Bobrown14
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As for which horticulture, even cotton is using this technique, a google search would give you a lot of species that defoil actually helps.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/defoliation (some science behind it)
Fuck, that sativa is a giant! :D
Not that big this time. I kept her in a #4 nursery pot. I usually run them in 7.5gal pots and they get easily 2x larger. Talking +4 meters easy indoors. So they require a lot of training.
On the defoil thing these Sativa are very interesting as far as leaf growth is concerned. They start out with BIG fat leaves with large blades. At about 25 days into flower the plant will begin using up all the chlorophyll (sugars) stored in those big fans and they begin to turn yellow and fall off.
Those big fans get replaced with longer much narrower leaves with very thin blades. This happens in flower again about 25-30 days into flowering. At about the time when folks are doing defoil.
So there's some anecdotal evidence that plants need these leaves and use them for a good reason.
That article you pointed has a lot of good reasons to NOT defoil your plants. Several plants have the ability to produce pathogenic compounds to make hoofed animals sick from eating or defoiling the leaves of some grasses.
There's some food for thought.
I'm going with keeping my plants happy so they make me happy, specially in flower.
On the 40 day strain. I made one from a mutant (poly-ploid) Jellium plant and cloned it. The clones got a bacteria on the cut end while it was in water before roots. Once the roots came and I put the cut in soil it was evident that the plants matabolism had been retained from the mutatated plant but the poly-ploidism had decreased somewhat and the plant instead of being a 2' little tiny bush turned into a 7+ foot regular size plant with a very fast metabolism. The mutant poly-ploid finished in 30 days.
The clones are finished in 40 days. I also use malted barley in my soil mix which helps metabolism as well as finishing 15% earlier that usual for a strain.
This pic is the original poly-ploid
This is the clone of the plant above that finished in 30 days
She's not finished yet but the above plant it about finished - all little tiny nugs up there and all nice size nugs down below
This took about 5 more days to fatten and I harvest at 40 days this pic was 35 days from flip and the plant is easily +6' tall
At the end of the day,
4 plants 6+ feet tall in a 4x4 space
VS
8 short plants topped and defoiled 3 feet tall which has the better yields?
In that 4x4 space I'm doing 27 zips dried trimmed and in the cans consistent and no nutes nothing but water all thru flower.
The key is water. Without a lot of water the plants can not get the nutrients from the soil.
I use a btm watering system with a 80gal res of RO water. The plants have access to water 24/7. Water along with a lot of air movement = decent yields and more biomass. No AC this year either and no mold.
To prevent mold I use Southern Ag - Garden Friendly Fungicide - 1 tsp to gal of water lightly sprayed in early VEG. Thats enough for the whole flower cycle. It's certified organic in Oregon for cannabis and most all other veggies and fruits.
It was dew points pretty much every night thru out the flower cycle. So hot as hell and humid to go with. NO mold. I was kinda surprised tbh - as you can see in the last pic ^^^ a spot of PM on the fan leaf there. That was it. I got nervous as all get out too that late in flower. I could have sprayed but just let it go and the PM never got any bigger than that little spot.