phxazcraig
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Hehe. That's nothing there. Seem my grow to see how much bigger and bushier they can get! (Explosive Growth in Coco Coir thread).Quick question. That Maui in back is huge for me. And super bushy. This pheno never stretched much. How much can or should I defoliate. Don't wanna stress her out
First, a suggestion, if your watering/drain system allows it. Put something under the shorter plants to raise them to the same level. Adjust as needed.
As for defoliation, you have your choice. I like a bushy approach, maximizing fan leaves for lots of biomass. I still lollipop to trim all growth below about a 2-foot-thick canopy layer. A lot of people like a thinner canopy.
I leave a lot of fan leaves, but I still strategically defoliating great big leaves covering up growth sites. I trim from the bottom, taking leaves shaded by newer ones.
Once the plant gets into flowering, I'll do a good strategic deflowing only of big fan leaves during the first 3 weeks of flower and stretch. This is mostly to help control humidity by allowing better airflow through the canopy. There are limits to how much this approach works, when the plants are still quite bushy. I've added a6-inch input duct fan running 24x7 in addition to the 6-inch AC-Infinity fan under temp and humidity control. With my input fan, things have become very stable in the tent. It's also bulged out from the pressure, giving me a bit more growing area!
Surely you'll see videos and pics of some extremely defoliated crops and subsequent recovery. Here's a data point for the other approach - the bushy approach. These are images of my crop soon after I flipped the lights. It's taller now, but about as bushy.