Well Ben, I'm glad I'm not the only one that thinks that particular line of thinking was a bit backwards. The more I read the rest of that article the more stuff I find that's not making a lot of sense to me. Doer makes a good point regarding the secondary branching and turgidity and I think that's where the author of the statement in question was headed with his statements. However, the term 'energy' caught my eye only because the use of the term is too broad. Energy as a plant knows it consists of thousands of pieces of a puzzle brought together for a common purpose. Remove any one of those pieces and you have a broken chain. Plants and other living things on this planet are tremendous at adapting to adverse conditions and so we, they cope. The important thing to remember is one of the reasons plant processes are so complex is so the plant, like other living things, doesn't rely on ONE simple element to survive. The stakes are too high- life or death. So living things require a multitude of processes and elements in order to thrive. When a particular living organism gets cut off of one particular process or element it finds ways to adapt in order to survive. Obviously, there are exceptions to these rules but generally living things rely on many, many things to take place in order to remain living. So far from what I can tell from reading a lot of arguments Ben is involved in, he's simply trying to make people understand that removing foliage, branches, popcorn all work against the plants natural ability to provide for itself using the genes it was given to simply live. Many, many growers find ways to manipulate plants they perceive as helping their yield. We can force a plant to do strange things and it doesn't surprise me when I hear stories of how well a plant performs after it's been stressed by pulling branches and leaves. The genetics are there for repairing the damage and coping with the stress. I struggle sometimes understanding how growers think they know better than what the plant is pre-programmed to do- live. Each time you stress the plant, you challenge the plant. Cannabis happens to be one of those plants that doesn't take this shit lying down, it fights back with all it's resources. You have to really, really try to kill the Cannabis plant as most of us I'm sure are aware. Whenever we get into these discussions of different growing styles I always cringe a little. Mostly because I know we're headed for the apples and oranges argument again. Growing a tree-size plant outside in full sun, little or no pruning is giving the plant everything it needs to thrive without intervention. Growing 168 plants on a 4x4 table under artificial lighting creates a challenge for the plant and the grower. For someone to say their way is better is simply just being silly. 168 plants indoors under artificial lighting in a small space may produce a wonderful yield for that grower with the right technique but damn it, plant those same 168 plants outdoors under natural lighting and room to spread and there simply won't be any comparison in yield. Apples and Oranges. I'm not a guy that likes confrontation, I'm better to observe and make my own decisions. My observations tell me there are way too many ways to make Cannabis grow to compare one to the other. That being said, I rarely see a grower struggle with keeping plants alive and healthy when they just leave the damn thing alone and let it grow. The people I see struggle are the ones looking to maximize their yield by manipulating the plants to do things it's not meant to do and then complain about it when it doesn't produce. That's not saying all struggle with their style of manipulation, many growers have the indoor thing figured out and their system works for them. Well, same here. My system of leaving the plant to do it's thing works too, let's not compare the two and claim one is better. I've never struggled harder at growing than I am right now. The only reason for this is because I brought my operation indoors. After years (over 30) of growing outdoors successfully with little effort, I'm now faced with learning a totally new way of doing things. I wouldn't suggest for a minute that I know the best way to pull this off so I read and read and read. I keep running across ideas about pruning the shit out of the plant to produce bigger buds. This goes against EVERYTHING I've ever learned about how plants work but there are no shortage of claims that this is the preferred method for indoor growing. I've picked up a pair of clippers on several occasions, standing in front of my plant saying to myself, "Well, here goes..." And then I stand there a little longer (shears in hand, hand shaking) and I can't get myself to do it. Once I finish creating more space for growing it's game on. I will be trying all these little manipulation techniques people are raving about and I'll make up my own mind in the end. For now, I let my plant(s) do their thing and only intervene if there's an issue. Damn, did I really ramble on that long? Sorry guys. BTW, how come I can't get a line break by hitting 'enter'? This all looks like one big pile of words, can't figure it out.
