Yep, I'd agree with that poppy. Indiscriminate ripping of every fan leaf seems completely pointless to me and, as someone who does remove excess foliage, and isn't averse to roughing up my ladies a bit if they need it, I'm not one of those `let nature run its course` types. Training and pruning is a vital part of growing, but, like anything else, can be taken to the point of being pointless.
I was so looking forward to the adamant naysayers jumping in here eventually. Rarely do you EVER see an indoor grow yield 10-20oz dry PER PLANT with girls being only 32" CUBED. Yet this is ROUTINE for the experienced indoors defoliator. On my first ever attempt I got 7.5 oz dry and my conditions were not perfect. I in fact had light issues and crowding in a 4'x4' tent. Prior to that my average plant was 2.5 -3.5 oz if I gave them a reasonable veg period. I screwed up my current grow letting them get too tall before flipping and I promise you I will surpass 7.5 oz AND I SCREWED IT UP! There is much more to this than just taking fan leaves off. Timing, training, light, and the rest of the grow routine being dialed in are all part of the process. YES YOU DO see defoliation used in other genre of horticulture, fruit bearing fields. Have you never seen a vineyard (not the best example) completely stripped of every single leaf? What about roses? It's all about the process of everything involved. Again, I will say, when we grow indoors we ARE NOT under the sun and have zero shot at properly mimicking it. On the surface of the earth at noon on a typical june 21st day the sun delivers 100,000 lumens per square meter. VERY IMPORTANT: That's from top to bottom of plant! A 1000w hps bulb will deliver 150,000 lumen at 6-7" from the light, but at 36" it will be as little as 5000 lumen. At 24" it's about 11,000-12,000 lumen. Now throw 500 fan leaves in the middle of that plant and ask yourself honestly how much lumen will be delivered to that plant under that hps bulb. Honestly, objectively think about it. As well, take a look at those buds. Are they not full of leaves? (We dont mention taking sugar leaves off the bud in this topic). Do you honestly believe all that leafy material, between the swollen calyx's are doing nothing and delivering nothing to the buds? Now hide them with a bunch of fan leaves. You know, those fan leaves that are attached to the stems and main branches. Do you honestly believe they are developing the buds moreso than the sugar leaves and those tiny leaves between the calyx's? This entire routine is an adaptation of numerous growing techniques. Does sog/scrog or lollipopping hurt our plants? Are these techniques discussed with such fervor as being harmful to the cannabis plant? Yet they dont grow like that naturally outdoors ANYWHERE ON THE PLANET! WE are NOT replacing nature. We are not copying nature. Take the "nature" line out of your vocabulary the moment you walk indoors to grow. We are fooling nature, not copying it. We can't copy it because the most important ingredient of nature is the sun and we can't harness it indoors. We can only mimic it to the best of our ability. When using this technique, as described in the thread I've mentioned previously on another site, following the pdf, we are doing nothing more than a modified scrog as it were but with fewer plants and making sure all the available light in our indoor grow is penetrating and giving it's love from top to bottom in the lights most OPTIMAL range of delivering lumen ( or lux as it were). This technique does not hurt the plants. does not harm the production. Yet it isnt also indiscriminate. It takes some learning. And truthfully should not be attempted by new growers. Get your grows dialed in first and study all you can find on the topic before attempting. I personally read daily on the topic for two weeks 1-2 hours a day before I even started doing this and continued after. I also had a not to be named aficionado on the topic visit my first effort and guide me. This grower routinely gets 10-12 oz dry from every plant, trained to 32" cubed and has for years. Others taking up his routine and adding even more light have reached as high as 22oz INDOORS in hydro (dry), and said grower routinely gets 15-16oz per plant. It's awfully hard to argue with that type of success. Key point is these are not big plants! They are normally 28-38" tall. Not 5-6 (or more) footers! One of the most common arguments from the naysayers I see is "show me scientific proof". Well, to some, results are scientific. But in reality, are you following all scientific data on your own grows indoors? Just where did you find this truly "scientific data"? Further, I am of the opinion that until MJ is taken off schedule 1 illicit drugs by the federal government you cannot or will not see "scientific" data. To ask for it is a farce. You can't even find your own scientific data on the topic of indoor mj growing let alone the varied methods of indoor growing. This method is not for everyone. Some folks prefer to run 99 plants in 1 liter bottles, seed to flower, or clone to flower. Others choose to run 60+ plant aeroponics. And then others still prefer to run flo n gro or dirt. Probably the most common reason for people that do use this method is plant number limitations. In my state for example, one can only have 4 plants in flower at a time. And my end product is used in concentrate, not smoked. I need a pretty strong yield to last from one harvest to the next to treat my elderly mother (I don't even smoke or ingest mj myself). Whilst the 50 plant hempy or aeroponics grower can yield the same as my 4 plants yeild, and do his much faster, with little veg time, I cannot grow that many plants without being GROSSLY outside the local boundaries. Until one has actually tried this with proper application of all the techniques involved, one should probably not suggest it doesn't work or is bad for the plants. For me, I choose to grow buds rather than grow leaves. I keep an open mind, and learn from others. I try like hell to not pass judgement with preconceived ideas. For now, this method is my favorite, and something I am still learning from each grow on, and hope to continue to be teachable for many years to come.
I can dig what you're saying Bassman. The secondary fans, and sugar leaves do what the larger fans do, just not at the same level. Like you stated though, with indoor lighting the intensity diminishes by the square so the further away from that bulb you get production is being lost by the square. If you are trying to adhere to a local ordinance I can understand trying to get the most from each plant, but wouldn't it be even more efficient to spread that baby out under a scrog so all the growing tops get their fair share? As an experienced grower, you know which branches are going to be yielders and which ones are going to be squaggle long before flowering. So my reasoning would lead me to believe that by focusing all the plants efforts on a 12 inch tall canopy on a horizontal plane would still yield more than trying to open light up towards the lower shelf when the light is at a premium. Correct me if I'm wrong here. I've only done hobby grows indoors with 400 watt lamps and such, and most of my experience is outdoors. I know that outdoors I let the plant tell me when it's time for leaves to go and I help it along in a fashion that doesn't shock the plant. Just the same as when I do away with lower growth. Some people will whack away the lower 3rd of a plant at once, while I do it over the course of several sessions. I'd love to see someone who has a big enough room and time to do a side by side with identical clones, and see how it turns out in the end.
@poppy, We are in fact doing a somewhat modified scrog. While I let my girls get too damn tall in veg on my current grow, what it did do was help me learn more about manipulating the hell out of branches. We are spreading the hell out of the plant at top but also keeping them lower AND by defoliating we turn all that scraggle popcorn down low into real actual bud. Thus we are not lolipop removing lower branches so much so, but instead making them real bud too. You may not have seen me mention earlier, but one of my plants in my current grow has a main branch that is some 24-26" AWAY from center. It's been bent laterally so many times and every single off shoot from that branch has bud developing at the main canopy and easily twice the size they would normally be as a result for this time frame. Why whack off the lower third if we dont have too?
I don't think speculating as to the finer points of defoliating qualifies anyone as a naysayer to be fair bassman. I'm just speculating about the results, that's all. I agree with you about results, 100%.. they're all that matter and that's as scientific as it needs to get for me, and, like you say, these forums give us data as close to any field test as we're going to get. It's where we find out everything. So, to the results.... You talked earlier, in relation to rhapsody's grow, about removing almost all the fan leaves in order to promote thicker branching and sturdier growth - at least that's what it seemed like you were alluding to, I did sort of skim read it so if I've got that a bit wrong then correct me. But I'd go as far as arguing that fan leaf removal in veg offers very little benefit to the plant in terms of it's growth rate and structure during the veg period. If you can offer evidence to the contrary I'm interested. What particularly interests me in relation to your argument is the pictures of your plants which have been completely defoliated. I mean we're talking about a massive difference here, but I can't see that. The way you're putting your argument forward suggests these methods give major enhancements in yield that wouldn't be possible otherwise. In a nutshell, I think strategic removal of fan leaves is definitely a help towards a healthy crop. I just don't think going as far as almost every leaf on the plant during veg and then repeating that process gives you any massive tangible gain over just simple basic pruning to be honest. It's the use of figures which also is a bit ambiguous. Again, it's not me being dismissive, just wanting more concrete evidence. I mean when you say 10-20oz per 32" cubed space, that's a pretty massive fluctuation. 10oz per plant in that space is easily doable. I've done 24oz with untrained untrimmed warlocks in 1 square meter and a 600w bulb. I assume by 32" cubed you mean roughly 3 foot by 3 foot? Is that right?
not in the traditional sense or definition. I mean if we look up LST in the traditional sense we're directing the main branch from very early in veg. I do top or fim, so I do have 1-4 main branches. Each of these naturally grow many more off shoots. As these off shoots grow I'll then bend the main branch actually laterally & below the taller off shoots. These main branches will end up extending and still going upwards. It's not low stress. I bend and break the shit out of them. It's more like butt loads of super cropping.
Like Watcher, the picture I'm painting in my head is that you were saying you take all the fans off during veg. Did I read that wrong? I'll have to go back and take a look. I know without running a control that it slows a plant way down. Never did it with my own hands but I've had grasshoppers and deer help me out with it.
Fuck, I've deleted some of the pics I had on my camera. I've still got some though... Anyway, look at this. It's quite interesting actually because ironically I think you're delving into an area of training where the same principles can be applied, and where you do have to be specific and ruthless with what you keep and what you remove. Without a doubt it's as important to remove bud sites as it is to remove fan leaves in some instances. Here's what you're talking about in pictures: Now, as you can see I measure 6 inches up the plant. Every bud site below that point will be removed. You can see clearly in the second picture that the side shoots which have been kept, and those below which have been removed. The plant will now be bent over, whether it be supercropped or tied or scrogged, and they will become main healthy buds. For me, this is basic plant training. When you get a little bit more advanced is keeping the side shoots themselves growing at the correct rate in relation to one another. You do this by supercropping the initial shoots all the way along the stem. This prevents their growth for long enough so the next ones along the stem have a chance to start, and so on and so on. This is what keeps a scrog from filling out in the middle before the main branches which are growing outwards reach the sides. Personally I think methods like this are all about controlling your plant's growth and from my experience removing so many of the fan leaves adds nothing to this process.
Now, with regards to growth rates and vigour etc, I'll show you some more pictures. This is a black jack clone at a couple of weeks old. (btw I'm sorry I can't put this into one post.. I'm shit I know... I'll have to have a mess around in a little random post somewhere and figure it out... in the meantime...) It went from this
Now here's a picture of her with her twin sister. At this point I will remove a couple of fan leaves to allow the light to hit it evenly. I'm running a vertical and a scrog and an lst mishmash of some sort (haven't decided what it's gonna be yet) so I'm cool with different methods For me, removal of almost all this ladies fan leaves would have served no purpose whatsoever and although I am a fully fledged member of the let's have a good mess around club, I think it has to be measured... Mr. Miyagi style.. and not fucked up with a hatchet, Jason Voorhees style. I'll show the pictures tomorrow of what I've removed.
[quote name='"TheWatcher"']Now here's a picture of her with her twin sister. At this point I will remove a couple of fan leaves to allow the light to hit it evenly. I'm running a vertical and a scrog and an lst mishmash of some sort (haven't decided what it's gonna be yet) so I'm cool with different methods For me, removal of almost all this ladies fan leaves would have served no purpose whatsoever and although I am a fully fledged member of the let's have a good mess around club, I think it has to be measured... Mr. Miyagi style.. and not fucked up with a hatchet, Jason Voorhees style. I'll show the pictures tomorrow of what I've removed.[/quote] Exactly. I have a few photos of mr miyagi. And now I'm trying mr. Miyagi on crack. I'm curious to see how it ends up. I read everyone's post. I have not seen anything like mr. Miyagi on crack from the picture you posted bassman. From what you were saying I thought you would go much more aggressive.
[quote name='"pointswest"'] Prove your defoliation theory with backing from real science, not stoner myth. PW[/quote] Amen pointwest
Sorry mate, I'll post them up tomorrow when the lights come back on. Btw, I hope bassman doesn't depart the thread altogether. I'm not being dismissive of this technique or of his advice. I actually think there are too many people who advocate not touching the foliage at all which I also think is too rigid a philosophy to follow to achieve the best results. I think you've got to be flexible all the time and it's only the results that matter at the end of the day. When we talk about scientific proof to validate claims, sometimes it's unfair, because like bassman said, we won't have data from professional sources with regards to the best methods to improve yields, we pretty much only have each other so we should be open minded and really only interested in what results people achieve. So many things were once frowned on which have no come to be accepted based on the results of growers and their ability to share them in an open forum such as these message boards.
Watcher, please can you go over steps you take from germ with regards to defoliating or any lst you find relevant. I'm a new grower who was hearing from most pros to not touch plant but am most interested especially since a pro I respect recommends extremely light defoliation but only during veg. Just looking to expand my knowledge base so singing you can share would be helpful.