus they shade buds from direct light and of course people assume you have to have buds flooded with light. Well when you remove the healthy fan leaves the amount of energy plants had to rely on, X, is dropped to P. Then the P amount of energy is in part diverted to replace the lost healthy foliage and the rest of the plant then has K amount of energy to rely on for growth and bud development.

Many people do not realize the importance of fan leaves and they do not understand how plants actually work, what they do, how they react to different things. Something else some, or maybe even many do not know is that on average 85% of light that strikes a leaf passes through. On average a leaf will only collect 15% of the light that strikes it and again, the rest passes through the leaf to then strike lower leaves.

Do not remove large fan leaves unless you want to reduce your plants capabilities to function as they normally do.​

>Is it a good idea to remove fan leaves that block light to the lower branches or will this take energy away from the flowering?
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Uncle Ben:
Rottytown and Joey gave a solid explanation that is botanically based. Leaves are the lifeblood of the plant... with a caveat - they have to be functional and productive. If those leaves are healthy and green and receiving good decent light, "leave" 'em alone. If they are yellow or prone to fungus attack, they can be safely removed without detriment to the plant's health as they are contributing little if any value regarding food production - and this is The Key. If they are quite low on the plant and not receiving much light, then mother nature has a way of first taking the goodies from the leaf and it's petiole (removing stored food reserves/metabolites) and dropping the leaves anyway - moot point, eh?

>Even though I've tied the branches down horizontally, many branches are now shaded by large fan leaves.
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Don't worry about shading branches, worry about shading leaves. Lower branches will always be shaded if your main light source is overhead. Add side lighting or use highly efficient side reflecting panels to alleviate this situation to a degree.

BTW, notice how large fan leaves are? Ever wondered why? It's because they are the most efficient food producing unit for the plant. It's your call (while understanding their function) regarding what to do with them at any given point in time.

>The lights have been on 12/12 for about 3 weeks and the plants are flowering if this helps.
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I grow the most amount of foliage going into 12/12 as possible. While folks are doing the 15-30-15 thingie, I'm providing plenty of N to support foliage production. In general, lot's of foliage=lot's of flowers. Once sexed and the stretch is over, then you need to back off the N and increase the P and K with a blend like Peter's Blossom Booster, an excellent blend from an old pro who I hit on once in a while. Call Jack up, he's a great resource - http://www.jrpeters.com/moreblooms.html

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IOW, why would you remove the very unit that produces the plant's flowers smoothburn? Because someone parroted what someone else parroted that was parroted 10 years ago...... none of them understanding that botany is more important than following bad advise perpetuated by The Herd?​