stickybuds Defoliation technique

over the years I have tried taking some side shoots off and cutting leaves and removing some leaves at different stages in veg and flower, now I get an even canopy, larger harvest and low chance of bud rot.
when I first Defoliation my plants it gave me a lot of problems and after a few crops I started to work it out, what leaves/shoots to remove and when, If I removed too many leaves at the wrong time, I pull a low yield so Defoliation can really decrease my harvest too

now I have been Defoliation for a few years I know which leaves/shoots to remove at what stages and that's the only reason I can pull high yield using Defoliation, my Defoliation technique is not the same as grow easy .com

I like to grow a few colas (so the plants look more like mainline technique) as I don't want to spend hours trimming up small buds
often use some bamboo to open the canopy in flower, also this can help to level the canopy in flower without stressing the plants

so now lets talk about my set up (flower room)

strain.................northern lights cuttings
flower................room: 4ft (length)x4ft (width) x 6ft (height)
lights.................1x 600w hps air-cooled hood
plant pots..........6x 14ltr buckets
soil ...................plagron bat mix soil (re used soil 3 times)
nutes................ fishmix, bloom, Epson salts
filter .................6" rhino carbon filter
fans 4" ..............intake and 6" outtake fan, 16" oscillating fan
heater ..............600w oil radiator


one of my plants from the last grow





my plants have been in veg for about 7 weeks under a 250w HM
and now been in flower for 6 days


I have just removed 50% of the weaker shoots and loads of fan leaves, also opened the canopy up a little so the air and light can get deep in the canopy

Very nice. I've been toying around with defoliation and trying to work it into my current system. Hope you post more about this.

Bubba Nub said:

Very nice. I've been toying around with defoliation and trying to work it into my current system. Hope you post more about this.

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how much love do you want to give your plants, because I can teach you how to grow a wall of buds, its the same way I grow this but vertical, it will double you yield easy but will take a few crops for you to get it right, not going to be easy and some strains may not take well to it

I give my ladies so much love it hurts some days.... Very interested in uping my gr/watt! At the moment, I have a 8'x24' wall of nugs... expecting to hit something like 1.5 gr/watt

Bubba Nub said:

I give my ladies so much love it hurts some days.... Very interested in uping my gr/watt! At the moment, I have a 8'x24' wall of nugs... expecting to hit something like 1.5 gr/watt

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advance training for a vertical scrog


ok this is how you will pull a very large yield, just try it on a plant or two and see how you get on, this is very advance stuff, good luck and I would like regular updates to see how you get on


stage 1 first you want to top the plant above the 4-5 set of leaves,
(the 4-5 shoots will become the main shoots)
train the main shoots in the screen

This Is what you need to do with every side shoot as gets long

enough, off the main shoot, what your looking for is the side shoot to

have a good set of leaves on, at lease 1" long before going on to stage 2


stage 2 Pick off all fan leaves that are established with a side shoot

connecting them to the main shoot about 2-3" long

as the side shoots get to 4" long, cut all the leaves in half on the side

shoots to slow the grow down, you want these side shoots to grow as

slow as possible, this make the side shoots stronger

after a few weeks there will be loads of short side shoots filling the

screen, all even with small leaves, all the side shoots should be getting

the same amount of light

day before flower

cut all the leaves in half on the end of every side shoot (last 2") all the lower shoots will stretch on the side shoots so the buds will grow even thicker but shorter

at this stage its all done, no more training will be needed in flower but you may need to support some of the larger buds

(Apical dominance is governed by the production of plant hormones

(auxins) that are developed in the terminal shoot, which inhibit the

growth of other lateral shoots below )

so if all the sides shoots are getting the same amount of light, they all

become the Apical dominance shoots and could grow 50 buds or more per plant all consistent in size and shape allowing you to get the max yeild for area used by the plant

Interesting. I kinda do that some, but am looking at starting defoliation from the start. I basically want shorter, tighter noded plants without stretching my veg times to bad. I like the idea of cutting some fans in half as opposed to just removing them altogether. I have a sativa that resists having leaves removed, but she might tolerate snips.
Do you do any leaf removal at the end? I started stripping all leaves w/o sugar on them the week before I start flushing. Because of the wall nature of my grow, fan leaves are ususally out of control and nugs behind the main layer get a little lost and because is puts a big dent in chop time, which is substantial...


this is a lady i revegged and am flowering on the floor. She has been regularly broken to maintain shape and leaves removed to keep her open. she's so pretty..

you done a great job with the plant (sorry forgot to add this)
any form of defoliation will slow plant growth down, that's the hole ideal of it IMO
gives you control over how the plant grows in veg and stops the stretch in early flower, don't know about defoliation in mid/ late flower as there never a lot of leaves at this stage, so most the buds have direct light
don't like the ideal of stressing the plant at this stage as its likely to slow bud growth for a few days and that's the last thing I want

Right on. I'm about to make a change to my early veg to hopefully eliminate time being issue for me, but still be able to be able to slow them down without it extending my cycle too much. Every extra week I run at 20/4 is massive amounts of $$$ in electricity. I really appreciate the info and I'm sure we'll be discussing this more as I get closer to finishing up. I've been prepping my moms for their next donations and I am considering a modified version of this for the whole room.
So that beautiful girl in the first pic didn't have any leaves removed after she went into flower?

Subbed up StickyB

good to see you jointed, got any questions ?

Your girls look sick man!

cheers Scroga lol

stickybuds* said:

good to see you jointed, got any questions ?

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Nope not as of right now, just watchin and takin it all in bro. This does go against everything I've learned about growing, but when one see's the results of your work it makes you sit up and take notice. If I have any ? you'll be the fisrt to know bro...Thanks for doing this again Sicky...J

Bubba Nub said:

Right on. I'm about to make a change to my early veg to hopefully eliminate time being issue for me, but still be able to be able to slow them down without it extending my cycle too much. Every extra week I run at 20/4 is massive amounts of $$$ in electricity. I really appreciate the info and I'm sure we'll be discussing this more as I get closer to finishing up. I've been prepping my moms for their next donations and I am considering a modified version of this for the whole room.
So that beautiful girl in the first pic didn't have any leaves removed after she went into flower?

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Will be good if you can sort the veg room out to give more time

no leaves where taken off the plant (first picture) after the first week in flower
But the picture was taken after I removed all the leaves as u can see all the cola's, within a few hours she was hanging to dry

Nice thread mate - been interested in how people use defoliation with their plants. As it happens I've done something similar of sorts to some I just flipped - did so before seeing this thread. Didn't go quite as far as you're instructions, it was mostly just to open up the canopy a bit and do some lollypopping. Will watch them over the next 2 weeks and might thin a little more if need be, cheers

welcome to my grow diary

the reply I gave Bubba Nub was based on a vertical scrog not the way I would train my plants under a horizontal hood, thanks for pointing this out

keep it simple for a couple of crops is the best way, open up the canopy a bit and do some lollypopping is a good start, this should give you a larger harvest and maybe next time remove a couple of leaves from a branch and see how it goes

Well Sticky I took all the fans off of a couple as well as some of the smaller leaves. The plants I did it to are mommy plants and I want them to make lots of branches for cloning so we'll see what happens. I also got the BORG ( mites ) recently so I think it will help as they wont have as much vegetation to hide out in. I'll post some pics of what I did to em later as it is late and I'm tired. ...J

sound great can't wait to see your pictures and using this technique, make it difficult for spider mites and makes it easy to spot them, also makes life difficult for gnats as there all way some light on the soil, as it keeps the surface dry, other advantages are it lower humidity and in late flower this really helps to frost the buds up and reduces the chances of bud rot

some pictures of my plants 3 days after defoliation, 9th day 12/12

14 days 12/12

love , love, love it. Great thread!