Proper Trimming.

There is a huge debate over weather to trim or not, but i like to remove lower fan leaves that are dying off anyways for more ventilation. You can remove a bunch, but not too many because they in essence are your plant's solar panels and are quite necessary for proper growth.

 

Leaf removal is easy to cover:

If a leaf is 50% or more damaged or dead, remove it. The leaf at that point is using more plant resources than it's countering with photosynthesis.

If a leaf is less than 50% damaged or dead, leave it alone. The leaf is providing enough energy to the plant via photosynthesis to make it advantageous to leave it on the plant.

NEVER remove viable leaves. The plant grows them where needed and if you use proper fan placement, the air will move the leaves just enough to allow fine air flow. You don't need to beat the plant to death with air. Enough to help strengthen the stems and prevent problems is all you need.

Removing dead leaves does no harm at all, providing they are at least 50% dead.

Removing viable leaves to allow more light is kind of like cutting off your legs so you weigh less and that should make you be able to run faster...

 

yeh good advice,should not stress your plant by removing leaves that are not ,as said, damaged

 

Ah, I get to play the devil's advocate again...

I trim ANYthing and EVERYthing that's blocking light from a budsite, and they grow just fine and the buddage is two or three times what the "natural" way gets you...your call tho...it's not necessary to trim at all, the dead ones will fall off eventually, but there's nothing wrong with trimming anything off you want, just go easy until you get a feel for it. Lots and lots of posts (and debates) on this subject. Read a little on SOG, SCroG, LST and HST and trimming and pruning for higher yields in advanced techniques...that will keep you busy for awhile, but if you want big chunky dense buddage, you trim!

Good Luck bro!

 

Following your logic, you should remove every single leaf on the plant and you would have HUGE buds.

Sorry man, I call BS. Less leaf equals less bud, not the other way around. The plant grows buds through photosynthesis. That is done through leaves. Light on a budsite doesn't do squat. Total leaf is what matters. The energy created by the total leaf is what makes buds, not what hits the buds or budsites.

I'm very sorry, but what you've said is nonsense. I don't mean to hurt your feelings.

Please, don't take my word for it. Call ANY ag center in the world and put this to them. They will tell you the same thing I just said.

 

Well he did say "leaves that are blocking budsites" and "also said go easy." But I wouldn't go trimming all to hell thinking your doing her a service.

 

Cool...you can call BS all you want there bro, but it don't change what I do or why....I'm certainly not the only one doing it on this or the other sites I hang out at. As VeoDigital noticed, I only trim what blocks a budsite I want to stay and grow big and I don't recommend a beginner like you do it, and if you decide to try DO go easy....I spent years, no decades, learning how to do this correctly and what I do works great or I wouldn't do it....don't criticize things you don't understand, it just makes you look stupid. And no, you did not "hurt my feelings"....LMAO! I'm not a big AG grow, so I don't really care what they do, and big AG grows don't have to worry about a 4 plant yield, I do....I grow 4 plants at a time in a very small space and I like to make my hard work pay off with big dividends, and I do. You can take what I offer or leave it....I KNOW it works...are you so sure it doesn't work you can call BS????

Ck out the ADVANCED growing section and read and learn...

 

Classic assumption.

I've been growing weed since my first crop at 13 years old.

I'm now 58.

Do the math, Mr. 4 plant grow.

I do know what I'm talking about and I'm telling you you don't.

Get over it.

If you knew jack shit about plants,you'd already know that what you're saying is bullshit.

Plants simply don't work that way.

YOU go pick up a Plant Biology book and look up vascular plants in it. Start reading and learn what you're talking about.

If you're trimming good leaf off your plant, you're harming it, not helping it.

If you've been doing it that way for decades, then you've been fucking up for decades.

Like I said, look it up in a book about the very type of plant you're growing. Not one by some dude who writes weed books, but one written by someone with "Dr." in front of their name.

I can promise you you'll learn something. I know that because you're talking bullshit right now.

I don't give a rats ass how many people follow your example. Hell, at one time, there was a world full of people who thought you'd fall off the edge of the flat earth.

I've invited you to look up the information. Its there for the finding. If all you read are little grow books about weed, you'll never fully realize how much you don't know.

Before making a total ass of yourself, do yourself a favor and actually look it up. You'll find out that I'm exactly correct in what I'm saying.

Beginner my ass. I was growing weed when you were nothing but a gleam in your Daddy's eye.

 

LMAO, and agree, I am not an experienced grower, but I am a man of science, learning and understanding, LEDFUN is right, I learned what he said about vascular plants in the 4th grade, and then continued that in high school biology, You trim as you wish sir, but removing healthy viable leafs does nothing but causes stress, sometimes what you want for types of training, either way its the photosynthesis that creates vigor and health, and cutting good leaves goes against this. Not slamming you really, just helping to spread the truth.

 

This weed is unique and can be made to do amazing things with the proper manipulation and I've been manipulating them for 37 years myself, so I'm not new at this. There are always enough fan leaves left to handle photosynthesis left on my plants. All the buds get great light and grow big. It's not my technique and I didn't invent anything. Mans been manipulating plants for centuries. I'm sure if you look in the advanced growing section of most any forum on growing cannabis, you will find there are lots of people who trim to get the plant to do what they want. Thus all the fancy abbreviations. LST, HST, Supercropping, SOG, SCROG, these are all accepted methods of manipulating a plant to increase yield. There's more too, like molasses, co2, heck even adding nutrients is manipulation. This is a way that I use, and it works. It's just one way of many to manipulate a plant to increase yield. One can choose to do it or not, but you saying BS does not change my results.

 

I understand what you think is happening man, but it just can't. Plants really don't work that way. Putting more light on a "budsite" won't make a bud larger. In a side by side test of it, you could easily prove it to yourself.

LST, HST and pruning are all methods to modify a plants natural growth into something that will help accomplish maximizing harvest weight in particular circumstances.

Actually, marijuana isn't unique in any way man. It's just like a whole bunch of other plants that all grow and produce identically to marijuana. That's kind of what I meant when I referred to reading up on plant biology. If you take only vascular plants that produce oils, there are probably 5 thousand books written on that selective category alone.

Lots of weed people are convinced by the rumor mill that marijuana is unique in the plant world. It isn't. Only those who know very little of the entire plant world think that.

All in all, there are tens of thousands of books on plants. No one in the world could read them all, and like most books, there's lots of repetition between books.

I've read every single book in print about hydroponics that had been written by the year 2000. I did it systematically and was able to skip lots and lots of data that was repeated in book after book. Each book had *some* unique data in it, and that's what kept me going.

Really man, I'm asking you to NOT take my word for it, but to investigate the "budsite light" thing via academic writings about vascular plants and how they grow. Almost any plant "101" book at college level will have the information for you.

The plant creates leaves as needed. No more, no less. If too many exist, it will let some die when no longer needed. Everyone who has grown MJ has seen leaf death during a grow.

Total plant photosynthesis is what makes buds. Not just the area of the bud itself. The more leaves that are healthy and green, the more photosynthesis will take place.

If you remove viable leaves, you're removing the very thing that helps produce the buds and make them larger. The extra light hitting a spot where a bud grows will not compensate for the loss of viable leaves of any serious amount.

When a plant "sees" an area that has become vacant of leaves, it will automatically alter its hormone production to fill that area with leaves again.

While it is "repairing" the area where leaves were picked off, its NOT producing resins and thc in the amounts it would have been if left to its natural manner of growing leaves.

Summing plant actions into one big group isn't possible. There are hundreds of actions happening at any given time within a plant. Enzymes, hormones, quantities, placement, absorptions, repairing, new growth, old growth.....all happen as a result of the minute by minute actions of routine plant life.

If you asked a plant biologist, (one with Dr. in front of their name), Hey, if I take the leaves off like this on one weed plant and don't on the other, which will produce the most thc and resins? Every single time, with no exceptions, that biologist will tell you that the one where the leaves were left alone will out produce the other.

Like I said, don't take my word for it. Find the book or the person that will tell you. Both are out there.

Or, you could take my word for it. (I doubt that will happen)...hehe

Either way man, good luck to you and may you have wonderful harvests in all your grows.

 

And the debate continues....................

 

I trim fan leaves and small branches from the bottom of the plant and have been pulling a ~hp from 2 white widow plants for some time now.

 

Thank you, I will continue to enjoy my harvests, and you really need to stop trying to convince me it doesn't work...LOL I've done enough side by sides to know it works very well, but thanks for the lively discussion!
I hope you enjoy your harvests as much as I do mine. Peace to you and yours.

 

Why are you guys arguing in the OPs thread when theres already been a HUGE debate on this in the advanced growing section....

http://forum.grasscity.com/plant-training/668315-defoliating-higher-yields.html

 

I have to tell you that your side-by-side testing has to be flawed. What you're saying works has been proven not to.

There has to be other reasons for your increased harvest weight, if there indeed is an increase in a lab-quality side by side test.

Let me make this as clear as possible to you; it's impossible. The marijuana plant will not increase growth as a result of letting more light strike a spot where a flower will develop.

Sorry man, it's in your mind or there are other reasons.

I'm not trying to convince you, I'm telling you a real, known fact. What you're saying is not possible.

I'll end it there, because obviously you're convinced that you can make a marijuana plant do something it isn't capable of doing. There is no point in continuing the argument.

I wish I had the ability to come to you and show you via testing, but that isn't going to happen.

Peace man! And good luck to you.