Should I defoliate more???

Ganggreen99 said:

So is it possible to remove too much foliage in your opinion? And what is your opinion on the pic I posted

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I thought I went too far once, but leaves came back and I had one of my nicest yields ever. You can defoliate too far into flower where leaves won't grow back though. I've experimented with different amounts, and these days I leave a lot on the plant. I just want to open up light and air. Beyond that I feel you're just wasting time.

Ganggreen99 said:

So you think I have taken off too many?

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A lot of growers claim that removing leaves somehow makes your buds bigger or better or something but they have no reliable evidence to demonstrate that. We just have to take their word for it. Well, that is bro-science bullshit. Just like burying crystals in your soil, and days of darkness prior to chop, and planting on the full moon, and organic making your buds taste better, and flushing out the nutes, and on and on and on and on.

lusidghost said:

"Unproven" works both ways. There are plenty of growers on here who defoliate. My plants have lots of leaves afterwards. I get buds. They are frosty. Yields has gone up since I started growing. I've also let my plants go natural. Honestly I don't see a huge difference either way, but my plants have never developed bud rot when defoliated, and I have very little larf these days. So I don't know. I'm going to continue to do it. Grow however you wish.

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If you say defoliation works then prove it. It doesn't work both ways. There is a whole Wikipedia page about this. Especially pay attention to the part about shifting the burden of proof. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(philosophy)

The truth is, you have no idea if defoliation makes your buds bigger or better or not. It takes controlled experiments with sufficient statistical power to validate a hypothesis like defoliation and I haven't seen any. Maybe it really is helpful but we won't know until someone does the work to find out.

i've tried both ways, on clones from the same plant, started on the same day, fed the same feed... the defoliated plant produced almost an oz less, even though it was a slightly larger plant. the quality seemed a little lower, but i didn't have it tested for content, so i can only report my perception of it, which may be biased, but that perception was that i didn't get quite as high, and the high didn't last as long as that of it's much less defoliated sister.
what i consider "defoliation" might be better called selective pruning. i remove leaves that are laying on top of other leaves, or growing onto buds, or just growing back into the plant toward the stalk. i'll even remove a few that cast more shadow on the leaves below them than their own surface area, but i leave at least as many as you have, and usually a little more.
i know that isn't a valid set of results from proper experimental procedures, but it was enough to make me decide it doesn't work like they say it does

Observe & Report said:

If you say defoliation works then prove it. It doesn't work both ways. There is a whole Wikipedia page about this. Especially pay attention to the part about shifting the burden of proof. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burden_of_proof_(philosophy)

The truth is, you have no idea if defoliation makes your buds bigger or better or not. It takes controlled experiments with sufficient statistical power to validate a hypothesis like defoliation and I haven't seen any. Maybe it really is helpful but we won't know until someone does the work to find out.

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You made the original unproven claim, but I guess “reducing the food” is true in a very generic sense. Like how we “reduce the food” when we lollipop.

lusidghost said:

You made the original unproven claim, but I guess “reducing the food” is true in a very generic sense. Like how we “reduce the food” when we lollipop.

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i don't agree, you lollipop to get rid of foliage that is never going to get good light, and will just take effort for the plant to grow that could be better spent elsewhere. they call it pruning....

Roger A. Shrubber said:

i don't agree, you lollipop to get rid of foliage that is never going to get good light, and will just take effort for the plant to grow that could be better spent elsewhere. they call it pruning....

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Recently I reworked and yoyo’d a branch that was trapped under the canopy. The bud went from lime green to a normal color in about a week. This is exactly what happens when you defoliate leaves that are blocking bud sites. They jump from lime to dark colored and start becoming dense very quickly.

Observe & Report said:

A lot of growers claim that removing leaves somehow makes your buds bigger or better or something but they have no reliable evidence to demonstrate that. We just have to take their word for it. Well, that is bro-science bullshit. Just like burying crystals in your soil, and days of darkness prior to chop, and planting on the full moon, and organic making your buds taste better, and flushing out the nutes, and on and on and on and on.

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I'd agree with that. I lollipop the lower stems and leaves a week or so before flowering, let them recover and then once flipped I leave them be. AFAIK a plant uses it's leaves to absorb light energy. If you remove the leaves it will not be able to absorb as much energy and do less well. I am relying on the basic horticulture I did at school 40 years ago here.