Aint buying it…
Facts over feelings,
Uncle Ben
I posted the facts
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Here’s one more with the full paper name so you can look it up and check it out for yourself if you still don’t believe! Im definitely not trying to argue or start a fight, thats not productive for any of us.
But I try to keep my opinions based on the current information possible, and I know not everyone has the same access to science databases that I do. My job is literally to be up to date on the latest research.
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It’s like bitten nails , only gets worse over time lol
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For indoor that thick defoliating has other benefits as well! Keeps out excess humidity and can even out microclimate to keep fungal infections down
@Everytimefoo those plants look great!
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They are tasty, rich. I have quite a few maters growing in the greenhouse. 3 are what I started from packs in RootBuilder “pots”, the rest are volunteers, seedlings, strays. I have a big greenhouse with a floor of 30X36’ and one year had a volunteer run 1/3 of the floor. It’s just getting started here, hasn’t set fruit yet.
Greenhouse is literally a jungle, by design.
FWIW the tree foliage is so deep I can’t walk between many trees now. Got about 200 Persian and key limes recently, Meyer lemons and oranges are next. Expect at least 400, most from grafts I did on my key lime tree.
2019 - That little (newly grafted tree) in the RootBuilder pot in the middle is now a 6’ tall avocado tree. I have to top my trees to keep them at a manageable height of about 12’-15’.
Uncle Ben
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And the plant keeps replacing them, right?
Think mama natur is trying to tell you something? 
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Uncle Ben that looks and sounds so cool! I love the jungle by design idea!!
Where I live historically was high grass prairie so we manage our garden and yard as a prairie system. So many insects, birds, and small mammals running around its awesome.
Thats the pinnacle of sustainable agriculture I think. Leveraging your local ecosystem in your set up!!
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Thanks for sharing that. Not that I can read it but what’s the % increase and of which ones? Hypothetical - 30% of CBD or something like CBG? What’s the relevance, the real world value.
It’s like the noobs who proudly pose with 16 bottles of shit cannabis fertilizers (the vendors luv ya!) telling another kid who is on his 12th bottle, that XYZ mix at week 4.68 is gonna get you da Big Buds…as you view the grow thread commence with yellowing leaves curling, stressing out, falling off. (“Bloom” foods will do it every time.)
But I digress…
For a causal grower like myself… I could care less.
UB
@OldUncleBen great question! It doesn’t necessarily increase the CBD concentration to something that high. Most cbd strains that are being grown are around 10% CBD when dried. I can try and get our cultivar trial data, but it might still be private until published.
What the pruning does do is raise the quality of more interior buds. It may take them from 4% to 8%. So not necessarily a huge increase (although you could argue doubling is pretty substantial and not be wrong, but 4% compared to modern 20%+ cultivars in THC its a minimal amount).
For hobby growers like you and myself, may not be worth the time for the increase. But if you are growing for business that increase could be the difference between selling more as high value flower or selling for pennies on the dollar to a concentrate processor. Averaged over a few hundred or thousand plants, thats some solid cash.
I defoliate at home because it helps me prevent disease by increasing airflow. Although if I had a GH as beautiful as yours I’d probably just grow trees because they look cooler then hell
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I forgot to mention cannabinoid type in my previous post and that was another really good question. My bad, yall.
The pathway for CBD and THC production starts with CBG. Well, it starts elsewhere but those reactions are complicated and unimportant to this discussion. Any increase in THC or CBD has to be preceded by CBG production, and then depending on genetics and chemotype you get cbd, thc, or a combination of the two.
As an aside, more research is coming out saying that trichome coloration isn’t a good indicator of ripeness or harvest indicator. We are seeing that different genetics result in differential coloration at different stages. For professionals, the best measure is to measure CBG and THC or CBD ratios. CBG production seems to peak before the other cannabinoids, and then as it is converted to thc or cbd the ratio goes down. If cannabinoids are your end game, this is currently the best measure. But it requires expensive analytical equipment and usually an analytical chemist.
For hobbyists I am starting to believe, based on literature and experience, that the best measure is trichome stalk length. Let them grow long and your cannabinoids and terpenes will increase.
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I have a fan on the floor and inject room air. Never have a disease problem and that’s with stuff like Deep Chunk where you’re lucky if you see any internode space at all LOL. It’s like somebody stepped on the plant and squashed it - leaves/branches on top of leaves/branches.
I also don’t do tents. Never have. I’m heavy on the use of reflective panels - Behr Ultra White.
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Your method is obviously working well for you! Great looking plants, again! I gotta be sounding like a broken record with that at this point 
How many plants you run at a time? You got a thread I hope. Would love to tag along and watch a good GH grow
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Why trichome stalk length instead of trichome color? The discussions I’ve been reading suggest that stalk and gland deformation begin to occur after peak ripeness. Trichome coloration can be misleading though as other factors have been noted to change trichome color before actual peak ripeness. Even still, the work on trichome phenotyping by Sutton is noteworthy. There surely seems to be a correlation with stalk length but I think there are other more precise measures to more accurately assess ripeness for hobby gardeners.
For hobby gardeners milky trichomes seem to be a better indicator than assessing trichome length development. It’s postulated that the milky color has to do with the cuticle wall thickening adding to its opaque color. Digital magnification and topic specific software can make this an affordable reality even for hobby gardeners.
Sutton, Conneely, and Livingston are doing progressive work in these fields.
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On the topic of defoliation, I don’t think it’s a good idea unless the vegetarian is so dense that it’s contributing to undesirable performance issues.
Plants find energy from the sun and leaves have photosynthetically active chloroplasts. It seems counterintuitive to remove them. That said, there is discussion that the capitate stalks of trichomes also have photosynthetically active chloroplasts that help facilitate the role of photosynthesis in some varieties as the fan leaves senescence. There may be something to this relationship that is yet to be explored as it relates to defoliation and capitate stalked trichome density. I’d imagine since fan leaves are a primary driver for energy in the beginning stages of plant growth that it would come at the expense of quantity. The leaves drive the growth for floral tissue and the trichomes find the surface area there to take shape from. I believe energy in matches energy expressed to a relative degree.
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I am familiar with their work! I should specify that any technique that only evaluates one characteristic is likely unreliable unless you are very familiar with your strain. I prefer a holistic view of flower growth pattern, thricome color, and stalk length.
Trichome color is a phenotype that can be pretty variable. But there is a correlation between stalk length and glandular head maturity and size. And that is consistent between genotypes which is why I think its a better measure.
I’ve got a citation and screenshot excerpt from a study posted in another thread somewhere on here as evidence of my claim.
Big caveat though: the right indicator is the one you are comfortable with and have had success with. If you suspect you could do better on some grows, maybe try a new evaluation method on those plants! Would be cool to hear those results
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While plants don’t have feet to walk away they have the ability to change their morphological features. One way they do this is by changing the leaf shape to most efficiently harness the suns energy. The thinner leaflets up top allow diffusion of light deeper into the canopy. This leaf arrangement is highly specialized in my opinion and the plant is constantly assessing it’s surroundings. Leaf temperature, photon flux density, ect.
By defoliating it’s having the plant reformulate what it’s been assessing about it’s local environment since germination, and likely with some passed down maternal data as well. I would think that plants grown for seed that were defoliated would have subsequent populations expressing differently than the same control group of plants grown for seed without defoliation.
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So you have some good points here, but I also have some thoughts, lol!
I would argue that plants produce more leaves than is necessary to power growth. This is a survival tactic for plants. They lose green leaves all the time to herbivores, wind, disturbances etc and having extra allows for the loss of some leaves without loss to plant growth.
Edit to add: pruning or defoliating is also very common in fruit and vegetable production. It is also a historical cultural methods to improve crop quality. This is one of those times where I think cannabis gets separated a little bit from our ag commodities, but at the end of the day it is still a plant bound by the laws of nature and shaped by evolution and selection like all our other crops
I’m also not trying to change anyone’s opinion on defoliating! If you don’t do it, I dont expect to convince you to start. If you are on the fence I hope that what I have shared has helped you make a decision
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It seems like it would be a challenge for most hobby gardeners to familiarize themselves with trichome stalk length of a given cultivar compared to assessing based on gland color. Color seems to be a common indicator while length seems have more variability.
For more professional projects I think trichomes phenotyping with more advanced means is a good idea. Standardization and consistency.
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