BzDave
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Hey y’all, so my girls are just now starting to flower and I’m not sure if I should trim som of the bigger sun leaves or just leave the plants as they are. Here is a pic of one of them.. any suggestions?
I had the same question a while back and did some digging, apparently when you grow outdoors the benefit of defoliation is not as high as indoors bc the sun penetration is a good deal better than lights indoors, especially considering the changing of position in the sky.Hey y’all, so my girls are just now starting to flower and I’m not sure if I should trim som of the bigger sun leaves or just leave the plants as they are. Here is a pic of one of them.. any suggestions? View attachment 930390
Yes, but be careful not to overdo it. Any green material is photosynthetically active, meaning it helps your plant to process light energy Into nuggets. By removing photosynthetically active material you reduce your plant's ability to process sunlight. Think of each leaf as a solar panel, if it's not in the way of something more important, leave it.
If you have a link to further reading, I'd like to continue researching the subject.Just to elaborate on your idea because you are right but there is another level of thinking to add. There are "source" leaves which are fully formed and pumping sugars, then there are "sink" leaves which are currently forming and consuming those sugars. Every cultivar is different on the best source:sink ratio, but you want to maintain a balance between your sources and sinks. Then once you are into flower pretty much every fan leaf is a source and every flower is a sink. Slow growth or bad yield means too many sources were removed and you have to up the ratio next time around. That's why I love growing the same flavor multiple times so I can play with the ratio.
If you have a link to further reading, I'd like to continue researching the subject.
The closest thing to a credible scientific study I found on defoliation was in regards to cotton crops, and the general consensus was that there was still a heated debate on it's ability to actually "increase" yield.
Time must also be considered. If we remove vegetation, which causes stress, time to recover is required. If we provide time to recover, it extends the grow cycle. If we extend the grow cycle, our production per day average may be lower.
We could also consider quality of the final product and bud size, however, technically those are separate variables from yield. If defoliation results in a higher quality of final product, but a smaller yield, then defoliation is simply a personal preference.
And down the rabbit hole it goes