To Trim or not to Trim?

[mdTHC420]

gotcha. seems like ur saying u have a nice outer shell of bud sites and leafs? that makes more sense.

myself i just go up every branch and remove the first two little branches up it and the according leafs as well as the inner leafs beyond that once there is atleast 1-2 inches of growth because as an inner leaf it wont do that much good and it frees up air flow.. i also pluck the larger innitial fan leafs from the main stalk once the branch comming from it has a good strong start as those seem to be more for the innitial energy before it turns into a bush.

atleast thus far it seems to be a consensus that leafs and growth do need to be taken off, just the degree is person to person. i will be doing a side by side in a lil bit to do one final test so this can be put at rest.

 

[tortuga1503]

Ya I trimmed my ass off on day 21 now were 28 days. I didn`t just start plucking all the leaves either. I removed the plants and set them on the ground. Looking down at the plant I start removing leaves that are shading light green buds. The buds now are a darker green and you cannot tell it was ever trimmed. I only have 600`s so I need all the light penetration I can get. I`m getting plenty now, I will post pics of my results later. My Diablo OG`s look amazing. Well all of them look amazing. I can`t wait to post pics. I didn`t take before pics. I can see how plucking leaves hurting the bigger buds,but I think this technique is about over all yield. Getting the most out of the light. imo. I started this thread to see what other farmers do or their opinions. Got some great 411 here. I always pluck and have been since I grew my first plant. I`m kinda pf a noobie. Ok when does a noobie become a novice? LoL I`m finishing up my 9th run,but I have only grown 3 in the last 17 yrs. Am I a noobie?lol

 

[vancerz]

I have practiced Heavy defoliation and not so heavy defoliation and from first hand experience a lot of what people say just is not 100 percent true.

I keep hearing how leafs are energy factory's blah blah blah, anything green on that plant will produce energy stems and buds included will produce energy. I prefer the majority of my buds to get the light and make the energy not the fan leafs by doing this I have nothing but good dense buds on the whole of the plant and i don't have lollipop the bottom of the plant.

defoliation brings a couple things to the table that I like. it is an art but I will say this you CANT over do it. you realy cant. here is a plant that i did Heavy Defoliation 2 weeks before flower and 4 weeks into flower.

the yield was the same as if i did not do it, but I had zero fluffy bud and was able to fit more plants in the area and triming(I hate with a passion) was so easy took me like 5 mins to trim a whole oz.

I would encourage people to look into this.

here is some pics sorry I don't have any real good examples to show you atm but I do have some. this plant had zero fan leafs the whole time and what you see is exactly how it budded and grew.

 

[vancerz]

here is a few more of the same thing.

 

[mdTHC420]

i just must say thank you and fantastic. i dont quite take it that far in flower, but thats how i do it in veg. similar to that taking off the leaf after there is about 3/4 inch growth comming from it as it doesnt need the leaf for that branch to survive. good job and post some more pics along the way thru flower so we can see the progress thru.

THX much

 

[vancerz]

I personally don't practice defoliation as heavy as the ones I posted, I just posted them to show how extreme I took it without yield problems Im still tweaking how much to do, But I belive there is real benifit in doing it.

I prefer to defoliate the top in a way that I keep a even multi top plant. so if a branch is short i wont trim it to allow it catch up once all the tops are caught up I defoliate the top 2 feet on a 3 foot plant thats what I have found works for me, I got some sour alien, black waters and alien vacations going right now im doing this with so far so good.

 

[Blaze]

Well, we are all entitled to our opinions but personally I'd be pretty pissed if any buds I grew were that small. Like I said earlier - defoliation is not used in "real" agriculture to boost yields, as far as I know. The large ag companies like Monsanto pour billions into agriculture research every year - somehow I doubt they missed something as simple as leaf removal to boost yields. If you cannot find a parallel to what you are doing in the real agriculture world, what you are doing is probably not effective. Buds do NOT carry out as much photosynthesis as the leaves and are now where even close in how much energy they can generate when compared to other parts of the plant. Leaves have evolved over millions of years for the EXACT purpose of boosting photosynthesis, flowers have not. If you defoliate, it is almost guaranteed you won't be getting results like this:

 

[Blaze]

FYI I have tried defoliating, at various stages. I found removing them during the last 2-3 weeks of flower had no negative effect, but had no positive effect, except on a few super-leafy strains, so it was a waste of time for the most part. Removal of main leaves earlier than this hurt yield, bud size, and density from what I have seen.

 

[vancerz]

I can pull fat bud pics out my ass to ,your trying to compare apples to oranges whats the point?????

Im talking personal experience with a strain a know and grow and its not a massive yeilder i grow what i like, It yielded the same as when i did not defoliate my buds where nice rock hard and frosty that's a fact sorry. I got pics and was showing it, sorry if you don't agree. but showing what works and saying what works are two different things.

There is PLENTY other people posting fat ass pics as well who are defoliating its just not on these forums. I showed some old bud pics that where taken as a reference for my self, and was sharing them for educational purposes not to impress you.
.

 

[tortuga1503]

thank you v for posting the pics and sharing your experiance T