Has she started to flush how many weeks now?

Where did your fan leaves go?

 

No, no, no. Don't start flushing until all your pistils are brown. Your still getting fresh pistils at the top there so there's no way it's gonna be ready in 2 weeks. The only way to tell how close you are is getting some kind of magnifier and checking your trichomes. If you want a uplifting smoke you want mostly cloudy trichs, if you want to be stuck on your couch you need mostly amber trichs.

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Last 2 weeks alone can add 25% to your yield. Next time keep the fan leaves on. You've probably got somewhere around 3-4 weeks left.

 

Never do that. Imagine those leaves as solar panels. Now your "house" isn't getting the energy it needs.

 

Lack of lighting and defoliation combo. What lights

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Bud size is directly proportional to size...both plant and bud. If your buds are small, your plant hasn't been getting enough light. The tops of your buds are stretched. See how they look like they're trying to keep growing up instead of filling out....not enough hours of strong light. Nutes feed a plant. Light forces the plant to grow and buds to fatten. The last few weeks of the flower cycle is the time when the buds fatten. But if it's not getting enough good light, that's not going to happen. You're not trying to grow it in partial shade are you...like up against a woodline or fence? If so, your blocking half the day's strong light. I'm guessing you're doing this outside...going by what I see in the pic. If you're flowering inside, definitely need more good quality high wattage flower lighting. TWW

 

For me the jury is still out on whether to leave the fan leaves on or not. I've tried leaving them and lolly popping and I've tried taking them all off. I've had great results both ways but I haven't tried both ways with the same strain so idk which would have yielded more. I would say though that I don't think defoliating harmed my yield but I did get a heck of a lot more sugar leaves on my bud, I believe this was because I defoliated but it was a different strain so idk really. Maybe it would have been like that anyway... I'm gonna have to try a 50/50 room defoliate half and lollypop half. Then I'll know lol. There's so much conflicting information out there it's hard to know. I'm a gardener and everything I know about plants tells me it's wrong but the evidence shown by others is undeniable when it comes to weed.

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And in terms of when to flush; you don't want to do that until you're a week or so out from harvest. IMO. That will let your plant start to use up the rest of the nutrients in the soil and leaves, and start leaching extra built up nutrients from your buds for a smoother smoke. Also clears your soil of excess salts and buildup to assist it a smoother finishing product.

Also those buds are going to start fattening up soon. Definitely should have left leaves on. Pruning is one thing, stripping a plant of all its leaves is another.
As I said, solar panels

also once those buds fatten and you notice more trichomes forming, go out and get yourself a 60x jewelers loup. (I got the 40x and it's barely enough)
Look for your trichomes to change from a clear, to milky/cloudy color, and then to an amber shade. Once you have anywhere from 10-60% (ex.) amber trichomes, and the rest cloudy, you're ready for harvest.

It's all preference when deciding what percentage. Higher amber count will give you more of a couch lock effect while cloudy/milky is a more cerebral experience. Once you're about to that trichome mark that you want, you can start thinking about flushing. Another way to spot maturity is to take a peak at your calyxs. The hairs should start dying and receding back into the calyx.

 

I believe that evidence you saw was actually from removing lower bud sites rather than fan leaves. But yeah, try it for yourself if you want to be certain, sometimes that's the only way to know.

 

No, removing the lower buds is lolly popping. Defoliating is completely different. Defoliating is the removal of fan leaves to expose the lower buds to more light making them a lot bigger. My last grow I defoliated. I had 6 plants with a 600w hps and a 300w cfl in a 2mx2m room. No doubt not enough light but defoliating opened the lower bud sites to more light which undoubtedly made them bigger. Whether or not it reduced final yield on the tops I don't know because, as I say, it was a different strain. I split my lower buds and tops at harvest, well, at trim. I had 4 oz off lower buds, not bad off "popcorns", and 15 oz off tops. My previous best was 10 oz but that was 1 plant that wasn't defoliated but... it was a different strain, it was Dr krippling incredible bulk. I got maybe 1/2 oz from the lower buds and 9.5 from tops. As I say though, it proves nothing lol.

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I know all the terms haha, just was wondering if you knew the difference since I hadn't seen you around before.
I've grown a couple plants with only 2 fan leaves (oops), they took a little longer to finish flowering than the others, but they were bag seed.. so technically that didn't prove anything I guess :/

A couple points tho:

• LST does the same thing without making those huge sacrifices
• The fan leaves are extremely helpful in diagnosing nute/pest problems, temp, humidity, mold, wind, pH, light levels.. I could keep going, let's just say overall health of the plant
• There are other methods of exposing the sites without resorting to that, such as tying the leaves out of the way. I should have added this to the first one about LST.. shit lol

But regardless of that, if you do try it out with the same strain under same light, I'd be interested in seeing the results.

 

Yeah lst would work, myself I use super cropping mainly but that's purely because I don't have time for lst, not that it takes much more time but my grows are hidden in my attic, I only get time to snap the branches and water when the gf (who doesn't know I grow) goes to the shop or something lol. As far as not seeing me before, I grow a lot and post a little lol. I like coming here and trying to help people avoid the mistakes I made. When I started to grow, about 20 years ago, there wasn't sites like this available and it was hit and miss. I've learned a lot by my mistakes but I've learned even more by researching and seeing what others have done. My next seeds I'm gonna pop in 2 weeks. They are barney's blue cheese and exodus cheese. 2 strains I haven't tried before but I'm gonna try the 50/50 with the defoliating and see how it goes

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Barney's blue cheese is my favorite strain lol When I have money I plan to order some.