Hi all, I'm a new grower working on my third grow. I'm trying to understand how light works with fan leaves and flowers. If my fan leaves block lower buds, do they still provide energy allowing the buds to grow, or is it better to remove the leaves and allow the light to penetrate directly to the flower? I've defoliated heavily on my current grow and am into the end of week 5 flower. I hate pruning my plant this late, but the leaves are getting crowded once again... So, should I prune this late into flower or leave the plant alone? Old pic from last week, I'll post a current picture if it helps.
Cannabis is wind pollinated, so the buds that get the light grow the biggest. I wouldn't do too much defoliation at this point, they are well into flower, and it looks like you aren't overcrowded so thats good. They look great, keep it up. Peace.
Thanks this is what I figured. Problem is, once I removed the trellis net everything got very crowded. I'll post a new picture tonight. I may try to train the flowers slightly to get them all away from each other but with new leaf growth, only the very tops of my flowers are getting light. I'd take a picture now, but my lights are off until 11:00. Next grow I'll veg shorter and reduce the number of toppings, this may be a little too much for my little space.
BBK by sweedright posted Jun 12, 2022 at 7:51 AM Training slightly should work fine, and you can remove a few leaves if you need to improve air or light. See how it goes this grow, topping once seems to work well for me, I flower 2 plants in a 3x3, fills it pretty good with only topping once.
Thats a topic of much debate around here, Ive seen people (as well as myself) get good results either way. A big problem is different types of lights will have various levels of canopy penetration, so the only way for sure would be to get a PAR or PPFD meter and measure how much light your lower buds are getting. They aren't too expensive, $20-$40 for a decent one. That's important because the plants tend to favor different PAR ratings through the stages Disclaimer: these ranges are very broad because they been compiled from a lot of bro science or nonstandard research. I prefer ranges closer to the top third on my plants of those given below Seedling / Clone 100 – 300 Vegetative 250 – 600 Bloom / Flowering 500 – 1050 If you lower buds are not getting enough light, tuck, move or otherwise try to get it in the sun, if that wont work out, cut the fan leaves to get the light on it. Or, use a small led supplemental light to get your low buds up to the proper par range, which is the most productive (but also most expensive) method. Got a couple of low flowers on one of my screens atm but with the supplemental lighting its doing almost as well as the top ones, (yeah I need to re-weave and spread some bud sites, got lazy this week)
Beautiful grow! Thanks much for the advice. Your training and grow technique is very similar to mine. How many times did you top that?
Thanks much for taking the time to reply. I've been reading a lot and see a lot of arguments over this. Many say to leave everything alone late flower, others keep on chopping.I'm torn! I've tucked as many leaves as I can, good tip though. I'm using a Spiderfarmer SF-1000 at 8-10 inches off the tops. (I know, people will tell me to raise them, but I'm experimenting and some experienced growers recommend 8-10 inches with this light. I was at 12-14 inches during flower in previous grows.)
Nice, I'm only growing one plant and may have over done the toppings (4 total). I'm still learning how this works. I may try a simple single topping next grow with a shortened veg time. It seems the plant runs out of fresh soil too quickly with a long veg, I'd like some fresh soil for flower. (I think my roots are maxed out if that makes sense)
You would amend the soil with additional nutrients as you go (if using organic). I start and finish mine in the same 3 gallon fabric pots.
Ya fans are ya solar panels so u need them to suck up that light very important to the grow but yes they can be perpetual plucked or tucked if showing bud sites and u can remove if u scared to tuck the fans you want that light to get inside the branches and outside so you get fatty nuggz I like to lst wit some lollipoping and perpetual plucking and I cann usually walk away with about a pound a plant or sometimes if I'm trimming reallllllll nice it's about lil less 17 oz clean cured Sent from my N1374DL using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Unless u have the rails the se 3000 500⁰ I have a se3000 and I use it for veg and wow best veg light everrrrrr Sent from my N1374DL using Grasscity Forum mobile app
Nice, I've had my eyes on the SE3000 but my space is 1.5x1.5, it won't fit! I've raised my lights up to 10-12 inches to see if I can get around a bad calcium deficiency. So far its helping, but I'm quite sure my harvest will be lessened. A calcium deficiency in flower ain't a good thing! I believe it to be a combination of light height and low PH at my root zone. So, as far as top fan leaves go, they were looking rough and I chopped quite a few off. 2-3 weeks to go, I'm not sure I'll make it ! Here is a recent pic. Growth is slow !