Canopy too thick? Does anyone defoliate through stretch?

Ganjineering

Ganjineering

Member
Hi Guys,

So I am 10 days into Flower now in the garden and the plants are doing really well, bud sites forming and lots of growth daily. I was hoping to get some thoughts on the canopy.

These are Girl Scout cookies and they are really bushy with huge fan leaves. I stripped them down to two nodes right before flip but they are already bushier than before. I went through and picked off some larger leaves in the thicker areas of the canopy today and noticed some leaves had spots of moisture in them. The room is 83 F and is sitting at an RH around 65-70%. I am concerned that the canopy is too thick and large leaves are sitting on each other and essentially transpiring to dew point.

We had planned to do a big defoliation of most leaves at Day 19-21 but am considering taking some of the larger fan leaves off regularly throughout the stretch period? Would this hurt the growth of the plants at all during stretch? I have attached photos so they might give you a better idea!
Thanks
 

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Gazza308

Gazza308

Well-Known Member
A light defol won’t hurt, leaves covering bud sites need togo. Plants look fantastic too and u could add another fan or 2 to help air circulation.
 
G

goofy81

Well-Known Member
Yea defintely defoliate. Mine is about as thick if not thicker.
There'll be a lot of nay sayers who tell you not to defoliate. But when you look at their grows,. They haven't even utilised the full canopy and their canopy isn't as dense.
When removing a fat leaf exposes a new nug or two sometimes the sacrifice is worth it.
 
bEelzeBosS

bEelzeBosS

Well-Known Member
I defoliate a couple, sometimes three times during flower. I have done side by side comparisons of multiple clones over the last 6 years, the defoliated plants always produce more. The people who argue against it baffle me, I dont understand how they're getting different results than me but oh well.
 
G

goofy81

Well-Known Member
Hard to tell in this photo but this was the result of me continuing to defoliate. Look how many heads there are compared to some other grows. If you don't have much heads being covered, then I guess it won't make too much of a diff.
 

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yinyang814

yinyang814

Well-Known Member
I defoliated my 2-plant scrog at day 25 flower, and now in week 5 I still continue to snip almost a dozen fan leaves daily for my airflow needs. No problems.
 
MidnightSun72

MidnightSun72

Well-Known Member
Ganjineering said:
Hi Guys,

So I am 10 days into Flower now in the garden and the plants are doing really well, bud sites forming and lots of growth daily. I was hoping to get some thoughts on the canopy.

These are Girl Scout cookies and they are really bushy with huge fan leaves. I stripped them down to two nodes right before flip but they are already bushier than before. I went through and picked off some larger leaves in the thicker areas of the canopy today and noticed some leaves had spots of moisture in them. The room is 83 F and is sitting at an RH around 65-70%. I am concerned that the canopy is too thick and large leaves are sitting on each other and essentially transpiring to dew point.

We had planned to do a big defoliation of most leaves at Day 19-21 but am considering taking some of the larger fan leaves off regularly throughout the stretch period? Would this hurt the growth of the plants at all during stretch? I have attached photos so they might give you a better idea!
Thanks
Click to expand...
Yes I defoliate during stretch. A really dark canopy terrifies me. It's just such a great environment for bugs and fungus to grow unnoticed and also thrive.

This time I think I started defoliating on day 15 or 16 but it took me until day 21 to finish. So from week 2-3.
 
A

A.k.a

Well-Known Member
I did a big defoliation over a few days before flipping, and then just started removing a few leaves here and there as they got in the way through week 5-6.
 
Ganjineering

Ganjineering

Member
Hi Guys,

Thank you so much for the amazing responses - decided to do a light defoliation today (Day 11) just to make sure there aren’t any micro climates that would cause us issues. Basically removed any large fan leaves growing towards the middle of the canopy and removed anything blocking out bud sites on some of the lower branches. Also removed some of the branches that were growing laterally underneath the canopy and just weren’t going to get enough light as time goes on. Filled up two 5 gallon buckets worth of foliage and branches!
I know it still looks pretty crowded but didn’t want to take too much off and risk stunning growth during stretch - hopefully they will be okay now until day 20 when we will do a much more aggressive strip and only leave on a few leaves per branch. What do you think??
 

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