do you trim flowering plants to allow more light for better buds?

It's a good idea to take a few of the leaves off not for bud growth but more for air circlation.but don't go mad let your bud grow round the smaller leaves my advise would be only if air circlation is a problem remove any leaves.the only time i like to remove any leaves is when they are bright yellow during flowering.

Strated reading the thread and got half way through just wanted this point made. DO NOT trim fan leaves in any situation unless the leaf is 50 percent destroyed. I personally tuck fan leaves under buds and things of that nature to help but never trim them.

Tronica said:

Here's an example of 2 growers using pruning (fan leaves included) to increase yields

And here's a grower who could have pruned this plant to make larger buds. i've read many times over that yield can be slightly more when grown like this, but your nugs aren't as solid.

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those are examples of training technics you prat, not how removing fan leaves increases yield. and i bet those scrog pics have 6-8 wks veg time on them...which may mean more yield per harvest, but less harvests per year meaning NO INCREASE IN YEILD.

you guys got the right idea - always try to do better...but some of this shit is tried and true.

SlikWiLL13 said:

you kids talk about experments that have been done 30 years ago.

the leaves are the solar power facilities for your plant, the buds are power storage sites. very little photosynthesis takes place in the flowers of any plant. take away the power source and theres no need for more storage.

you guys who are saying its working great are no doubt on your first or second grow, maybe you will learn maybe you wont. best of luck.

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+10000000000

marijuana is like most other plants. they grow flowers (buds) which are used for reproduction and NOT to absorb energy. the fan leaves are what takes in most of the energy from the sun (lights) NOT the buds.

by trimming off fan leaves you are making it harder for your plant to absorb energy. the plant will then try to replace these fan leaves and will take energy away from your buds in the process.

weed is just that...a WEED. talk to your biology teacher, old man neighbor that is a gardener, or even a farmer to learn how plants use the suns energy to grow. chances are ALL of them will say the more leaves the better.

the only time you should actually remove leaves or flowers from a plant is if they are dying or severely damaged as they will rob energy from the rest of the plant.

it just fucking makes me so mad....you just know theres got to be thousands of people out there growing shitty dope or dope thats could be soooo much better just because some asshole told them that putting a rusty nail through the stem will grow better dope. or pissing on your plants will make it grow better. or watering with pepsi will make it taste better. OR CUTTING OFF ALL THE FAN LEAVES WILL PUT THE BUDS IN BETTER LIGHT!?!

when will the bullshit cease?

if you have a buddy with dope growing advise, who doesnt grow dope...dont take it. if you have a cousin who just got out of the pen for cooking meth and he gives you pot farming advise....dont take it. if you have a toothless uncle who says he grew poundage back in the 60's and lives in a shack who starts handing out advise...dont take it!

Anyone who thinks removing fan leaves is a good thing needs to take a look at plants infected with spider mites. Spider mites do just that; they kill off your fan leaves, what you have in the end is a dead plant.

BadDog40 said:

Anyone who thinks removing fan leaves is a good thing needs to take a look at plants infected with spider mites. Spider mites do just that; they kill off your fan leaves, what you have in the end is a dead plant.

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The fan leaves are like the plant’s solar panels. Remove them and they do not create energy for the plant to grow or even live. They take in the sun or light rays and use it to do everything the plant does. Without the leaves it can’t do anything. You might as well remove the roots if you are going to remove the leaves.

I often times wonder where such ideas like trimming off the plant’s leaves come from?

How many leafless trees and bushes and plants do you see in nature? If it were better evolution would have discovered it eons ago.

BadDog40 said:

Anyone who thinks removing fan leaves is a good thing needs to take a look at plants infected with spider mites. Spider mites do just that; they kill off your fan leaves, what you have in the end is a dead plant.

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Save a branch, cut a fan leave.

When you uncover a new branch site by removing a shade leave, the branch grows exponentially faster than it would if the shade leaf was left in tact and continued to provide shade for the new branch site.

The notion that leaves are "solar panels" for the plant is correct, however, what makes that irrelevant is that when you cut a shade leaf and allow light to a new branch site, the branch grows many new leaves, resulting in more leaves on the plant than if it were left alone and not cut, hence more "solar panels" for the plant.

how bad should i let fan leaves dying get? should i snip em early or wait as long as possible?

Seedling said:

The notion that leaves are "solar panels" for the plant is correct, however, what makes that irrelevant is that when you cut a shade leaf and allow light to a new branch site, the branch grows many new leaves, resulting in more leaves on the plant than if it were left alone and not cut, hence more "solar panels" for the plant.

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If the leaf or leaves you are going to cut are dying then I would agree but if you cut off healthy leaves so new ones can grow the plant is now transferring energy to growing new leaves instead of using that energy to grow new or larger buds, that is IF we are talking about while in flower.

Anything dying might as well go because if it is dead or almost dead it is not doing it’s job and if it is somewhat dead and most definitely going to die it may still be working but not efficiently so it is not a real loss.

If your plants are in veg and you want to top them that will of course cause them to split off and give you more top colas so what little is lost in small top leaves will more than be replaced by new additional growth so that is a plus but even while in veg cutting healthy large leaves to allow other areas to get more light to grow new leaves will be counter productive because it will take energy to grow the new leaves and it will be some time before the new small leaves grow to a size large enough to replace the larger leaves that were cut off so in that period of time you have less light energy taken in and reduced growth overall.

But any cutting of healthy leaves while in flower will result in the transferring of energy away from bud production and that is not what you want to do.

Taken from a message found at:

http://www.420magazine.com/forums/how-grow-marijuana/71214-growing-consensus-synopsis-paper.html

That was found using a link at:

http://www.420magazine.com/forums/frequently-asked-questions/83112-how-grow-cannabis-everything-you-need-know.html

"Removal of fan leaves will not only slow growth, but it will also hinder the plants ability to rid itself of toxic gases, and also hinder the regulation of the plants temperature via stomata. Changes in the plants chemical metabolism caused by fan leave removal causes the plant to work overtime to rid ‘toxins’ with less leaves, as a result the pant may allocate more growth hormones into growing more leaves to make up for what has been lost (Equator, 03.15.2002). Removing large amounts of fan leaves may also interfere with the metabolic balance of the plant. Leaf removal may also cause sex reversal resulting from a metabolic imbalance."

Seedling said:

Save a branch, cut a fan leave.

When you uncover a new branch site by removing a shade leave, the branch grows exponentially faster than it would if the shade leaf was left in tact and continued to provide shade for the new branch site.

The notion that leaves are "solar panels" for the plant is correct, however, what makes that irrelevant is that when you cut a shade leaf and allow light to a new branch site, the branch grows many new leaves, resulting in more leaves on the plant than if it were left alone and not cut, hence more "solar panels" for the plant.

Click to expand...

this is totally irrelevant to the thread...the thread is about removing fan leaves during flowering. we dont want branch growth during flowering....we want flower growth.

and its still wrong info.

darkdestruction420 said:

how bad should i let fan leaves dying get? should i snip em early or wait as long as possible?

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dont cut them. when a gentle tug on the leaf dislodges it from the stem its time to remove it. if a gentle tug dosent remove it, the plant isnt done with it.

dont believe me? pull off one like i said, then cut one near the base thats yellow but still firmly attatched. now with your thumb and forefinger squeeze the cut/pulled ends of the stem and notice that fluid easily comes out of the cut leaf and not the pulled one. the plant is still extracting valuable fulids and nutrients from those yellowing leaves.

How many leafless trees and bushes and plants do you see in nature?
pine trees, j/k

Fan leaves are like digestive organs.

Buds are like sexual organs.

You can no more digest with a sexual organ than you can reproduce with a digestive organ.

Removing fan leaves is removing the part of the plant that takes in the light and coverts it into sugars to grow.

The white pistals are receptive sexual organs, their sole goal in life it to catch pollen.

darkdestruction420 said:

How many leafless trees and bushes and plants do you see in nature?
pine trees, j/k

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The needles of a pine tree are the leaves, they are just a different shape and size and are not as seasonal as other types of trees though pine trees will definately lose large numbers of needles certain times of the year but they make up for being a smaller size by having so many smaller ones to collect energy that fewer larger ones collect in other types of trees.

All green surfaces of plants and bushes and trees collect energy but not all green portions will do it as efficiently as others for various reasons. By far the most efficient of them all are the larger leaves.