Fan leaves in the way!

[LA Woman]

Hey guys. I have looked around and found some info. here but not really exactly to my situation. Here are the facts of my grow.....
1.1000 watt hps air cooled with carbon filter
2.9 girls total as follows 3 nice bagseed(I believe AK47), 4 Super Lemon Haze, 1 Lemon Skunk and 1 LA woman...my favorite ofcourse.
3.Soil grow Fafard soil
4.Medina nutes
5.Veg for 30 days
6.Flowering for 23 days
Now to my problem. These babies are outgrowing 6x6 already. Space isn't an issue as my room is 12x12. The fan leaves are blocking a ton of light to all the lower buds. If I just let the girls have more space I obviously lose lumens. So what should I do? Should I start thinning out the fan leaves to allow some more of that wonderful light to penetrate my buds......or do I just leave them alone and what I get is what get? First time growing so Please let me know what you guys do. I'm not a helpless girl, but I do need help from the guys from time to time. Meagan ;)

 

[Venom818]

Ive read you can remove some leaves on week 5.

 

[Rolln J]

Howdy and welcome to the farm!

I would definitely open up your plants by trimming off bottom and inside fan leaves - the ones that are darker then the rest of the plant is a good place to start - people are all freaked out about removing fan leaves - but in bloom I think its necessary.

6x6 is really extending your 1000 watt light - it really only does a 4x4 effectively and even them I see a drop off from the middle - good thing about being in soil is you can turn your pots and shuffle your plants around under the light.

 

[LA Woman]

Thanks for the welcome Rolln J. Yeah as far as sq. ft. I started off with 9 plants in 1 gallon pots, so my sq. ft. was about 2x2. The problem is these girls are growing like MAD!

 

[Rolln J]

if you werent past 21 days into flower id suggest cleaning up the bottoms and trimming of some of those little branches - but it could affect yield - maybe you did this - no pix so Im not sure - I try and shoot for a little less then 1/3 bare from the bottom - its important to have circulation to prevent mold and bugs and if you cut that bottom growth off early (day 14-17) all that energy that would be wasted on making bong hit sized nugs goes into your main colas...

 

[LA Woman]

Oh and I'm able to keep the light so close it touches a couple of them. The average height was 10-12 inches when I put them into flower..now the average height is nearly 3 1/2 feet.

 

[Rolln J]

I would try and have a minimum of 12 inches (prefer 18) between the lights and the plants - your buds might get uv burned/bleached

 

[LA Woman]

I think I may just take a chance with one and trim up everything thats blocking the light from getting through to the buds. What do you think?

 

[mrdizzle]

you are going to get about 50% saying never pull a fan leaf, the other 50% will say pull them.......

I pluck some fan leaves at the end of the 3rd week. most of the stretch is over and the roots slow down there growth. I have done this with zero impact on bud size. the only thing i have noticed it impacting is how big the lower buds get vs not plucking any leafs.

I have a room that is done is 7day i didnt pluck any leafs because i wasnt home for thanksgiving after their 3rd week of flower. the plants look great but they are not larger than when I do a leaf pluck, just some of the lower buds arent as juicy.
my girl crams the shit out of her garden then plucks 90% of the fan leafs and gets excellent results, every single bud gets chunky

so i say do not be afraid to pluck some fan leafs, try a little side by side if you like

 

[Rolln J]

you are going to get about 50% saying never pull a fan leaf, the other 50% will say pull them.......

I pluck some fan leaves at the end of the 3rd week. most of the stretch is over and the roots slow down there growth. I have done this with zero impact on bud size. the only thing i have noticed it impacting is how big the lower buds get vs not plucking any leafs.

I have a room that is done is 7day i didnt pluck any leafs because i wasnt home for thanksgiving after their 3rd week of flower. the plants look great but they are not larger than when I do a leaf pluck, just some of the lower buds arent as juicy.
my girl crams the shit out of her garden then plucks 90% of the fan leafs and gets excellent results, every single bud gets chunky

so i say do not be afraid to pluck some fan leafs, try a little side by side if you like

exactly - after the stretch! unless your trying to slow down the stretch...

 

[LA Woman]

mrdizzle thats what I like to hear. I figured it would be about 50 50 but its good hearing that it works for you. Plus the fact that I'm just a bit over 3 weeks like you when you pull. Thanks

 

[LA Woman]

So is it fair to say that the "stretch" is over?

 

[mrdizzle]

i also have a stoner theory on fan leaves,,,,,,

marijuana plants, in nature, dont grow for budsize, they just grow, they dont care about the lower buds getting light. the sun isnt always shining bright so the more fan leafs a plant has the more sun it can suck up on cloudy or gloomy days.

indoor, the plant gets light everyday, all day, in an effort to make the biggest buds possible. while the indoor light isnt as strong as the sun, its doesnt have cloudy days. if you research say a tomatoe farmer or a grape grower, the practice of canopy management is one of the biggest factors for yeild. every grape grower and every tomatoe farmer thins out the canopy of fruit sites and fan leafs. if it had a negative effect on yeild tomatoe farmers would not do it, because 5% loss of 20,000#'s of tomatoe means the company goes out of business

another fact i have noticed, lets say a bud underneath a fan leaf is left to mature underneath that fan leaf. you can bet the farm when you harvest that bud will be lime green and larfy. bud if you removed that fan leaf the bud would be developed and full like the other buds.

just my stoner 2cents

 

[mrdizzle]

the stretch should be over, but they will grow a little bit more, but it is slowly over the next two weeks or so

 

[Lost]

It should be pretty much done, but it might grow a little more strain dependant.

There are 2 schools of thought. The don't fuck with it school of thought and the go ahead and fuck with it school.

I do both, lol.. If you are worried about light penetration, cut the bottom 3rd of the plant off. Just get the scrssors and remove and branches that are on the first say 18 inches to 2 feet. That way you don't end up with a bunch of fluff bud.

 

[LA Woman]

Well I made my own experiment. On 4 of the ladies I took off approximately 75% of ALL fan leaves. The others I left TOTALLY alone. So I will see which turns out better and I'll keep everyone posted.

 

[chickenn]

do as was said and cut off the lower third of everything off of one plant and see which does best.

i am putting my money on the one with the lower third trimmed up, and no, it won't hurt it to do it now. the top 2/3 will make more.

75 % of the fans is a lot. i was gonna say stand over them and look down, and trim a few out of the way.

the fans are responsible for carbohydrate production, and basically feeding the plant, as well as storing energy.

 

[LA Woman]

Well chickenn as far as carbs go, thats why a few days ago I started up with 1 tbs molasses with feedings. I figure that should help out with the natural sugars. Will this also add bud weight? Also when will my girls start to put on more weight? My Lemon Skunk is REALLY skinny with very little bud. Like not even popcorn size, I am talking popcorn kernal sized lol. So are they gonna start to take off maybe in week 4 or 5?

 

[LA Woman]

On a different note. You may have noticed I have no pictures. Well thats because I have no plants and everything is a lie. If I did have plants is it safe to post pics? I mean really? Is someone going to get into trouble (i.e. go on an extended un-paid leave of absense)?

 

[ShorelineTex]

On a different note. You may have noticed I have no pictures. Well thats because I have no plants and everything is a lie. If I did have plants is it safe to post pics? I mean really? Is someone going to get into trouble (i.e. go on an extended un-paid leave of absense)?

Keep everything as anonymous as possible :) I'll post the same thing about pics that I post everywhere else (hopefully this will help provide at least a bit of peace-of-mind):

"On a similar note, regular old JPG images can have a lot of hidden data in them that you might not want to have floating around. Think dates, camera make and model, even GPS info on some phone cameras! There is free software called jhead that allows the removal of JPG header info. To make things easiest, make a folder right under the c:\ drive - let's say c:\jpg - and put the jpgs you want to strip headers out of, along with jhead.exe (downloaded from the link above). Go to Start->Run and type "cmd", then click ok. This will bring up a command prompt. At the command prompt, type "cd c:\jpg" (minus the quotes of course), then "jhead -purejpg *.jpg" (again excluding the quotes). It should say something like "image.jpg modified" for each image in the directory to let you know the headers have been stripped. Stay safe!"