Your thoughts on defoliation?

ebcrew

ebcrew

Well-Known Member
After reading up on defoliation i decided to give it a try on my Jack Herer. Im kind of nervous because the Jack Herer was a gift and its the only seed of that strain i have. Anyway ive read really good things about the technique and of course im careful not to remove to much or remove the wrong stuff.

Growweedeasy had a really great article and tutorial so i decided to give it a try. Heres the link if anyone is interested:

http://www.growweedeasy.com/marijuana-defoliation-tutorial

So how do you all feel about the technique? Has anyone tried it and care to share your experiences with it (good or bad)?

I'll take a picture soon of my Jack after defoliation and see if i can find a picture of it before as well. Looking forward to hearing your experiences, thoughts, and/or criticism.
 
707humboldt

707humboldt

Well-Known Member
Im all for defoliation. I just posted this in a similar thread but I will re post here...

I personally like to defoliate. Once I flip to flower, I do all my lowers on the plant (normally around 1/4-1/3 of the plant depending on strain. After they stretch for a couple weeks I will go in and clean up the lowers one more time. At about week 3-4 of flower, I will start to remove a few of the larger fan leaves that are directly shading buds, and try to let a little more light in. Through out the grow as I notice large fan leaves that are directly shading buds or blocking a lot of light from getting in or overlapping fans, I will remove them. The last week, I will start to completely remove all the fans, a little bit each day until they are completely gone the day I harvest. I do this because it makes it easier when I harvest to separate the fans so when they dry and get trimmed, its all sugar leaf for extraction and the fans don't have to get separated from sugar while trimming. I also feel that opening up the plant by removing fans in the last week helps finish the plant off and finished the shaded buds in the middle better.
I have done an experiment where I did no defoliation on one side of the room and I did the other side how I explained above and I got 5oz more on the side I defoliated. It was a 6k room with the same cuts from the same mother on both sides of the room. I did this about 8 years ago so its been awhile. I get 2#+ per light regularly doing it this way.

Just my personal opinion and experience
 
ebcrew

ebcrew

Well-Known Member
707humboldt said:
Im all for defoliation. I just posted this in a similar thread but I will re post here...

I personally like to defoliate. Once I flip to flower, I do all my lowers on the plant (normally around 1/4-1/3 of the plant depending on strain. After they stretch for a couple weeks I will go in and clean up the lowers one more time. At about week 3-4 of flower, I will start to remove a few of the larger fan leaves that are directly shading buds, and try to let a little more light in. Through out the grow as I notice large fan leaves that are directly shading buds or blocking a lot of light from getting in or overlapping fans, I will remove them. The last week, I will start to completely remove all the fans, a little bit each day until they are completely gone the day I harvest. I do this because it makes it easier when I harvest to separate the fans so when they dry and get trimmed, its all sugar leaf for extraction and the fans don't have to get separated from sugar while trimming. I also feel that opening up the plant by removing fans in the last week helps finish the plant off and finished the shaded buds in the middle better.
I have done an experiment where I did no defoliation on one side of the room and I did the other side how I explained above and I got 5oz more on the side I defoliated. It was a 6k room with the same cuts from the same mother on both sides of the room. I did this about 8 years ago so its been awhile. I get 2#+ per light regularly doing it this way.

Just my personal opinion and experience
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Do you only defoliate during flowering? or During veg also?
 
unwine99

unwine99

Well-Known Member
I've seen people kill it defoliating...I've also seen people remove not one single leaf and have 3 foot branches full of dense chunky nugs from the top all the way to the bottom -- without the bottom nodes even receiving direct light. Grower's preference overall I suppose.

Also, a successful defoliator on this forum seems to think it's very strain dependent -- some strains apparently react better toward it than others. Me personally, I like to leave the leaves be. (:
 
707humboldt

707humboldt

Well-Known Member
I dont do any during veg. I only do it to open up the canopy to allow light into it to hit more bud sites. I feel it slows the veg time down a little bit and doesn't have much benefits. Just my opinion
 
ebcrew

ebcrew

Well-Known Member
707humboldt said:
I dont do any during veg. I only do it to open up the canopy to allow light into it to hit more bud sites. I feel it slows the veg time down a little bit and doesn't have much benefits. Just my opinion
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Ive started during veg for the same reason. Im trying to clear space for the potential bud sites. Mistake? Or you only doing it during flower just a personal preference?
 
707humboldt

707humboldt

Well-Known Member
I would say just personal preference. Every one I know including my self just does it in flower, but its definitely not going to kill your plants or anything. Just do it slowly, don't do too much until your comfortable with it and you know what works best for you. I just don't see any benefits doing it in veg
 
Mad_Prophessor

Mad_Prophessor

Well-Known Member
After years of testing on this I can say to do it only at certain times. After the stretch to clean up the lower crap, but that is it. The plant needs its leaves to flower out the entire plant. Buds form in the lower canopy with no direct light at all. Nature does it this way to. Ever go apple picking? There are apples in the middle of the trees as well as on top.

Leaves are the solar panels and buds are the product of their work. If you limit the panels, you limit the fruit. Also, if you over do it during flower, you can cause the plant to herm out. Like in nature, in the fall, plants and trees lose their leaves. If you remove your leaves from the plant, you tell it the season is over and it tries to procreate by mutating and producing seeds so it can come back next year. If you want the buds to see more of the light, just move the leaves to the side. Removing them limits their potential in my experience. Side by side, the plants that I didn't touch were superior in every way. Try it out for yourself. Cut two clones and run them side by side. Top them both twice (that's what I did to keep them short) and go from there. Defol one and let the other one do its thing. The plant that is left alone will produce bigger, fatter, stronger nugs than her sister that you kept ripping the leaves off of every time.
 
ebcrew

ebcrew

Well-Known Member
Mad_Prophessor said:
After years of testing on this I can say to do it only at certain times. After the stretch to clean up the lower crap, but that is it. The plant needs its leaves to flower out the entire plant. Buds form in the lower canopy with no direct light at all. Nature does it this way to. Ever go apple picking? There are apples in the middle of the trees as well as on top.

Leaves are the solar panels and buds are the product of their work. If you limit the panels, you limit the fruit. Also, if you over do it during flower, you can cause the plant to herm out. Like in nature, in the fall, plants and trees lose their leaves. If you remove your leaves from the plant, you tell it the season is over and it tries to procreate by mutating and producing seeds so it can come back next year. If you want the buds to see more of the light, just move the leaves to the side. Removing them limits their potential in my experience. Side by side, the plants that I didn't touch were superior in every way. Try it out for yourself. Cut two clones and run them side by side. Top them both twice (that's what I did to keep them short) and go from there. Defol one and let the other one do its thing. The plant that is left alone will produce bigger, fatter, stronger nugs than her sister that you kept ripping the leaves off of every time.
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Thats exactly why defoliation is so intriguing to me. I knew it would be a controversial topic and of course a dedicated grower will always look for new ways to improve. Ive heard people on both sides, some swearing by defoliation and some saying its detrimental to plant development. I cant wait for this experiment to be completed to see for myself.

Its a bit of a shame i (drunkenly) decided to experiment on the only Jack Herer seed i had, but hey it could be a great success or a total disaster right?
 
Mad_Prophessor

Mad_Prophessor

Well-Known Member
ebcrew said:
Thats exactly why defoliation is so intriguing to me. I knew it would be a controversial topic and of course a dedicated grower will always look for new ways to improve. Ive heard people on both sides, some swearing by defoliation and some saying its detrimental to plant development. I cant wait for this experiment to be completed to see for myself.
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I was a firm believer in doing it for years until I just decided to try a side by side comparison. There was no comparison. You will see.
 
ebcrew

ebcrew

Well-Known Member
Heres a few pics of it after defoliation. As you can see i was a bit scared to go crazy with it like ive seen others do. It almost looks like i did nothing to the plant. You can imagine how bushy it was before, i'll try to locate a before picture.

2015-05-24 02.06.50.jpg 2015-05-24 02.06.59.jpg 2015-05-24 02.07.07.jpg
 
Mad_Prophessor

Mad_Prophessor

Well-Known Member
ebcrew said:
Heres a few pics of it after defoliation. As you can see i was a bit scared to go crazy with it like ive seen others do. It almost looks like i did nothing to the plant. You can imagine how bushy it was before, i'll try to locate a before picture.

View attachment 3425841 View attachment 3425842 View attachment 3425843
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They can handle more abuse than you think. I have really stripped them down in the past just to fuck with them and see what they would do. They grow more leaves and keep going. Like I said, they will grow fine, but they could have been more. If the plant never has to recover from the trauma of defoliation, then it never takes a step backwards. Each time you cut your plant, it has to recover from it. If you never cut it, what does it have to recover from? I rarely even remove sick leaves until they are about to fall off the plants. I have added at least an ounce to the final weight on each plant's harvest from not removing the leaves. A zipper is enough to convince me to leave them alone.
 
Mad_Prophessor

Mad_Prophessor

Well-Known Member
If you want to add to your yield, top the plant and give it more bud sites. Don't remove it's food source. That wont help it to be bigger in any way. I would top your plant right now if it was mine.
 
ebcrew

ebcrew

Well-Known Member
Mad_Prophessor said:
If you want to add to your yield, top the plant and give it more bud sites. Don't remove it's food source. That wont help it to be bigger in any way. I would top your plant right now if it was mine.
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Its been topped already. 2015-05-16 22.06.07.jpg That was after the first topping (about 8 days ago). Yesterday i topped it 2 more times.

As far as the defoliation, its an experiment and as i stated ive heard people who swear by it, and people who hate it. I wanted to see for myself and hear others opinions on the subject. Appreciate your comments bro!
 
Mad_Prophessor

Mad_Prophessor

Well-Known Member
ebcrew said:
Its been topped already. View attachment 3425853 That was after the first topping (about 8 days ago). Yesterday i topped it 2 more times.

As far as the defoliation, its an experiment and as i stated ive heard people who swear by it, and people who hate it. I wanted to see for myself and hear others opinions on the subject. Appreciate your comments bro!
Click to expand...
Any time you top it, that would be the best time to remove any leaves. Again, we still want to reduce the amount of stress on the plant as much as we can in order to keep it as scientific as possible. I still remove the lower growth on all my plants about 2-3 weeks into flower though. I try to time the removal with the end of the stretch. After that, they can just focus on growing me big, fat nugs and I don't cut them again until they are being harvested.

I think you will draw my same conclusion, but I am certainly interested to see if somebody can prove me wrong. I don't think you are, but I always welcome research regardless of the intent. I always have a couple experiments going on, or a few plants that I just keep fucking with. It is fun. Keep it up.
 
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