fan leafs, trim or not?

ok my plants about 12" tall, iv mainlined it into 4 colas ,and im wondering if its safe to trim a few of the big fan leaves of to make way for more light to the bud sites and smaller new leaves underneath
thanks

no no and no lol.. thats just a myth but it wouldnt hurt to cut a couple off i guess. or if your not too picky about what to do with your plant cut one fan leaf off to expose a bud site and leave one to expose another. see which bud grows better.
fan leaves draw in light to grow your plant so if your in veg state dont touch it unless its yellow.

toketeer said:

no no and no lol.. thats just a myth but it wouldnt hurt to cut a couple off i guess. or if your not too picky about what to do with your plant cut one fan leaf off to expose a bud site and leave one to expose another. see which bud grows better.
fan leaves draw in light to grow your plant so if your in veg state dont touch it unless its yellow.

Click to expand...

ill take that as a posative no no and no answer,,thanks

I try to tuck before I trim.. and if I trim fans its for a good reason, Damage to the leaf or its dying, or late flower when Im trying to get an even ripening. Or I'm trying get some better airflow.

There are so many theories on trimming fans, or straight up defoliation... Its my opinion if you remove too many leaves, you can delay flowering.

Once they get so big, they stop being effective in their photosynthesis and the smaller ones that are growing are a lot more efficient in their energy conversion versus how much energy is being spent on growing them. By removing the larger ones, the plant is going to put more energy into growing the smaller ones and growing the rest of the plant.,,,,,,does sound right to you?

When your plant has no more use for it's fan leaves, it will get rid of them. Your plant knows much more about it's overall health than you ( or anyone else ) do.

i always trim a lot of leaves in veg. and a week or two in flower. i use,"if you can't tuck it, pluck it," as a guide. it's a good idea to spread out your trimming over a couple days. too much at any one time, can cause a lot of stress.

Trimming fans is dicey at best. The large leaves have the organelles (small organs) that allow the plant to turn light energy into a form that the plant can use. They are necessary for photosynthesis. You can trim a few and be OK, probably.

Here's what happened to me when I was setting up my perpetual grow. I had a 4-pack of Armageddon flowering and kept trimming a few fans every day. All of a sudden my plants greenery started turning albino white. I had cut off too many fans for the photosynthesis process to continue and I got the white "greenery". The product was worthless and I had to garbage can a quarter pound of the Arm.

Be careful out there. BigSteve.

I only do it if there's no other choice

I cut them sometimes but it really isn't necessary. If you have to then do it though.

mainliner said:

Once they get so big, they stop being effective in their photosynthesis and the smaller ones that are growing are a lot more efficient in their energy conversion versus how much energy is being spent on growing them. By removing the larger ones, the plant is going to put more energy into growing the smaller ones and growing the rest of the plant.,,,,,,does sound right to you?

Click to expand...

No, not really

greenlikemoney said:

When your plant has no more use for it's fan leaves, it will get rid of them. Your plant knows much more about it's overall health than you ( or anyone else ) do.

Click to expand...

Yes, more like this. The plant uses the energy stored in the leaves. When it uses them up, they'll pretty much remove themselves.

mainliner said:

Once they get so big, they stop being effective in their photosynthesis and the smaller ones that are growing are a lot more efficient in their energy conversion versus how much energy is being spent on growing them. By removing the larger ones, the plant is going to put more energy into growing the smaller ones and growing the rest of the plant.,,,,,,does sound right to you?

Click to expand...

Possible, it could alter auxin levels in the plant if trimming fans on the upper main stems closest to the light. If auxins are removed from the plant upper mainstem(s) I could understand why the plant would either branch laterally or cause lower sites to develop.

So.. if I was growing SCROG, all the lower stuff is fair game and would benefit development above the screen, This would also force auxins to be in higher concentration in the upper stem. This proves to be true, and I get better results when doing this.

With auxins seeming to have some effect on flowering, Ive observed things like HST and overtrimming cause flowering to slow. Im not sure if the ammount of physical damage causes this or its the radical changes in the shape of the plant to cause this..

ok ok slow down botonical brains,,,,rewind back to the thread tilte because im confused,,,,fan leaves?trim or not?

NOOOOOOOOOOO

WELL SOME SAY PLUCK SOME SAY NO ...I PLUCK 2 TIMES 4TH WEEK FLOWER IS LAST TIME I PULL FAN LEAFS SEEMS TO WORK FOR MY INDOOR GROW

sure, cut them all off, let us know how it works out for ya..

Tuck, don't pluck.

im guessing everyone here would advise against trimming the lower branches just before flower?? im being told by trimming the lower branches day 1 of flower will produce bigger tops, it makes sence as all energy is then focused to the top 3-4 nodes and the cola?? coments? should i trimm lower branches or no??

I use 'em for clones in my monster cropping experiments. Why waste good shoots...

But yes, I take off the lowest branches usually. I say usually because there is always that one plant that grows wider than tall and those bottom branches wind-up producing some great looking buds.