I’ve never been one to defoliate. I tend to leave them on until they rot and fall off on their own. But I’ve seen some commercial grows with HEAVY stripping and impressive results.
I’m growing a few Blue Power plants from Sin City and they are so leafy that I’ve started yanking in veg.
Exhibit A is a quick vegged plant at 56 days flowering. Have not yanked a thing. Even on this small plant the leaves are as big as my mammoth mitts. The inner buds have been completely shaded their whole life but seem to be stacking nicely.
Exhibit B had an extended veg and is now in 7 days flowering. I’ve been pulling large fans off constantly in veg. My question to you all is would you yank on these leaves or let them be?
I tend to get my flower room overcrowded and so I do take them off if I need airflow or if they are blocking a bud below them. I see everything from not touching to complete lollipop. Outdoors I tend to leave them until they are dead or dying before removing them.
I would start by yanking the lower pale leaves. If you want to then wait a few days I’d strategically yank some more in the middle that are blocking bud sites.
Yeah that’s same for me. I gradually remove leaves over the grow as stuff fills in. I feel like getting more light down in the canopy helps. I don’t touch anything that isn’t blocking another part of the plant though… that seems counterproductive.
I almost never yank any leaves until they not only yellow, but actually are beginning to shrivel up.This is particularly the case if growing outdoors with lots of direct sunlight throughout the day.
Indoors only I will remove the lowest two or three branches entirely, in order to try to enhance air circulation. But, Indoor plant’s lower branches have a tendency to produce fluffy, feathery buds anyway.So outdoors I leave all of the branches intact and only remove leaves that are not productive. Even the very bottom branches produce buds of substance outdoors.
I never have before yesterday. I decided the girls were getting very close to finishing so I completely stripped four plants of fan leaves. I left a few small ones in the bud structure. Now they are just buds on branches… swim has always done it with great results, makes for a quick trim job when they are done. I thought I would try it out and see if anything bad happened to them. So far so good! The buds have seemed to swell a little, haha maybe its my bad .
I think the LIFTA process works best, other than lower branches. I try to Tuck leaves whenever possible. I think clipping the big stuff in the last few days makes sense but I have never really tried it. Good topic…
I’m prob going to get bashed for this but here we go…in veg I would dream of it HOWEVER in flower I absolutely cut leaves.
I do have rules that I follow and have had much better results and tried many different methods.
Rule #1 … Dont go trimming leaves off left and right with no real purpose.
Rule #2 … No defoliation week 1 of flower (plants are already under enough stress) and nothing after week 3ish.
Rule #3 … Dont do it more than once per week.
Rule #4 … Only remove leaves that are blocking bud sits or lower fans that are not getting any light.
If those old large fan leaves are not getting any light then they are not giving energy but rather using it. They will also be the first to die and restrict air flow.
I also try to limit how many I take off. I’m not one to give massive haircuts.
If done properly lots off strains respond amazing. A little bit of stress seems to make them just explode. However too much stress and you will get the opposite effect.
When we extreme defol we stress the plant out , and also it has to spend time now regrowing more leafs to make up /compensate for the ones you pulled off , so it can function properly again , as the defol has now upset the balance /harmony between the root mass and leaf mass kindoff ( out of sinc )
If you defol in late veg or early flower , then the plant has to regrow more leafs , this robs the plant of budding power , as it now has to share its budding power /energy to making leafs now too
And if the strech is over the only place left growing is the new bud sites / colas , so that’s where it grows the new leafs
We also need these fan leafs as we have n stored in them for later on in grow as a safety net if the plant needs it
Think about the time and energy the plant took to grow them leafs
The reason it needs them ( to function )
The care you took to keep them leafs perfect
The nutes it took to grow them and the nutes stored in them
Also they tell us how the plant is doin and any needs it has etc
Then right at the critical time people strip them all off and make the plant start all over again
Confusion , stress , wasted time and leafy buds
If they didn’t need them they would not grow them
: )
Great thread, almost everything has been said so I will just point out what someone said: “Damaged leaves shall be trimmed as they are a Hotel for pest and diseases” or something like that …
All up to your specific canopy situation. If you have light/air movement issues pull enough to mitigate the problem or if they are yellow/brown. But leave as many leaves as possible. If indoors id say trim fans last week or so to help with trimming but that’s just me…
My philosophy is if you have applied training to break apical dominance then you have taken over leaf training and pruning.
I like to think my trimming as ‘rustic’. Like most, I take off main fans as required for air flow. I’ll leaf tuck as I can but I’ll trim leaves as required for bud site illumination. Other than that, when they yellow and wilt or show some necrosis I’ll remove them.
I do not really remove leaf in veg unless they are ugly.
Once into into flower, during transition, the first 3-4 weeks, once a leaf is gone yellow, it’s resourcse, the starches are done.
First I only remove the main stalk big fans, after yellowing, if the yellow creeps up the branch I’ll remove some of them. How ever they are usually getting close to being culled.
@ifish summed up my position pretty well. The leaves can be both a source and a sink. Productive leaves are a source of energy, but the older ones are simply a sink (it takes more energy to keep them alive than they produce). You will notice the plant eventually pulls the mobile nutrients from the sink leaves and they will turn yellow and die. That’s usually when I pluck them.
That being said, this plant behavior has evolved in nature with plenty of light and fresh air. When we grow indoors with artificial light and airflow, some pruning becomes necessary. There is nothing natural about growing a plant indoors.
When I was thinking about this, this really stuck out. I would expect the plant to try to push out some growth quickly on a light defoliation. Kind of like if an animal nibbled a few leaves off. Hurry up n grow to try and finish before it gets eaten completely.
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