removal of fan leaves during flowering

racerboy71 said:

i understand this.. let me ask you this then.. why don't leaves start to yellow off right at the beginning of flowering if it's the reduction of light that causes them to yellow and not 6 or however many weeks later in flower?
i'm just trying to understand what i read by ub, and you sound like an intelligent m8, i like to ask questions, hope you don't mind..

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i dont mind at all and the very reason i even came here to this site was to learn more experiential knowledge from what others had here...

and due to the high # of intelligent people on here in comparison to other sites regarding cannabis...

they dont all of a sudden lose their chlorophyll production... as the further flowering goes along... most starts to concentrate in the flowers, rather than the leaves, as it is a gradual process as more weight is now in the flower... thus more chlorophyll is needed in the flowers, vs the leaves...

here's another quote i took from the same thread... he's talking about why so many people have yellowing / dying leaves late in flower..
I used them on 7 grows. I was told for the past 3 years that it ws natural for the plant's lower leaves to yellow and fall off during Flowring and I mistakenly accepted that as fact. HERD mentality. question asked..

answer by ub

Yeah, it's total bullshit, another lame forum paradigm that just won't die. Let me tell ya what is really going on. Folks who parrot that paradigm that it's natural for cannabis to lose most or all of its leaves, especially fan leaves, are only covering their ass. Fact is they are clueless on how to retain them because they don't bother to understand what makes a plant tick. Yeah, you'll lose some leaves, the plant is coming to the end of its life, but not 60% or so like on most grows, sheesh! Page 2 - the vendors who sell "cannabis specific" nutes know this, and sell what they think The Herd will buy. it's all about the money. I really have no problem with hydro vendors making money, but let's not screw the naive and unsuspecting noob with a bunch of hawking and hype while doing it!

i did check out uncle ben's thread back in the day and well again now as a refresher... and yes he does know what "he's" doing and it works for him...

however if you look at the pic...



you can clearly see he has more "sugar leaf" than "bud"...

dont get me wrong... he is a very good grower... and just as he said it is a fine balance... and where i like to see is "calyx" production vs sugar leaf production... and thats where its at imo...

the thought i had when looking at them is i don't see many trics, but who knows..

i'm not trying to suck ub's dick as i usually don't like the way he comes across when people try and ask a question to him, but i will learn from satan himself if i think it will improve my grows.. lol..

racerboy71 said:

the thought i had when looking at them is i don't see many trics, but who knows..

i'm not trying to suck ub's dick as i usually don't like the way he comes across when people try and ask a question to him, but i will learn from satan himself if i think it will improve my grows.. lol..

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lol... yeah i understand, and youre one of the ones on here that actually "do" know what you are doing... so its just a fine blend between giving them the necessary amount of N so that they dont lose all of their fans and also that they dont starve either...

even genetics plays a crucial role in how the plant "looks" during flowering, as the region they came from, for example equatorial sativas hardly have any yellowing or multi-colorations...

where in comparison a himalayan indica with its regional atmosphere and genetics have developed other pigments along with the yellows... where the anthocyanins stand out due to its chemistry and can further be brought out by other like genetic strains by temp changes which give the purps, etc...

Damn, people debating in an intelligent manner on RIU!! Impressive

While I agree with what you are both trying to get across I look at the argument through a gardeners eyes with these types of debates.

Do we see commercial tomato growers removing leaves/pop-corning etc, crops of hops/barley etc be given a 72 dark period, N in flower being stopped for fruit crops etc.

Marijuana has been growing for an age without us and very successfully at that so why intervene on years of evolution.

A plant is a plant is a plant. Treat it like a plant.

IC3M4L3 said:

i only remove fan leaves if ther discoloured,yellow ect,so the plant puts effort into the flwoering rather than the repairing of leaves

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Same as me, theyre drooping, bright yellow, not needed anymore so trim and most of the time they give way anyway when touched.. And im harvesting late i guess cos after amber trichs so she cloudy atm..

i cut N out towards last week of flower fed her seaweed xtract, P,K and little cal mag..

i used to lose most of my leaves cause everyone told me to cut N damn near completely, with my new feeding scheduale I lose hardly any. BTW the bud tastes the same, with a proper cure tastes just fine