That male does look like a fuckin stallion! Cant wait to see that girl late in flowering. Should be some real eye candy! Hope I get a nice candy pheno outta the Arc's Ive got stashed!!
Did ya happen to catch that Lions vs Tenn. game? I wish it wouldve ended the other way! But an awesome game nevertheless!! Peace!
Qq

I seen the ending on replay but i'm an Eagles fan and the early game on last week was Miami and Jets.... waiting mail should be there any minutes .... i'm stoked and yea today was the beginning of day 13 and the plants really triggered last night .... buds are a popping ..... will get pictures up asap .... i would def recommend the prim sea green in the Alien feeding regime its fucking awesome .....

I will update the photo of my remaining ARC and my snow leopards as they really took off in flower about two days ago , so they will be ready for some nice shots in a day or two, Has anyone ever grown the snow Leopards from Bodhi (ts unreleased) but the internodes are strange they are alternating sides , ex one stem on the left nothing on the right until a few inches up and then one on the right , I was wondering if this is a trait all his strains carry or just SLEOPARD .....Just curious ....peace soser

Hey soser... Hope your week's going well. Looking forward to your pics. I know it's a matter of preference for some, but I don't cut my upper fan leaves. I just tuck them back out of the way @ lights on. That way, to whatever extent, they're still able to do what they do. Also, I was under the impression that the asymmetrical branching was a sign of the plant's maturity.
Maybe we can get Meeks in here to do some 'splainin.:D

i prune some, tuck away whatever you can...some just gotta go imo

Love & Light,
~Sox

Goodsen Cranium said:

Hey soser... Hope your week's going well. Looking forward to your pics. I know it's a matter of preference for some, but I don't cut my upper fan leaves. I just tuck them back out of the way @ lights on. That way, to whatever extent, they're still able to do what they do. Also, I was under the impression that the asymmetrical branching was a sign of the plant's maturity.
Maybe we can get Meeks in here to do some 'splainin.:D

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thanks for imput lady goods......

sox said:

i prune some, tuck away whatever you can...some just gotta go imo

Love & Light,
~Sox

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I hear you bro , some def gotta go as this girl is a beast.... thanks for stopping by and helping out bro... much appreciated ...peace soser

Well got another question i picked up a co2 tank titan brand and until this point I have been using ghetto co2 in my room (sugar water & yeast in big bottles- shaken numerous times) ok well i started using it this morning thou i am not really sure wtf I am doing , step 1 - plug tank in step 2 - turn tank on step 3- insert tube into room co2 enters room .. question is ?? how long should i be keeping the co2 flowing and at what level ... my current flower space is a closet that is 4ft by 4ft and 10ft high ..... this morning at lights on i ran it for ten mins and at lights off another ten mins.... I should be connecting this to a timer correct ? and I should not keep the tank in the closet because of heat ? any info would be appreciated and picture updates tomorrow will be a full 2 weeks into flowering .......Peace SoSer

Hey Soser, your question was brought to my attention by Lady Goods and so hopefully I can explain a little about what I know, which might help you decide what to do about the leaves shading parts of your plant.

First of all, you will need to understand the concept of Source vs. Sink within a plant. Pretty self explanatory, a source is any part of the plant that generates more photosynthate (sugar) than it requires for growth, and a sink is any part of the plant that requires more photosynthate than it can produce (or is producing). What is key to understand with this is that a plant tissue can change from sink, to source, and back to sink all as part of the plants natural process. For example, a newly forming leaf (fan leaf or bud leaf) is always going to be a sink, requiring more sugar to grow than it is currently producing from photosynthesis. . . but once that leaf has reached close to its mature size, it is producing much more sugar than it requires because it is hardly growing at that point. . . .and then again as that leaf becomes older and cells start to get older, the chlorophyll will actually lose effeciency and although the leaf may still look green and healthy, it is no longer generating more photosynthate than it requires to stay alive, and therefore older leaves become sinks again!

There are also parts of the plant which will almost always be sinks. Those are things like the roots (obviously no way of producing photosynthate, but still require it), the flowers on most plants because most flowers contain very little to no chlorophyll compared to a leaf, and seeds are always going to be sinks (the strongest sink).

The important reason I am explaining the Source vs. Sink relationship is because when you have too many sinks and not enough sources, your yield goes down and the overall vigor of your plant is reduced. So to maximize yield and sugar content in the final product (the buds), growers should try to eliminate other sinks as much as possible, while maintaining as many strong sources as they can without risking poor airflow or reduced efficiency with too much shading.

Keeping all this in mind, you can guess that a leaf which is receiving less light (heavily shaded) is most likely going to be functioning as a sink in the plant, drawing sugar away from other sinks that you may be more concerned about such as the buds. Removing leaves above the shaded leaf may give it more light, and maybe enough to start generating more sugar than it needs, but the lower down the leaf, the sooner it will be past its highest efficiency and the closer it is to becoming a sink permanently because of photosynthetic efficiency loss. Therefore, I tend to remove older fan leaves (less efficient) first before I go removing mature newer leaves higher up on the stems because they are more efficient.

Now, once you have removed any leaves that are past their prime, you may still have some fan leaves shading other bud sites, which in cannabis do produce their own smaller bud leaves. The larger fan leaves are MUCH more efficient at producing photosynthate than the smaller bud leaves, and because they tend to be more exposed to air flow they will also transpire more, meaning they help more water and nutrients move through the plant compared to bud leaves which have much less surface area and transpire/photosynthesize much less. So, that means it is better to keep large fan leaves, even if they are shading a bud site or two, because they will function as a source for the bud site (sink) and send its excess sugar to the bud. If you remove the fan leaf, the bud is already functioning as a sink, and so will have to get the rest of the sugar it needs from a different fan leaf on the plant (different source required), meaning a different sink is now getting less than it was because it is sharing its sugar supply from its own fan leaf. . . . this kind of sharing and relocating of sugar pathways takes extra energy in itself, and is not beneficial even if the bud site is no longer being shaded and can produce slightly more sugar on its own from the small bud leaves.

In conclusion, remove old fan leaves especially if they are no longer receiving any direct light. Try to maintain as many sources on the plant as possible by getting as much light and air flow to the newer mature fan leaves as possible. Remove any very low sinks that are far away from any strong sources because they will generate almost no photosynthate on their own, along with drawing photosynthate away from other sinks that are more local to the source leaves higher on the plant. And don't worry if your bud leaves are shaded, because they are sinks anyways, so the plant is pumping all the excess sugar from local fan leaves to the nearest/strongest sinks it can find (your buds)!!


I hope this made sense, I wrote half of it while I was in my Botany lab so I may have gone on some unnecessary tangents or skipped over somethings. . . but just let me know if you need me to explain something further.

-Meeks

soserthc1 said:

Well got another question i picked up a co2 tank titan brand and until this point I have been using ghetto co2 in my room (sugar water & yeast in big bottles- shaken numerous times) ok well i started using it this morning thou i am not really sure wtf I am doing , step 1 - plug tank in step 2 - turn tank on step 3- insert tube into room co2 enters room .. question is ?? how long should i be keeping the co2 flowing and at what level ... my current flower space is a closet that is 4ft by 4ft and 10ft high ..... this morning at lights on i ran it for ten mins and at lights off another ten mins.... I should be connecting this to a timer correct ? and I should not keep the tank in the closet because of heat ? any info would be appreciated and picture updates tomorrow will be a full 2 weeks into flowering .......Peace SoSer

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You want to get a CO2 monitor/regulator. They aren't cheap. I think there is one out these days that doesn't give you an extremely accurate reading, but does the job and is around $60-100?

nMEEKS said:

You want to get a CO2 monitor/regulator. They aren't cheap. I think there is one out these days that doesn't give you an extremely accurate reading, but does the job and is around $60-100?

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I believe there is one on the side of the tank , I will post up a picture of it and see ... I'm totally ignorant to this co2 stuff and about as unhandy as they come but sure can grow some pretty flowers...... thanks nmeeks again !!!!! Respect SoSer

I'm a big fan of defoliation. There is no set time of when it's best to do it. You have to read your plant, and apply what nMeeks was explaining (which was a GREAT explanation BTW, props to nMeeks!). If you look at my Eskimo Kush grow, you'll see I removed almost all fan leaves on her. I can get you before and after pics if you'd like. I just didn't post them in the thread because I know how much controversy defoliation brings to the table, so I just do it and don't really look for opinions on whether I should or not. My ARC is actually due for defoliation now. I'll get before and afters of that as well.

nMEEKS said:

Hey Soser, your question was brought to my attention by Lady Goods and so hopefully I can explain a little about what I know, which might help you decide what to do about the leaves shading parts of your plant.
...
I hope this made sense, I wrote half of it while I was in my Botany lab so I may have gone on some unnecessary tangents or skipped over somethings. . . but just let me know if you need me to explain something further.

-Meeks

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Appreciate your insights, Meeks. It was useful getting the technical side of how the fan leaves work. Thanks for taking the time.

soserthc1 said:

Wow, incredible information nmeeks , I understand exactly what you mean , Thou I did have to read it twice to let it sink (no pun intended) . Makes perfect sense I did realize that the leaves made sugar that generated the bud growth but not to the extent to explained it to me. Boy would I love to smoke up with you one day and pick your brain for all that knowledge bro... I greatly APPRECIATE you taking the time to explain that to me in the detail you did. It was awesome of you to be that concerned with my issue ...... Your the man nmeeks..... best to you and yours .... I will be printing it out and going over it a few more times but seems perfectly logical. This is the reason that most prune there plant up from the bottom as these leaves are doing nothing but taking away from production on the top of the plant a lesson that took me awhile to come to terms with as in the beginning I believed all buds are good buds no matter the size not realizing it was hurting me in the long run. I def need to look into Horticulture class as I can read this kind of stuff all day...... um so your saying that the larger leaves on top of the plant are actually sources so they should not be removed but what is your (wanna say feeling but ) knowledge fits better on cutting them along the edges. Like when making clones. Can you give me some info on this when you get a moment. You typed alot for me today (espec during class time) so when you get a free moment is fine. I have already removed the lower leaves for clones and pruning the bottom and was told that day 21 and day 42 are the best times to remove the remaining cumbersome leaves .... once again thank you very much bro.......

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I can't speak in very much detail about what issues might be caused for a plant in regards to cutting fan leaves to reduce surface area during flower. I can say that the reason you do it on clones is to reduce transpiration because the clone has no root system to start, so any water lost isn't gonna come back very soon. My thinking is that you would definitely not want that effect on a flowering plant, because transpiration from the leaves is the only reason the roots are taking up water and nutrients in the first place! Think about the vascular system like a straw, as the water is pulled out of the stomata on the underside of the leaves, the water inside the plant is pulled up the stem coming from the roots, and the water pulled out of the roots is osmotically replaced by the water in the media. So if you reduce transpiration, you reduce the amount of water being pulled into the plant also, which means less nutrients are being taken up and hence reduced yield/growth.

All that technical jumbo is basically my way of saying that smaller leaves or larger leaves that have then been cut to be smaller, will lead to reduced yield. The question you have to answer for yourself because I don't know for sure, is 'would the reduction in transpiration be worth the increase in photosynthesis on the leaves currently being shaded'. My thoughts are most likely not, but I have other factors that worry me about that idea too.

Consider that when you cut those leaf blades to have less surface area to reduce the shading they are causing on lower areas, what you are really doing is exposing plant tissue that will be unprotected by its natural epidermal cuticle (just as any plant wound would be unprotected) and therefore runs the higher risk of infection from a plant pathogen possibly causing disease! That right there is enough to make me stay away from the idea, but like I said, I have no formal knowledge of that practice and its possible Pros/Cons. . .

Hope this helps and doesn't just make the decision that much harder.

Oh, and thanks to everyone for the kind words, I appreciate the interest in the science not just the practical.

-Meeks

It's all debatable I guess. I defoliate and it doesn't decrease my yield at all. Nor have I ever had a plant get an infection. If anything it increases the amount of usable nugs. I have WAY less larfy buds when I open up the canopy a bit by removing fans. Just don't go nuts and over do it. I remove big fans that are covering any other buds otherwise the shaded buds stay lime green and don't develop fully which renders them useless.

delae632 said:

It's all debatable I guess. I defoliate and it doesn't decrease my yield at all. Nor have I ever had a plant get an infection. If anything it increases the amount of usable nugs. I have WAY less larfy buds when I open up the canopy a bit by removing fans. Just don't go nuts and over do it. I remove big fans that are covering any other buds otherwise the shaded buds stay lime green and don't develop fully which renders them useless.

Click to expand...

Removing fan leaves entirely is much safer (in regards to infection) for the plant than cutting a leaf in half to reduce surface area. The plant develops a natural layer called the abscision layer right at the point where the petiole of the fan leaf meets the stem, which is why u may have noticed older leaves always have a clean break at the stem. The abscision layer is to help close up the wound before it even occurs, so removing leaves by breaking them off at the base of the petiole exposes much fewer unprotected cells than cutting a leaf in the middle of a leaf blade.

I agree completely though, too much foliage causing a completely impenetrable canopy leads to a bunch of larfy crap buds below. It is all about balancing what you remove with what you keep so everything that is left is either getting sugar easily or producing it!

a sentinel CO2 controller will run you around $700. they are the bees knees. you want to keep your CO2 levels high throughout your on cycle, roughly 1500 ppm. ideally, you want to increase your CO2 ppm with your nutrient ppm. although if you are an organic soil grower this most likely doesn't apply to you. I keep my CO2 around 1250-1300 ppm's consitently. If I kept it at 1500 it would run out too quickly.

619ster said:

I'm a big fan of defoliation. There is no set time of when it's best to do it. You have to read your plant, and apply what nMeeks was explaining (which was a GREAT explanation BTW, props to nMeeks!). If you look at my Eskimo Kush grow, you'll see I removed almost all fan leaves on her. I can get you before and after pics if you'd like. I just didn't post them in the thread because I know how much controversy defoliation brings to the table, so I just do it and don't really look for opinions on whether I should or not. My ARC is actually due for defoliation now. I'll get before and afters of that as well.

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cool would be interested in pictures , I got my 21 and 42 day info from Alien and obviously nmeeks has explained which ones to remove , thanks for responcse and swinging by.... Much Appreciated.. Peace SoSer

Goodsen Cranium said:

Appreciate your insights, Meeks. It was useful getting the technical side of how the fan leaves work. Thanks for taking the time.

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Thanks for taking the time to get nmeeks facts for me, really smart guy with good info.... your great Goods... Respect SoSer

nMEEKS said:

I can't speak in very much detail about what issues might be caused for a plant in regards to cutting fan leaves to reduce surface area during flower. I can say that the reason you do it on clones is to reduce transpiration because the clone has no root system to start, so any water lost isn't gonna come back very soon. My thinking is that you would definitely not want that effect on a flowering plant, because transpiration from the leaves is the only reason the roots are taking up water and nutrients in the first place! Think about the vascular system like a straw, as the water is pulled out of the stomata on the underside of the leaves, the water inside the plant is pulled up the stem coming from the roots, and the water pulled out of the roots is osmotically replaced by the water in the media. So if you reduce transpiration, you reduce the amount of water being pulled into the plant also, which means less nutrients are being taken up and hence reduced yield/growth.

All that technical jumbo is basically my way of saying that smaller leaves or larger leaves that have then been cut to be smaller, will lead to reduced yield. The question you have to answer for yourself because I don't know for sure, is 'would the reduction in transpiration be worth the increase in photosynthesis on the leaves currently being shaded'. My thoughts are most likely not, but I have other factors that worry me about that idea too.

Consider that when you cut those leaf blades to have less surface area to reduce the shading they are causing on lower areas, what you are really doing is exposing plant tissue that will be unprotected by its natural epidermal cuticle (just as any plant wound would be unprotected) and therefore runs the higher risk of infection from a plant pathogen possibly causing disease! That right there is enough to make me stay away from the idea, but like I said, I have no formal knowledge of that practice and its possible Pros/Cons. . .

Hope this helps and doesn't just make the decision that much harder.

Oh, and thanks to everyone for the kind words, I appreciate the interest in the science not just the practical.

-Meeks

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Makes sence to me nmeeks great info as always .... I will be removing the sink leaves in about 6 days and today was the beginning of day 15 and the buds have doubled in size , they are now picture worthy will get some up today for sure..............Blessings SoSer

delae632 said:

It's all debatable I guess. I defoliate and it doesn't decrease my yield at all. Nor have I ever had a plant get an infection. If anything it increases the amount of usable nugs. I have WAY less larfy buds when I open up the canopy a bit by removing fans. Just don't go nuts and over do it. I remove big fans that are covering any other buds otherwise the shaded buds stay lime green and don't develop fully which renders them useless.

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Cool thanks for stopping by and giving your imput Delae , it is a well respected one coming from such a terrific grower as yourself , check back will picture update today. Peace Brotha.... SoSer

BudMuncher said:

I Pluck It!:D

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Nice BudM .... needed a good laugh to start my day , that and I will kill for caffiene currently , need my monster rehab bad .....