To defoliate or not defoliate - the eternal question

I find it impossible to reach a conclusion. We have pro growers who produce and sell industrially with hundreds of thousands of dollars invested who say defoliate for all the reasons we know about such as airflow, light penetration, more energy to bud sites etc. And then the same people but on the other side who say don't touch a single fan leaf because it causes stress, they store and provide nutrients to the plant, they are the solar panels, even the lower ones are working, the plant has thousands of years of evolution and it's silly for us to think we need meddle with it etc

Even at the very top of the industry it seems there is no consensus, so I'm just going to show you the plant and you tell me what you think.




It's very busy down there, you can see the top half of the plant is receiving direct light and the lower half is shaded. Leaves going into other leaves, bud sites covered. I'm at the end of veg, I will let it grow vertically for an additional length equivalent to a lighter and then flip. What do you think?

The leaves I keep cut out are the ones " not bringing anything to the party " , leaves that are not receiving any or minimal light.

Id remove the lower ones just so I could get in to the dirt,but then you have a cage of tie wire so couldn't get my hands in there anyway.

Once stretch is over they'll be a hundred more leaves.

I’d personally get rid of everything below

bk78 said:

I’d personally get rid of everything below



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I agree

Pruning and some leaf removal during veg is pretty normal and useful.

Once plants begin flowering I think it’s best to avoid to much stress and unnecessary leaf removal.

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Sam I ran a test with 4 different defoliation methods, expecting big differences. There was a mere 10 grams difference between the best and worst producers. 140 grams each, about.

(6 Defoliation Trial - 4 Clones | Rollitup

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There's a bit about defoliating and the reason behind it as well as lots of other subjects.
There's a lots of others to listen to with various guests.
Scroll down the page.

I defol the majority of my plants. In small closets it's almost a must. The leaf blocking other bud sites and the lower buds that have no chance of developing into anything get removed.

I've been following Nebula's most recent comparison and the grows are almost finished.
https://www.growweedeasy.com/nebulas-cannabis-defoliation-experiment-side-by-side-grow-journal

Your canopy is so short that you shouldn't need to.. Defoliation is usually necessary on tall thick canopies where lower buds aren't getting light or leaves are over crowded. In that situation I pluck overlapping or obviously crowded large fan leaves away through bloom and all during veg I keep the bottom of the plants pruned and plucked to the tops to make my job easier in flower also give the plants less shock all at once.