smokedareefer said:

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

I would like to try it again, but I think there's just too many variables going on for a fair assessment

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tobh said:

yeah, that's just it.. the variables at play are substantial and even in a perfect run there are still known and unknown unknowns. i think even running from clones, the biggest contender is trying to track whatever a plant is going to do. there's simply no way one can influence a batch of clones to root at the exact same second and develop initial root systems on the same schedule. that's likely the biggest variable at play and there's no control for it. also likely the primary reason no real consensus has ever been reached with cannabis, albeit cucumber and tomato producers do heavy defoliation as well and see bigger crop yields as a result. dunno, the science on this is deep.

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tobh said:

yeah, that's just it.. the variables at play are substantial and even in a perfect run there are still known and unknown unknowns. i think even running from clones, the biggest contender is trying to track whatever a plant is going to do. there's simply no way one can influence a batch of clones to root at the exact same second and develop initial root systems on the same schedule. that's likely the biggest variable at play and there's no control for it. also likely the primary reason no real consensus has ever been reached with cannabis, albeit cucumber and tomato producers do heavy defoliation as well and see bigger crop yields as a result. dunno, the science on this is deep.

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tobh said:

yeah, we need pics in normal light. looks like nitrogen toxicity to me, coupled with a bit of overwatering, but without seeing em in normal light neither can be ruled out. you have a handful of issues going on either way and your environment certainly isn't the cause despite humidity being a bit low.

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Dothraki said:

You’d just need a large pool. Even medium sized like say 200 clones. Then after the results, run it again but adjust the environment to match with both (since defoliating would change it). I think the research is being done all over the country right now. We will probably learn a lot of interesting things and put to rest a lot of myths over the next 5-10 years.

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Dothraki said:

You’d just need a large pool. Even medium sized like say 200 clones. Then after the results, run it again but adjust the environment to match with both (since defoliating would change it). I think the research is being done all over the country right now. We will probably learn a lot of interesting things and put to rest a lot of myths over the next 5-10 years.

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growsince79 said:

Whether you should or shouldn't defoliate depends on strain and environment. Big plants in little places benefit. Big plants in big places don't. Little plants in little places don't.

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Dothraki said:

I should try for little plants. I bought 3 gallon fabric pots do you think I’d have issues keeping them smaller?

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tobh said:

even with my professional expertise, i simply cannot conceive a way to measure root growth in any kind of measurable way. we're talking about microscopic scale growth here, cells splitting and whatnot. i'm not a biologist though. just like any other statistical study, there has to be significant volume. one can do a survey with ten people and get results skewed heavily one way or the other. then, one can do the same study with 100,000 people and get more nuanced data to process and find a much more stable understanding. this is where i lean closer to the defol camp at this point. there are massive tomato and cucumber farms that grow metric tons of product a year that practice heavy defoliation techniques to concentrate plant energies at optimum fruit production -- this is where crop steering comes into play as well -- and they see incredible increases in yield. i think a lot of the homegrower approach is simply too micro to acknowledge the real benefits of what's achievable.

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