Whathe would you do? Leaf removal.

Dr. Who

Well-Known Member
Lollipopping after the stretch is fine to keep some air flow below canopy but once they're this far in only dead leaves should be removed. Basic botany, leaves collect light, transpire and respire using photosynthesis to feed/grow the plant cells, that process gets thrown off when you start chopping off leaves or have an environment that throws the respiration/transpiration process out of balance. Light to flowers doesn't generate bigger flowers, light to leaves = bigger flowers. Basic botany, MJ is no different than any other flowering plant.


If you want this in a 3 gal pot, you won't get it by chopping off healthy leaves:

View attachment 3881464 View attachment 3881465

BINGO THAT!
 

westcoast420

Well-Known Member
Try growing a plant with the tops covered in something that doesn't let the light through but the leaves are getting light, you will get terrible buds if they grow at all. The mis information in this thread is amazing.
 

KryptoBud

Well-Known Member
Alot man. How many plants are in there? You dont wana go pulling a bunch at once. I pull about 10-20 leaves at once per plant every few days. If they are healthy they just grow back lol. I would look at the fans that are just down from the tops, if they are blocking light to buds, remove them.
What's the point then? The plants spend energy re-growing leaves that were pulled off because they were blocking light from buds? Am i understanding correctly?
 

MickFoster

Well-Known Member
They don't actually re-grow the leaf - they continue to grow new leaves at the tip and faster because it's exposed to the light.
 

noob12345

Well-Known Member
ive been taking light blockers off, I am noob and didnt know which way to go and after hours and hours of fighting through forums and websites i came to conclusion to take off the ones blocking light to high yeild areas and anything thats really cramped and touching for plant hygene. I hope i have chosen the correct path.
 

Kingrow1

Well-Known Member
If your cutting leaves off one could assume your grow isnt optimun or your vegging for too long or you need a brighter bigger room.

Would you set out to achieve this or think fuck it ill try a different style of grow, see if i cant churn out even more bud.
 

MickFoster

Well-Known Member
When you scrog you remove all of the growth from under the net and it actually increases yield. I realize that part of that is because you are growing laterally and that is the reason for the side shoots to develop. But once the side shoots become colas and grow above the net, they have very few leaves and they grow fine under the light without them. If light wasn't the most important factor for plant and bud development and leaves were - than why do we have popcorn buds or airy buds? It's because they don't get enough light, not because of missing leaves.
 

Kingrow1

Well-Known Member
When you scrog you remove all of the growth from under the net and it actually increases yield. I realize that part of that is because you are growing laterally and that is the reason for the side shoots to develop. But once the side shoots become colas and grow above the net, they have very few leaves and they grow fine under the light without them. If light wasn't the most important factor for plant and bud development and leaves were - than why do we have popcorn buds or airy buds? It's because they don't get enough light, not because of missing leaves.
Scog = time consuming veg period

Too long cycles for me....
 

GreenSanta

Well-Known Member
Ok guys I'm not one of these 3 a light guys that wants to remove all the fans leaves. But this geow I vegged longer than normal and added an extra 1000 watt hps and my plants are huge but also have a lot of leaves which I know is a good thing but it almost seems like this particular strain is too leafy for an indoor geow. I'm asking your opinion on whether I should

A. Leave it be.
B. Remove a few fan leaves if so what ones.
C.I'm a dumb ass for even thinking about it.

I'm on day 29 of 1212. There is 12 Gaspberry plants in 7 gallon pots using promix and advanced nutes under 3 1000s. Humidity is 40-50 and Temps are 74° and 66° night.

View attachment 3880605 View attachment 3880606
have not read the whole thread. that gaspberry is from gaspesie? cool name.

I ll tell you how I look at it now, a while back I thought it was unnatural to remove fan leaves. I left them on. The yield will be more or less the same. However, I have come to the conclusion that, as long as the expensive electricity you spend growing flowers is spent doing just that, and not wasted lighting up the floor, you are doing good.

What I do now, if I have time. Is this, around week 4-7 on most strains, I go with a clean pair of scissors and clip all the upper big fan leaves, so that more light is shed on the lower buds and you dont endup with a bunch of very pale buds (which some people might enjoy since paler means less chlorophyle ??) but the average buyer wants a consistent product. So what I do is I clip the leaves to shed light on the lower buds, use the leaves as mulch. The fan leaves on the outter edge of the canopy that do not block any bud sites must stay on the plants to capture as much lumen as possible.
 

Dr. Who

Well-Known Member
Bingo That!
Lack of direct lighting only slows ripening.....Now why the hell are you or anyone else blocking direct light from the canopy.

Harvest in 2 layers if you have a ripening problem on the bottom of the plant.. Harvest the canopy and the ripe buds. Then come back a week or so and do the lowers after they ripened.

When you scrog you remove all of the growth from under the net and it actually increases yield. I realize that part of that is because you are growing laterally and that is the reason for the side shoots to develop. But once the side shoots become colas and grow above the net, they have very few leaves and they grow fine under the light without them. If light wasn't the most important factor for plant and bud development and leaves were - than why do we have popcorn buds or airy buds? It's because they don't get enough light, not because of missing leaves.
No fluff here. No extra light to the lower area......
20161102_100114.jpg
 

MickFoster

Well-Known Member
Now why the hell are you or anyone else blocking direct light from the canopy.
Chill out doc. Westcoast420 wasn't saying that he blocked sunlight from the canopy - he was merely making a point that blocking light from the colas and allowing the leaves to get full light would adversely affect bud production. I wasn't advocating doing that - I was agreeing with his point. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. If you're going to chastise someone because their opinion differs from yours, perhaps you should give a little more thought to what was said.

Peace.
 

Dr. Who

Well-Known Member
Chill out doc. Westcoast420 wasn't saying that he blocked sunlight from the canopy - he was merely making a point that blocking light from the colas and allowing the leaves to get full light would adversely affect bud production. I wasn't advocating doing that - I was agreeing with his point. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. If you're going to chastise someone because their opinion differs from yours, perhaps you should give a little more thought to what was said.

Peace.
The blocking canopy was a poor attempt at humor - The rest was not..

I do, later in bloom. Remove some shading fans on big heavy leafed Indica strains like LA Confidential so the buds ripen evenly...
 
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