Hey there Grasscity community, I know i already f.cked it up but i thought i may do something to help my plants. I have 5 plants vegging and they are 30 to 50 cm tall. I don't know why i did this but i cut almost all the fan leaves on the main stem off leaving only the ones at the top 3 or 4 nodes. I was thinking of getting rid of the shade they do to maximize the usage of light by the plant. I know i did the first thing to do last. First i cut them off then go online and start searching if it's ok. I have read too many topics about cutting fan leaves. Now i know what i did was sooooo wrong, i shouldn't have even touched them but the damage is done. From now on, what do you think i should do? Even though they seem to be ok, i am worried. They just showed off preflowers 2-3 days ago. And i think i will start 12/12 next week or the week after. Or shall i wait a bit longer for the plant to recover from what i did? I am looking forward to hear your opinions and suggestions. Thanks. Btw, this is my first growth :/
Some people will talk about defoliating being a good way to go but the evidence is inconclusive at best. I share the opinion a lot of professional growers have which is that fan leaves are very important and should never be removed but allowed to fall of the plant naturally. They store nutrients and are power houses producing sugars that are vital for growth especially in flowering . They'll probably recover but you'll wanna give them a couple weeks to recover. As far as having the plant getting adequate light all over there are a few ways to do that. You can do lst or scrog but you'd have to start those techniques at the beginning of the grow. You probably wanna use the technique of "training" your plants into a flat uniform canopy like a umbrella. Say your plants are in a closet, you would take pieces of string and tie them shoots coming off your plant about 3" from the tips. You'd pull on the string to tug the shoot to where you want it to go and anchor the string to the wall with a thumbtack.
Tie everything off until you have a uniform canopy around 4- 6" thick. All shoots under the canopy that are 3+"s can be removed and turned into clones. Clip off anything smaller and throw it away you don't your plants energy being wasted on anything under the canopy where there's not adequate light. Your yield will be greater if you focus the plans energy on a spread out uniform canopy that's receiving adequate light saturation. If your using weak cfl lights spread the canopy out even thinner. Peace