To Trim or not to Trim?

[tortuga1503]

Hey everybody hope all is well. Ok so I have a tray with 8 plants and I originally had 6 in there(Diablo OG). Well Those 6 got really big my fault still trying to get this timing thing down,so had to swap them out and put them in the 4x8. The 8 I moved into the tray are different strain(Bubba OG) not as much of a stretcher of coarse but very dense and bushy. I read somewhere about defoliation. Most growers say don`t trim the leaves(healthy ones blocking light) and a few that say cut em. Now I pretty much have to cut em because its very crowded. I just want to know what some of the more experianced growers here have to say about this and the ones that do this what or is there a best time to do this? My room is 20 days in bloom

 

[Blaze]

Do not cut healthy leaves that are getting light. Those leaves are the "power plants" that provide energy to the plant. Cut them off and you are reducing the plants ability to carry out photosynthesis.

 

[Str8Dank]

i've never done it but read a very huge thread on it and what i found consistently is what i've read on defoliation it's way to late to start now for you without a negative effect.

defoliation is recommended to start in veg by those who do it. i have no idea of the positive or negative effects of this personally through experience and there are not a ton of people doing it so tread lightly bro dont want to see you tear everything up when you could have just got rid or a plant.

 

[Str8Dank]

what blaze said is what is logical and is what i have always believed but i saw the threads on this long ago and started reading and when lots of people start claiming better results it makes you wonder. i've never been curious enough to every try it though lol.

 

[kmk4eva]

i strip my plants down bare and with in a week you would never know that i stripped them down and when in flower

 

[Blaze]

^^^ at the end is fine, I do that too sometimes. But doing it when the plant still has weeks left to go will hurt the plant's ability to flower.

 

[tortuga1503]

Ya thats what logic tells you but S8D and I probably read the same thread on this. I`m just curious on how many Farmers are doing this.

 

[motherlode]

at about 12-17 days into flower I strip the plant of unwanted lower branches and (strain depending) the first branch or 2 off each main branch thats closest to the main stem on the lowers that are left

doing this early will not effect your yield - but taking healthy fan leaves (especially when a branch hasn't formed from that node yet) isn't good and like blaze said it effects photosyntheses - think of your plant as a factory and the leaves are the solar panels that drive production

then about 10 days prior to harvest I take any fan leaves that look spent (dull, spotty etc) and are blocking lower buds from getting light

best thing you can do is keep a log and update it anytime you do anything to your plants as well as taking note daily of temps, rh etc

it will help you develop over time what works best for your setup and strains and gives you a refernce to go back and see where you went wrong or what you did when you had that amazing harvest

 

[jglass]

trim

i always trim everything off 8-10 inches from the bottom. this lets my canopy flourish and the plants waste less energy supporting lower growth resulting in bigger top colas.
:pimp:

 

[grenbone]

I Prune.

Removing the right 'sucker' leaves at the right time will allow the plant to produce larger fruit. Definitely a technique that takes some practice/experience to perfect. The 'sucker' leaves are the large fan leaves that are usually located right below a bud-site. The bud/flowers use the light to grow just as the leaves do. By removing these huge 'sucker' leaves 2-4 weeks into flowering (depending on the strain), you will allow more light to get to the bud-sites which the big 'sucker' leaves were blocking out.

Besides blocking light from lower bud-sites, the giant fan leaves can also 'steal' energy from the larger bud and flowers that are usually located right above the leaf.

I see these leaves as 'sucker' leaves that use up more of the energy used by the plant to produce bud. Remove one of these 'sucker' leaves at the right time, and the bud-site above it will produce a larger sized kola than if you left it there. This happens because the plant is now directing more of it's energy on producing just the bud than it was before when it was expending the same amount of energy on the bud and the giant fan leaf together. You don't want to remove too many of these leaves to the point where you begin to leave big open spaces/spots in your canopy or you can gimp your flowers, and that would be bad. Although there should always be a nice full canopy of foliage, you don't need all the giant 'sucker' leaves throughout the whole flowering period. It takes some practice and skill because there is a delicate balance between removing the right amount and removing too many.

This is an old farming technique used to produce large fruit or vegetables.

A lot of people, if not most, will argue that these giant fan leaves are like solar panels that fuel the rest of the plant to produce more/bigger bud, and that removing any of them is foolish. While there is some truth to this notion, I disagree with this mindset because of the results I have gotten and seen from removing leaves at the right time.
I do think the leaves are very important and if you remove the big fan leaves at the wrong time as northone mentions above, you can greatly compromise the plants photosynthesis ability, and you can gimp out your buds by doing this.

 

[motherlode]

I never understood the term "sucker" leaves

they hold water in reserve for dry times and regulate the plants respiration

co2 is "inhaled" and oxygen is "exhaled" through the leaves and photosyntheses would be greatly reduced if you remove these healthy leaves

now if they are unhealthy - then I could equate them to being sucker leaves

not a dig at you grenbone -I know you didnt invent his term :smiley_joint:

 

[grenbone]

I definitely think that this is a delicate technique that takes practice and the right understanding. If overdone, you can harm your plants and buds. It is a skill that could be viewed as artistry. This technique would fall under the pruning and training category.

I also don't know how "basic" of a growing technique this really is. It seems pretty basic to me, yet I understand that there is a delicate balance here as well. To a newb grower this technique of removing fan-leaves (the sucker leaves, not just any fan leaf) might end up being detrimental to their grow if not done correctly.

 

[grenbone]

i always trim everything off 8-10 inches from the bottom. this lets my canopy flourish and the plants waste less energy supporting lower growth resulting in bigger top colas.
:pimp:

Right on, jglass. This is the same principle that applies to removing the large 'sucker' leaves at the right time. Like I said before, if you remove too many leaves or remove them at the wrong time, you will greatly compromise your plant's integrity by hampering its ability to fully produce photosynthesis as it normally should to be healthy.

 

[stanknugzz77]

Not a shot at anyone, but my thoughts and "experiments" (I say that because I am not a scientist nor a botanist, just a deep passion for one plant) on the subject are as follows:

At the same node on my flowering plant where both sides where apparently receiving the same amount of light, I proceeded to pinch a leaf off on just one of the sides. I also did this to several other plants. Over the next couple of weeks the bud on the side where I had taken the leaf from grew, but not as fast as the one where I had left the leaf. I concluded that this leaf was somehow an energy source for the bud site on which it was attached. I only preformed these tests because I too was debating the question "to trim or not to trim". I had read several books that I reference just for the subject (growing not trimming) and most said different things. Only one provided any research or actual findings and suggested I try it myself to prove them correct and boy did I LOL. Now I just train huge leaves that are really blocking killer bud sites (the big ones LOL) as if I am training a branch minus the ties. Put it where it receives just as much light, but is also out of they way and it should stay there. Then I sometimes will trim fan leaves a few days out, after the initial flushing has been started (especially the yellows). Works for me constantly and consistently. Again, just my technique. Good luck though man.

-nugzz

 

[tortuga1503]

First of all thank you everybody that took the time to read and respond to this. I just read < science says NO but experiance says YES> . So again no clear cut right or wrong, but timing is key from what I`ve read and what GB wrote. So when should one do this if one chooses to experiment with this. At what time or is one looking for something that tells them its the right time. I know its strain dependant. I have 600`s so light penetration is a concern for me. When I started growing again. I went from a small bathroom to a lil bigger room to a nice room 13x10x9. If I would of started out in the larger room I would of bought 1000`s. I`m stuck with these for this run maybe even the next run too. I will be upgrading next year unless yield satisfactory.

 

[grenbone]

What I wrote above is based purely from experience, and the results are amazingly noticeable (especially when compared to different grower-friend's crops who don't even believe in removing dead leaves). Timing is KEY. 2-4 weeks into flowering (depending on the strain). Maybe even a little later. Once you see the plant expending energy to produce big bud-sites is when you should look for the sucker leaves. This is an old-school Italian farmer's trick as far as I know. Big leaves use up the same energy that the bud sites use in order to grow large as they do. Training and pruning for large fruit size is a real skill and/or art, tried and true, that has been practiced for centuries or longer. Again, timing is EVERYTHING!!! If you go about this wrong and remove the wrong leaves or remove the leaves at the wrong time, you can totally gimp out your plants and make you bud production much lower than what it could be. There is definitely a very delicate balancing act that takes place when applying these pruning techniques.

 

[grenbone]

...Its the same sort of concept as LST, and topping. Think of where 'you' want the plant to direct it's energy.

 

[Seamaiden]

Grenbone, I'd love to see how you apply your technique. I'm one of those "shave their legs, then pistilwhip" people, but I'm still working hard on refining my technique. I'm thinking that having glasses now might help, since I'll actually be seeing what I'm pinching off clearly.

In any event, your posts are reminding me of when I was a kid and one of our summer chores was to tend the 6-tree 'orchard' of fruit trees we had. I remember my mom yelling at us, "Don't cut that branch off! Cut the other one off! HEY! HEY! Pay attention to what I'm saying!"

 

[tortuga1503]

Grenbone. Thanks You. As far as when. Well I`m 20 days in bloom and they are doing what you said now. Big bud sites and 2 different strains producing huge leafs. I take the plant off the table and set it on the ground. Than look down at it and cut off leaves that are blocking good bud sites. Thats what I`ve been doing. CAUTIOUSLY.

 

[mdTHC420]

just my .02. seems like each plant has a finite amount of potential energy (usually determined by the root size and quality). from a lot of setups that ive seen i dont think that light is the limiting reactant for photosynthesis, CO2 is, assuming you have enough light for the space. i agree with others on here and take off my fan leafs after the secondary growth has reached atleast and inch or more. a week after i prune you cant even tell i took any off as it just re-bushes itself. i could be completely wrong, but from looking at others that leave all on, they look like squat cluster-fks that have no air flow what so ever.

once again, i could be completely off but when you prune almost any other plant, the result will be faster growth, from trees to grass, they all grow better after a good trim.