Should you cut fan leaves

[Clase]

heh…. You don’t want all the larf, yet, are removing leaves to stop larf from being light blocked?
And most of the leaves you are removing are leaves from upper tops… It’s self defeating.

Should of specified better...I lollipop and pull all nodes except the very top bud sites 3 to 4 days prior to flipping to flower. I only leave 3 fan leaves on each branch at thos time...I don't pull all fan leaves to the top. Any fan leaves that have grown facing the interior of the plant I trim automatically.

 

[Clase]

 

[Microstraincollector]

I hack the first set of leaves after the third node develops, then I use the ponytail technique and leaf tucking during veg on autos, then continue leaf tucking during pre-flower and bloom... I am considering topping an Autoflower in a solo cup grow since it's already going to be growth stunted by root space... a two headed bonsai experiment

 

[Rainmaker994]

In my anecdotal experience, side by side comparisons on lower and middle fan defoilation on day 22 and then total defoilation on 40 results in increased yield and resin content. Check out Grandmasterlevel on IG he does complete strip 2x. It’s shocking how they look and how quickly they bounce back.

 

[hawkman]

short answer is Yes !! but consider not removing any leaves untill the plant has 5 nodes then just remove the bottom 2- sets of fan leaves. after 5 days of growth consider removing another set of fan leaves at week 3 of veg do a "defoliation" removing all big fan leaves that block the light to bud sites - then after week 4 start 121/12 cycle - thru out this cycle remove all leaves that block bud sites (you will do this thru-out the cycle > Consider reading tutitual on defoliation (If you need agood site for that consider "GrowWeedEasy.com believe also this site has information on defoliation

 

[rolandrog]

I got the room I'm only growing 5 autoflowering in a 4x4x6 tent using organic soil.
Because they are small plants I'm thinking if I get rid of leaves the energy will go to the branches and multiply basically same method as topping 1 cola turns into 2.
What I'm wondering is do the leaves serve any other purpose then storing water because I can provide the water..
Not there yet but trying to get my technique dialed in before they grow..lol

Dude, I will come to your rescue. LEAVES ARE THE ONLY PLANT FACTORY FOR PHOTOSYNTHES. - ONLY SROUCE OF ENERGY AND LIFE OF THE PLANT. Roots absorb food (N,P,K, minor, and trace elements) necessary for plant growth. The xylem sends this food from the roots to the leaves. The leaves absorb the sun's rays and convert everything to sugars, starch, proteins, ect. The phloem distributes this food to where it is needed in the plant. It automatically prioritizes where its needed (new growth, flowering, ect.) lol. Leaves at the bottom are naturally defoliated if they are not receiving light. In other words, Leaves that don't carry their weight are slowly drained of nutrients and die off.

If you're growing for the first time, do not prune at all. Learn how the plant grows, looks, and behaves on its own.

Leave on all the leaves, including the bottom ones - Hung a supplemental light (as powerful as your main one) on the side at a 45 degree angle to penetrate the top of the leaves of the bottom branches. This light will illuminate the bottom-mid leaves of the plant. In flowering, some leaves are stripped of their nutrients and die off. These lower leaves do not fade but stay healthy green. I feel that with the light hitting right on them, they are manufacturing significant amounts of food for the plant.

It is very important to prune some plants when they are young - like Sweet Basil. You don't want a tall Basil plant with long internodes.

Good luck in your first grow. I know how exciting it can be :-). Plants in the vegetative state can withstand most adversity, if fixed in a reasonable time.

 

[Dirtbag]

Topping? Auto-flowering plants?

Man.. I always miss the damn auto in there...
Yeah I wouldn't touch an auto at all.

Ok, so, leaves take light energy, and use it to convert the nutrients you give them into food. So, think of it like this, the more leaves you take off the plant, the more you are starving them.

So, after you strip all the fan leaves off, you give them the same amount of nutrients, expecting them to be able to convert the nutes into food, but, it can't do that as efficiently, because why?

You just stripped off all the fan leaves.

You can get away with pulling off leaves to open up air and get rid of some of the shading of lower buds, without starving them, but, eventually pulling off to many leaves leads to a point of diminishing returns.

Lol so you would say this is going too far?
Before:

After:

 

[jguit]

...Drum roll

 

[growsince79]

I like this explanation...
Thanks

I'm in the don't need to defoliate unless its overcrowded camp. So far I only saw one guy do a side by side comparison with clones in hydro.

Defoliate side by side comparison small trees

It was suggested to me by a fourm member to do a side by side comparison. My system 13 gal rdwc , current culture Tangerine tonic a clementine gmo cross. I grew 4 of these out the last round and the day i flipped them to flower i cut clones from what i considered the best of the 4. Here she is...

www.thcfarmer.com

 

[Dirtbag]

I think it's highly situation dependent, and highly dependent on the grow style, media, and intention of the grower. A full strip is a very useful tool if you know how to employ it at the right time under the right conditions. It can lead to a much higher overall crop quality.
But if you have a lot of room for plants to be opened up with supercropping or LST then it's not as beneficial since your canopy is still being managed. It really depends on your management plan and how you intend to train and support the plants.

I get it though. I only became a believer last year and always thought defoliation was bad for the past 20 years. Leaves are solar panels and all that. Yeah, they are, but you can manipulate and abuse this plant like you wouldn't believe. And leaf stripping done at the right time in the right system is highly effective at giving you a nearly perfect canopy depth and bud distribution.

But, strip too many off in flower and you can absolutely slow things down and hurt yield. Timing is everything, and beyond that some strains can handle more stripping than others. I've seen plants with almost no leaves left on produce amazing harvests. But seeing is believing I guess..

 

[GanjaJack]

I get extremely complex branching, on 4 foot plants and a lot of the branches are the secondaries that grow from the bottom branches. I pull all those "out" of the center and pull them down.. They are flexible enough that they usually don't even crease... Any branch that doesn't have a "row" of buds that don't look like they will form a good sized kola, I pull them out from the center of the plant and down... but still keep them on the plant.

Then when harvest comes, those are all cut off and used for making bubble hash.

Any leaves that have a petiole that is longer than 3 inches, get removed. Any leaves that grow towards the center of the plant get removed, unless they're attached to the main kola, but, even then, if the petiole is longer than 3-4 inches and blocks a whole mass below it, I'll cut it off.

So, the whole idea that there is a strict rule of "No touchy the planty" , is not alwas the case. Sometimes I end up at harvest with the original fan leaves still on the plant at the bottom, sometimes I don't.

It just depends on all sorts of things from environment to the plant itself, as Mr. Dirtbag says.

The one thing about my plants most times. Is that the canopy stays amazingly flat, without training so much. I start them off with T5 Flo's and then switch them to 1000w hps for flower, and they tend to keep this flat shape, but then the secondaries will come in like crazy and start choking the hell out of the plant...

Sometimes though I get one that wants to grow to the moon, ends up with a foot long kola, Usually I just bend those over and tie them off to a screw I put in the wall with a nylon paracord.

I personally am not against stripping to get maximum light to a bud sight, but, I only see the usefullness of that myself, when it's necessary. We as indoor growers have to understand that sunlight penetration is WAY stronger than any light we can provide. Those shaded spots in a indoor grow are getting massive amounts of light if it was an outdoor grow. Anyway, I can get long winded and say little.

 

[GanjaJack]

Man.. I always miss the damn auto in there...
Yeah I wouldn't touch an auto at all.


Lol so you would say this is going too far?
Before:View attachment 1212501

After:View attachment 1212502

I've done that to plants.. I always think I just killed them. LOL! Those will come back nice though.

 

[Dirtbag]

I've done that to plants.. I always think I just killed them. LOL! Those will come back nice though.

Indeed they did. Infact they're almost finished!

 

[GanjaJack]

I like how some people have their kolas all lined up like little soldiers though..... March of the Buds!

 

[Dirtbag]

To show you an example of just how fast they rebound, the first pic is Nov 29th, a few days before flip.

Second pic is Dec 7th, a few days after flip.

 

[GanjaJack]

To show you an example of just how fast they rebound, the first pic is Nov 29th, a few days before flip.View attachment 1212510

Second pic is Dec 7th, a few days after flip.View attachment 1212511

Holy crap... You're doing that JUST before flip????

How old were they when you stripped them in the first picture?

 

[Dirtbag]

Holy crap... You're doing that JUST before flip????

How old were they when you stripped them in the first picture?

They were clones that were a little over 3 weeks in veg when I stripped them in the first pic. Probably closer to 4 weeks old from when they actually popped roots. And yeah the right time to do a full strip like that is about 3 days before you flip them into flower. It gives them a couple long days to recover before you stress them again by reducing the amount of light they recieve in a day.

I'll also strip them again somewhere in the 14-21 day range when it looks like the buds are set and stretch is slowing down. But this strip can be heavy or rather selective. In this grow I went selective on the second strip since the Cake in this strain has a tendency to herm if stressed too much.

By doing this, you only keep the nodes and budsites that develop during the first few weeks of the stretch phase of flower. Which means your developing canopy is all up top and doesn't need to be pruned or molested much at all in flower. Which in turn reduces stress in flower. Also, by stripping just before stretch allows you to really take advantage of the increased growth rate you get in stretch to rebuild the plant.

Nothing worse than getting 3 weeks into flower and realizing you've grown a rats nest that needs to be heavily cleaned up and pruned, leaves plucked etc. Doing that mid flower can surely stall them out.

 

[GanjaJack]

They were clones that were a little over 3 weeks in veg when I stripped them in the first pic. Probably closer to 4 weeks old from when they actually popped roots. And yeah the right time to do a full strip like that is about 3 days before you flip them into flower. It gives them a couple long days to recover before you stress them again by reducing the amount of light they recieve in a day.

I'll also strip them again somewhere in the 14-21 day range when it looks like the buds are set and stretch is slowing down. But this strip can be heavy or rather selective. In this grow I went selective on the second strip since the Cake in this strain has a tendency to herm if stressed too much.

By doing this, you only keep the nodes and budsites that develop during the first few weeks of the stretch phase of flower. Which means your developing canopy is all up top and doesn't need to be pruned or molested much at all in flower. Which in turn reduces stress in flower. Also, by stripping just before stretch allows you to really take advantage of the increased growth rate you get in stretch to rebuild the plant.

Nothing worse than getting 3 weeks into flower and realizing you've grown a rats nest that needs to be heavily cleaned up and pruned, leaves plucked etc. Doing that mid flower can surely stall them out.

Thanks for all the information, I just hung up another 1000w and expanded to 5 x 8 am going to give this a whirl.

I am not even sure how my plant will react to being stripped so much, so will give one a go and see. I have one variety that doesn't even put out leaves really and tends to grow real sparse until the end and then BOOM! puts out flowers and leaves all over the place, gets 5 foot tall.. and one big bud, like nature giving the middle finger. hehe... Plus I gotta grow my mother a bit more. She's in soil and goin' a bit slow and is being stubborn about showing gender. Once I know how a clone from her will react to being stripped, the game will be afoot!

 

[Dirtbag]

I should emphasize I would only try this in a fast growing system. Something like DWC, Rockwool, Coco etc, those are ideal because the plants have a MUCH faster recovery time after being stressed in those systems. A really dialed in promix grow would probably do OK too, but I think the main variable is this method really seems to work well with chelated nutrients in a low cec media. I'm not sure that it would perform so well in an organic soil based system, but I haven't really played around with that much so can't say for sure. But I'd be cautious about it.
I can say that it's best to only do it if everything is 100% dialed in, environment, feeding rate and ratios, irrigation schedules etc. A lot can go wrong quickly and there are other considerations I havent gone into. You need to really be on top of the media water content, ec and ph in the week or two after the strip, and manipulating temperatures and temp differentials can be really helpful to making it a successful technique. Calcium levels also need to be increased slightly after a strip too to account for the temporary reduction in transpiration.
Lots of variables to consider. Check out my recent grow diary if you're interested in the method, i cover most of the details there.

 

[Dirtbag]

Lots of great tunes in this thread too lol

The Crystal Palace is back, now with a Spiderfarmer SE5000.

Okay gang, this will be the new diary. It's been a good 6 months since I've done a proper grow in the shed and it's time to get next year's personal stash going. Ill start this off by going over some of the recent upgrades to the growroom, aka the Crystal palace. The shed has been freshly...

www.thcfarmer.com