Should you cut off fan leaves during flowering

Leave leaves alone! Removal of healthy leave hacks up a healthy plant. Removing large or shade leaves DOES NOT make plants more productive. This practice DOES NOT supply more light to smaller leaves and growing tips. Plants need all their leaves to produce the maximum amount of chlorophyll and food. Removing leaves slows chlorophyll production, stresses the plant, and stunts its growth. Stress is a growth inhibitor. Remove only dead leaves or leaves that are more than 50 perfect damages.

I kind of did the same thing, but have these little scrawny flowers at the bottom of my plant... These aren't developing into much of anything, where as the flowers higher up are getting nice and dense and smelly... Should i remove the little aborts at the bottom that aren't getting much light and aren't developing into anything? I figure this would make the plant focus more on the growth towards the tops...

good info. i was wandering about the fans myself.

i taje almost every leaf off once the buds are there...

i've chopped off fan leaves during past grows with no problems. what i did was the last couple of weeks of flowering i'd prune 2-3 leaves a day giving more light to lower plants, but for the record it was an outdoor grow too. i haven't tryed an indoor grow yet. i agree with every saying its a weed. it is very resilient.

Yeah it's also a plant, not just a weed. Plants use their leaves for energy which intern leads to growth. Cutting off energy sources is just bad basic botany. I don't get were all this bad information come from and how it started. Why prune anything off unless it's 75% dead? It makes no sense, getting more light to bud sites doesn't do a whole lot when it's the leaves on the plant that make and transfer the energy to the buds.

Wow...this is the argument that never ends.... So here's my fence riding position.... I remove any leaf bigger than my middle finger during veg......It's about controlling growth. It makes short , close noded plants....with a healthy root system. It's an adaptation of bonsai techniques. Bound roots and proper pruning create minature copies, which is what sog with clones is all about, As soon as they move to bloom I quit taking leaves and let them bud.....removing lower, nonproductive growth... I guess I'm gonna have to try going a few weeks into bloom to see if it decreases stretch without reducing yield.....but I have a very consistent perpetual going, so I'll just have to get a bug and do it on a few plants out of a batch. Only problem then is the ones without the leaves removed would block the ones with them removed, cheating the outcome........don't like to experiment with full batches..... I love to tinker but I've gotten very lazy and methodical..
Remove if you want to I say.......but a few at a time, not all at once.......to be sure....

I usually take off the bottom 4 nodes of my plants as they get no good light unless you have good side lighting. I was also under the assumption you want to have good airflow UNDERneath your growing colas. Leaving those on will NOT give you better airflow rather it might restrict it. The upper fan leaves should be stronger than those below not receiving good light and be able to feed your plant adequately.

I cut my fan leaves and small lengthy leaves 5 days before flowering and 4 weeks into flowering. You do allow more light to enter and more nutrient for your buds.

goldenganja13 said:

leave leaves alone! Removal of healthy leave hacks up a healthy plant. Removing large or shade leaves does not make plants more productive. This practice does not supply more light to smaller leaves and growing tips. Plants need all their leaves to produce the maximum amount of chlorophyll and food. Removing leaves slows chlorophyll production, stresses the plant, and stunts its growth. Stress is a growth inhibitor. Remove only dead leaves or leaves that are more than 50 perfect damages.

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best advice in thread!

im a total noob but have always thought it to be bad pratice removing fan leaves or any healthy leaves?

but the last grow i was involved in 2 blueberry clones in soil, 600hps had 50-70% of the large fan leaves removed 3-4days before flowering and the yield from the 2 was 13oz so i really dont think it done the plants much harm???

and the bottom buds were pretty big! so im really in 2 minds now weather to remove fan leaves from my current grow, i didnt have much control of the plants that the fan leaves were removed from.

Doesn't matter fuzzy look at my yields a dry p per plant. Everyone has. different opinions by my patients love what I offer and I cut off leaves imma put up some pics for yal hopefully later today.

I am a relatively new grower and researched this a lot as well. The thing about it is... How many of you who gave your opinion actually conducted a scientific experiment with a side by side comparison of similar genetics? I doubt a lot of folks have.. I sure havent. Im lucky to get things going at all =] I would love to see someone with a real setup and time to do this and document the differences. I think that would be interesting.

Lots of succesfull growers and even commercial greenhouses prune off leaves during flower. I have a 16 place hydro set up and have done side by side comparisons with Sensi's super skunk. The pruning does'nt effect the yield at all but does improve taste.

So there you have it. Case closed. Thanks meta now I got some leaves to prune lol. But trash my buds look like rockets when I de leaf it

baggins1986 said:

i have 4 plants 2 weeks into their flowering stage. i have been told that cutting off some of the fan leaves will allow more light to reach the lower flowers. does this work or do the fan leaves act as light catchers for nutrients? thanks alot

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Cut the leaves that cover the bud spots or trim them round so light can get to the bud spots

herbs are use to cook with and has to be trim,cut to be use. then it grows back.even better. so its a weed its a herb, on this i know it will grow.to each his own , but one thing we all do the same is ,CHILL OUT with a little smoke. its alot like working in your yard, what evre looks good to you! FARM ON!

I just gotta throw my experience out there! I DID cut the big fan leaves off of one of my white widow's in my last crop of 15 plants. The result was terrible. Very small/airy buds. The plant suffered bad while all of it's sisters flowered beautifully. I realize that some of you cut your fan leaves with success but this is just my story and personally I will NEVER touch them again unless they're over 50% dead already.

socalkushman said:

plants are more substenint to shock during flowering..unless the leafs dead..leave it..even being nitrogen defecient....any green means its still alive!

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I agree. These fan leaves are still creating food for your plant, unless they are completely yellow and falling off. I would just leave the fan leaves.