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Let me be very specific to avoid another defoliation discussion. Removing leaves to allow more light to the inner parts of a plant should not be necessary (defoliation is in practice always done to unfuck a situation that should have been avoided by proper plant spacing, good genetics, proper nutrient regime, proper light setup etc etc) and is generally counterproductive. Removing leaves to allow light to other parts of the plant is just well.... This is something we'll never all agree on, but you're asking what "I" am saying so there's that.
"more leaves(source) = more fruit(end product)" is not what I'm saying. As I posted above:
"One of the things they teach at a local reputable agricultural university is that maximum yields are achieved by a optimal source-sink ratio."
Perhaps I should have said "balance" instead of ratio, as I used later in that paragraph. People who claim to benefit (yield-wise) from defoliation essentially claim they improve the sink-source ratio into a better one (which under certain circumstances that should have been avoided might be the case, and why some swear they see benefits) . As with many crazy things growers do, it's based on the urge to have control. While in fact it's the plant that does the work. All a home grower can sensibly do is provide an optimal environment in which the plant can thrive, and reach its genetic potential.
I'm starting to ramble... point is, the source sink balance is regulated by the plant, if you change it, it has to rebalance. If you trim leaves, you remove sources, while the amount of sinks remain the same. Do the math
Removing a few leaves isn't going to have a major effect the plant can't rebalance, especially during veg. On the flip side, if you trim a sink (like roots) and relatively increase the amount of sources compared to sinks, it doesn't mean the plant actually can and will use all those extra sugars. It's like a dialed-in smooth running factory, if you overload any of the supply lines, or processes, the entire factory needs to slow down and rebalance.
"more leaves(source) = more fruit(end product)" is not what I'm saying. As I posted above:
"One of the things they teach at a local reputable agricultural university is that maximum yields are achieved by a optimal source-sink ratio."
Perhaps I should have said "balance" instead of ratio, as I used later in that paragraph. People who claim to benefit (yield-wise) from defoliation essentially claim they improve the sink-source ratio into a better one (which under certain circumstances that should have been avoided might be the case, and why some swear they see benefits) . As with many crazy things growers do, it's based on the urge to have control. While in fact it's the plant that does the work. All a home grower can sensibly do is provide an optimal environment in which the plant can thrive, and reach its genetic potential.
I'm starting to ramble... point is, the source sink balance is regulated by the plant, if you change it, it has to rebalance. If you trim leaves, you remove sources, while the amount of sinks remain the same. Do the math
Removing a few leaves isn't going to have a major effect the plant can't rebalance, especially during veg. On the flip side, if you trim a sink (like roots) and relatively increase the amount of sources compared to sinks, it doesn't mean the plant actually can and will use all those extra sugars. It's like a dialed-in smooth running factory, if you overload any of the supply lines, or processes, the entire factory needs to slow down and rebalance.So no, not exactly as that implies a yield increase. I'm saying you can trim the roots without a yield decrease. Normally in soil the uptake of water brings ions (nutrients) closer to roots, close enough for uptake. In an NFT system the roots are continuously surrounded by a flowing nutrient solution, and can very easily take up all the elements the plant wants (hence the typical faster vegging), which is limited (more nutes is not more bud. Enough nutrients to reach that balance is what leads to max yields, any more and slows it down, like rolling too many wagons of iron into a factory). In nature, genetically, the plant never counted on being able to take up all the elements it needs through every individual root throughout it's entire root mass. It wouldn't have been able to survive... It grows way way more than it needs in hydroponics where all elements are widely available in a form ready for uptake.
