Canopy too thick?? Does anyone defoliate through stretch??

[Ganjineering]

Hi Guys,

So I am 10 days into Flower now in the garden and the plants are doing really well, bus sites forming and lots of growth daily. I was hoping to get some thoughts on the canopy.

These are Girl Scout cookies and they are really bushy with huge fan leaves. I stripped them down to two nodes right before flip but they are already bushier than before. I went through and picked off some larger leaves in the thicker areas of the canopy today and noticed some leaves had spots of moisture in them. The room is 83 F and is sitting at an RH around 65-70%. I am concerned that the canopy is too thick and large leaves are sitting on each other and essentially transpiring to dew point.

We had planned to do a big defoliation of most leaves at Day 19-21 but am considering taking some of the larger fan leaves off regularly throughout the stretch period? Would this hurt the growth of the plants at all during stretch? I have attached photos so they might give you a better idea!
Thanks

 

[Ddebrazza]

I am sure an expert will chime in but I would definitely do some defoliation.

 

[Ponky]

 

[DeepCoverInDisguise]

If it was my room, I would immediately remove every large sun leaf in the room. They are big, and they are blocking plenty of stuff below. I just pulled my entire room out onto a tarp, and removed every large leaf in my room, day 19 in flowering. I already defoliated the day I switched to flowering too. Your strain looks leafy, I wouldn't worry one bit. Time for a major "thinning!"........

 

[GrowHobo]

I think someone on here said something like “the leaves are the window to the plants soul” lol but you have plenty of windows into that mofo. Id leave some though so you can easily see any deficiencies that may pop up

 

[Ponky]

Indoor lights to a plant is like starvation. And imprisonment. So the fewer mouths to feed low on the totem pole the better. Only the ones closest to the light deserve to eat. The rest just create humidity and a bag of worthless popcorn fluff. Outdoor is like a buffet with endless light and no reason everyone can't stay for the cookout. Indoor. That's like prison. South American prison.

 

[GrowHobo]

Indoor lights to a plant is like starvation. And imprisonment. So the fewer mouths to feed low on the totem pole the better. Only the ones closest to the light deserve to eat. The rest just create humidity and a bag of worthless popcorn fluff. Outdoor is like a buffet with endless light and no reason everyone can't stay for the cookout. Indoor. That's like prison. South American prison.

I’ve run strains where the lowers still turn out like rocks. Blackwater for example would make ppl swear I was using bushload or some other synthetic pgr.

 

[smokedareefer]

Air movement. Clean them up. Imo

 

[growsince79]

I’ve run strains where the lowers still turn out like rocks. Blackwater for example would make ppl swear I was using bushload or some other synthetic pgr.

I've seen lots of rock solid lowers growing big with only 5k lux.

 

[Ponky]

I’ve run strains where the lowers still turn out like rocks. Blackwater for example would make ppl swear I was using bushload or some other synthetic pgr.

Is it a high yielding cactus looking strain? Been looking for strains.

 

[GrowHobo]

Nah I’d say medium yield I had a green pheno and it kinda smelled like dirty socks looked more og. Ppl loved it. I have yet to find another strain to couch me so hard. It was a true 8 week finisher though. Lost her to hplvd when I was in Cali. Rip.

 

[Ponky]

Nah I’d say medium yield I had a green pheno and it kinda smelled like dirty socks looked more og. Ppl loved it. I have yet to find another strain to couch me so hard. It was a true 8 week finisher though. Lost her to hplvd when I was in Cali. Rip.

I live in a place where if it's not kush people refuse to smoke it. So it's really hard to find clones that are "new". Just different kush. And every time I try seeds. I get seeds. In my buds. And when I do get buds that are like 2 feet long. Bud rot. I've been looking for a perfect strain since Pink kush. It's almost as if I'll never stop searching.

 

[JSH1973]

I live in a place where if it's not kush people refuse to smoke it. So it's really hard to find clones that are "new". Just different kush. And every time I try seeds. I get seeds. In my buds. And when I do get buds that are like 2 feet long. Bud rot. I've been looking for a perfect strain since Pink kush. It's almost as if I'll never stop searching.

Sounds like you have had a couple of crap grow experiences and need a good one for motivation again

 

[Ponky]

Sounds like you have had a couple of crap grow experiences and need a good one for motivation again

Oh no. I've been growing since the 90s. This experience is with my personal grow. Generally we smoke concentrates. And we just have a standard rotation of kush clones to buy. And we are always looking for the next new kush. Sativa just hasn't been popular for some reason. I crop once every 3 weeks for personal. So if the plants are no good I just toss them. Only happened twice. Weed is so cheap here the only reason I do any hands on growing is to have personal I can trust. And the fun of discovering hot new strains for the area. It's like my test crop. For foods. Techniques. Growing seeds. Stuff you can't interrupt a big show for. If I had workers I could trust and better prices I might not bother growing.

 

[Pushrod Monkey]

Oh no. I've been growing since the 90s. This experience is with my personal grow. Generally we smoke concentrates. And we just have a standard rotation of kush clones to buy. And we are always looking for the next new kush. Sativa just hasn't been popular for some reason. I crop once every 3 weeks for personal. So if the plants are no good I just toss them. Only happened twice. Weed is so cheap here the only reason I do any hands on growing is to have personal I can trust. And the fun of discovering hot new strains for the area. It's like my test crop. For foods. Techniques. Growing seeds. Stuff you can't interrupt a big show for. If I had workers I could trust and better prices I might not bother growing.

Sativas are not popular because of the extremely long flowering times. It’s pretty simple why shorter flowering indicas are more popular with growers. This is why so many landrace strains have disappeared or are getting close to it. I tell people this Durban runs 12-13 weeks in flower and they’re not interested. Any alleged landrace sativa flowering shorter than 11 weeks is probably bogus. Such as Dutch Passion and their supposed IBL Durban flowering 8-9 weeks. No way that’s pure Durban.

 

[Homesteader]

Durban Poison is not a landrace strain like people think. It has always had dutch genetics in it. The plant shows its indica in its early stages during seedling. If you want a landrace from that area look for something from Mozambique. Durban is a big city, and any strains back in the day probably came from Mozambique anyhow, at least thats what I was told.

 

[Ganjineering]

Hi Guys,

Thank you so much for the amazing responses - decided to do a light defoliation today (Day 11) just to make sure there aren’t any micro climates that would cause us issues. Basically removed any large fan leaves growing towards the middle of the canopy and removed anything blocking out bud sites on some of the lower branches. Also removed some of the branches that were growing laterally underneath the canopy and just weren’t going to get enough light as time goes on. Filled up two 5 gallon buckets worth of foliage and branches!
I know it still looks pretty crowded but didn’t want to take too much off and risk stunning growth during stretch - hopefully they will be okay now until day 20 when we will do a much more aggressive strip and only leave on a few leaves per branch. What do you think??

 

[MICHGANDER9]

I thin the crap out of them the first 2 weeks of bloom and cut all the stuff that isn't up to the ccanapyoff from the bottom up 1/3 of the way to get it away from the media for good air flow but that's just what I do

Hi Guys,

So I am 10 days into Flower now in the garden and the plants are doing really well, bus sites forming and lots of growth daily. I was hoping to get some thoughts on the canopy.

These are Girl Scout cookies and they are really bushy with huge fan leaves. I stripped them down to two nodes right before flip but they are already bushier than before. I went through and picked off some larger leaves in the thicker areas of the canopy today and noticed some leaves had spots of moisture in them. The room is 83 F and is sitting at an RH around 65-70%. I am concerned that the canopy is too thick and large leaves are sitting on each other and essentially transpiring to dew point.

We had planned to do a big defoliation of most leaves at Day 19-21 but am considering taking some of the larger fan leaves off regularly throughout the stretch period? Would this hurt the growth of the plants at all during stretch? I have attached photos so they might give you a better idea!
Thanks

 

[Mr.GreenthumbOG]

Hi Guys,

Thank you so much for the amazing responses - decided to do a light defoliation today (Day 11) just to make sure there aren’t any micro climates that would cause us issues. Basically removed any large fan leaves growing towards the middle of the canopy and removed anything blocking out bud sites on some of the lower branches. Also removed some of the branches that were growing laterally underneath the canopy and just weren’t going to get enough light as time goes on. Filled up two 5 gallon buckets worth of foliage and branches!
I know it still looks pretty crowded but didn’t want to take too much off and risk stunning growth during stretch - hopefully they will be okay now until day 20 when we will do a much more aggressive strip and only leave on a few leaves per branch. What do you think??

Is that 16 plants/4x4 area? Did a good job.
I’m certain they will be ready for another plucking by day 21.

 

[Ponky]

Sativas are not popular because of the extremely long flowering times. It’s pretty simple why shorter flowering indicas are more popular with growers. This is why so many landrace strains have disappeared or are getting close to it. I tell people this Durban runs 12-13 weeks in flower and they’re not interested. Any alleged landrace sativa flowering shorter than 11 weeks is probably bogus. Such as Dutch Passion and their supposed IBL Durban flowering 8-9 weeks. No way that’s pure Durban.

Worse than that when I do have like some Bruce Banner and I pass one to my buddies. They just take a puff. And mash it into the ashtray. Same with purple kush and OG kush. No peppery or floral. No sativas. No hash plant. They literally will only smoke kush. And only exotic kush. It's kind of funny I guess. They're missing out on Bruce Banner and stuff. A different kind of smoke.