Never been sure about defoliating (with pics) 4x4 bed

Kind Sir

Well-Known Member
So I have like 6-7 harvests under my belt, only 1 in the last few years bc I just started growing again. I’ve topped and trained my plants 80% of the time, and have never been sure about how much to take off and when actually.

I usually try to take some lowers that definitely will die off like a week before flip. Touch up some more day or two after flip, and finish no more than a week or so after flip.

Some people take like the bottom 1/3 off, like my buddy does. What do you think of these? Granted I was neglectful earlier at the beginning of this grow, my fault.
 

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HydroKid239

Well-Known Member
So I have like 6-7 harvests under my belt, only 1 in the last few years bc I just started growing again. I’ve topped and trained my plants 80% of the time, and have never been sure about how much to take off and when actually.

I usually try to take some lowers that definitely will die off like a week before flip. Touch up some more day or two after flip, and finish no more than a week or so after flip.

Some people take like the bottom 1/3 off, like my buddy does. What do you think of these? Granted I was neglectful earlier at the beginning of this grow, my fault.
I don't think they look bad, and I've some bushy plants. I did massive defoliation for air flow, but they were ridiculous.
Yours look good. I would just open them up with a little LST and let them do their thing.
 

JHake

Well-Known Member
I'm also still learning about it.

Nowadays i remove some leaves during veg when airflow is compromised. Leaves on top of each other creating humidity spots. Etc.
I also remove them sometimes for more "subjective" reasons: maybe i take out a leaf because it's on the way of my watering bottle, or because by removing it i can get a better view of the whole plant/pot/tent.

In flower, i was trying to apply some advice that user Northwood gave me on his no-till thread:

After stretch is done, start removing a few leaves every day in order to expose bud sites to light.

What i do believe is that there's a difference when removing lots of leaves one day versus removing a few every day or every few days.
 

Kind Sir

Well-Known Member
I don't think they look bad, and I've some bushy plants. I did massive defoliation for air flow, but they were ridiculous.
Yours look good. I would just open them up with a little LST and let them do their thing.
They are in flower already, would you still open them up?
 

Kind Sir

Well-Known Member
I'm also still learning about it.

Nowadays i remove some leaves during veg when airflow is compromised. Leaves on top of each other creating humidity spots. Etc.
I also remove them sometimes for more "subjective" reasons: maybe i take out a leaf because it's on the way of my watering bottle, or because by removing it i can get a better view of the whole plant/pot/tent.

In flower, i was trying to apply some advice that user Northwood gave me on his no-till thread:

After stretch is done, start removing a few leaves every day in order to expose bud sites to light.

What i do believe is that there's a difference when removing lots of leaves one day versus removing a few every day or every few days.
I know what you mean, i try not to take too much off at once. Let’s see your plants?
 

green_machine_two9er

Well-Known Member
0E148A70-964B-4345-9D0E-A207EC7E9376.jpeg
Clean it up, why not. It’s all a question of what your light footprint snd penetration is. Like I’m guessing your bad ass led has 24-30 inch penetration. Find that out snd remove everything under that mark.

strain and plant characteristics are the number one deciding factor for me. Some varieties don’t like any defoliation or cleanup. Some NEED it. Looking at your pictures I would clean it up personally. You have a trellis set or no?
Also your soil is hungry. Why not give it some greens ! Chop and drop
 

lusidghost

Well-Known Member
Nobody is, because defoliation is poorly defined and unproven bro-science. All hail the mighty gods of penetration and air flow! May your budsites bask in the warm glow of the diode junction.
Man, thanks for the heads up in every defoliation thread. Our plants are still dying, but eventually we’ll listen to you.
 

Rurumo

Well-Known Member
I would leave them, your plants aren't packed together so the humidity inside the canopy isn't an issue as long as you have good circulation in the room. It wouldn't hurt to remove a small number of leaves-just any that are covering budsites. There is some evidence that removing a small number of leaves can stimulate SAR/ISR. Just remember, even those leaves that just are getting indirect light are helping the plant grow, and the leaves in total shade are a source of backup nutrients for the plant, and it will use them during stretch and especially the ripening phase.
 

OSBuds

Well-Known Member
 

youraveragehorticulturist

Well-Known Member
I think your plants look OK. You can see where you topped them and got several nice branches that will become nice colas. Maybe you plants are slightly tall and lanky, but that's understandable, you had some issues that slowed you down.

Personally I don't mess with "Defoliation", like cutting off all of my leaves. But I do like to "lollipop" or strip off the lowest scraggly "side branches" from my "main branches."

In your first pic you can see your plant is topped at like the third node and then you have some nice tall branches. I would start at that "fork" in your plant, right above where you topped. And I would Lollipop your big branches to a level about 4-6 inches above that "fork."

Similar to the way your friend takes off the bottom 1/3, I would take off some of that bottom fluffy stuff.

I wouldn't worry too much about "opening them up." As buds form and get heavy the branches will sag and spread the plants open.
 

Coldnasty

Well-Known Member
I just take the sucker branches at joints that would make popcorn and leave the leaves(lol). The plant can take from those leaves from mid flower when I sometimes have problems with longer flowering strains early fade. I’ve just found that it works better for me this way. I know people are super polarized on this issue and I think there are cases where defoliating is the right move but it’s definitely not part of my grow routine for every plant anymore. My opinion goes without saying I guess.
 

kratos015

Well-Known Member
I feel people often confuse "defoliation" with simple pruning.

The idea behind defoliating is removing large fan leaves to allow the buds on the bottom to get more light, however this is foolish for a few reasons. For one, the fan leaves being removed is akin to removing solar panels from your house and being surprised your batteries aren't fully charging anymore. For two, most of those buds not getting enough light should have been pruned off in the first place. I mean, the expression "low hanging fruit" exists for a reason.


"Defoliating" won't make your small buds any larger, it'll only restrict the growth of your large buds.

Learning how to properly manage and maintain a canopy will yield far greater results than defoliation ever will. Why defoliate when your canopy is perfectly even and flush?


Some people take like the bottom 1/3 off, like my buddy does. What do you think of these? Granted I was neglectful earlier at the beginning of this grow, my fault.
Personally, I am one of those people. I keep the bottom 1/3 of every plant completely bare and clean, from start until around week 3-4 of flower I continue to prune until the bottom 1/3 is bare.

The bottom 1/3 of a plant is always useless. The only thing the bottom of the plant serves is to be a habitat for pests and diseases alike. Simply keeping up on pruning your plants (any plant) will drastically reduce your chances of both pests and diseases. No place for pests to hide, and more airflow being blown through the plant.

Sure, indoors we may not need to prune as aggressively, as we're able to control both the airflow, temps, and humidity.

Outdoors? Not so much. In the low desert, I have both low humidity and low airflow. I prune a little more aggressively to compensate for this outdoors. Pics below are from a few weeks ago, you can see the leaves at the bases of the plants from the recent pruning. They've been outside since mid-June and they made it through the 110-130F summer like champs. If I didn't keep up with pruning, the bugs and heat would have absolutely destroyed these plants.

20210912_184034.jpg

20210912_184927.jpg


You can see just how bare it is at the bottoms of all my plants. Nothing good comes from the bottom of the plant, and failure to prune the bottoms of the plants can lead to issues in some cases. Stuff beneath the canopy saps resources from the actual canopy itself, and those tiny nugs underneath the canopy are usually the ones that like to throw out bananas. They don't get enough light, so in some cases they throw out bananas.

The only use the stuff on the bottom 1/3 of a plant has is for cloning


I usually try to take some lowers that definitely will die off like a week before flip. Touch up some more day or two after flip, and finish no more than a week or so after flip.
In your shoes, I'd be removing everything on the bottom 1/3 of those plants. The bottom 1/3 of those plants of yours are not only serving no purpose, but are taking resources from the canopy of your plants. Guarantee that your canopy will grow much more if you prune the crap on the bottoms. Regards.



tl;dr: Don't defoliate, only prune.
 

Kind Sir

Well-Known Member
View attachment 4994234
Clean it up, why not. It’s all a question of what your light footprint snd penetration is. Like I’m guessing your bad ass led has 24-30 inch penetration. Find that out snd remove everything under that mark.

strain and plant characteristics are the number one deciding factor for me. Some varieties don’t like any defoliation or cleanup. Some NEED it. Looking at your pictures I would clean it up personally. You have a trellis set or no?
Also your soil is hungry. Why not give it some greens ! Chop and drop
I don’t have a trellis but I have bamboo stakes, but could get a trellis if i’d have trouble without one.

I JUST too dressed with kelp/neem/malted barley flower mixed with coast of maine lobster compost. I watered it in with fresh homegrown aloe and coconut powder (buildasoil.)

Then I foliar sprayed ahimsa neem oil/aloe and a very very light dash of bioag fulpower, won’t be able to really anymore soon and making sure i’m set IPM wise. I have comfrey sitting in a jug for a few days now, unsure if i should use in flower though.
 

Kind Sir

Well-Known Member
I would leave them, your plants aren't packed together so the humidity inside the canopy isn't an issue as long as you have good circulation in the room. It wouldn't hurt to remove a small number of leaves-just any that are covering budsites. There is some evidence that removing a small number of leaves can stimulate SAR/ISR. Just remember, even those leaves that just are getting indirect light are helping the plant grow, and the leaves in total shade are a source of backup nutrients for the plant, and it will use them during stretch and especially the ripening phase.
That was my thought initially, why take a y leaves off that aren’t dead bc there’s nutrients that can be used in them still… I know some branches lower need to go for sure, but I wonder about the leaves
 

Kind Sir

Well-Known Member
I just take the sucker branches at joints that would make popcorn and leave the leaves(lol). The plant can take from those leaves from mid flower when I sometimes have problems with longer flowering strains early fade. I’ve just found that it works better for me this way. I know people are super polarized on this issue and I think there are cases where defoliating is the right move but it’s definitely not part of my grow routine for every plant anymore. My opinion goes without saying I guess.
That’s what I was doing exactly, need to touch it up a little more though. Can I clone the few bigger branches i’m going to chop today? I get two different opinions on that
 
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