Cutting Fan Leaves? A Mythbuster style experiment...

like anyone gives a shit what you think

Troll Fight!!!!

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OP is scared to come back

BOMBADILLO said:

Heya.....I thought I would jump in here because I have me a 3 month old, 5ft high plant that i've just started trimming & this is mighty interesting.

Grown a few plants before, in pots & only little guys. This dude, I only chucked a seed in the corner of the vege garden as an afterthought. The fucker really took off! Up until last week, I had left it alone to do its own thing, I was letting nature sort it out BUT i've seen ZERO action as far as buds are concerned. So, i've started trimming all the fan leaves to see if it'll get things going. Its in a good spot, gets a lot of sun & plenty of watering & i've fertilised it with chicken shit & a bit of carp, so i'm hoping this is a good plan. I'll try & get some pics up.

Looking forward to the results of this little experiment....yours & mine but any advice would be sweet. Cheers!

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some trimming isn't a bad thing but if you cut "ALL" of your fan leaves then your plant is going to have alot harder of a time converting the sunlight to energy. Remember everyone those fan leaves are effectivly the plants solar panels. trimming some isn't necisarily a bad thing but taking them all away puts a big deficit on the energy that it can use.

The Knuck said:

like anyone gives a shit what you think

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I really cant blame him....can you? The fucked up thing is it was a GOOD idea...

80mg said:

I really cant blame him....can you? The fucked up thing is it was a GOOD idea...

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yeah and so is miracle bloom fertz.

The Knuck said:

yeah and so is miracle bloom fertz.

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your point?...

Hey - I haven't bailed completely - just had a bad day...
But seriously - I don't plan on answering the same damn questions for the next 8 weeks... Though things seem to have gotten past that.
Interesting to see the ideas presented.
So you guys argue it up... I'll post updates as I can.

But - here are some of my "things to think about" (most mentioned at one time before)
Trees, shrubs and other plants get trimmed and pruned all the time to maintain vigor and health. Why not cannabis?
If you cover a branch with a light proof bag, it will not thrive. The plant does not tranfer energy to it. this goes against the "whole plant" theory
I've done "stepped Harvests" - chop top buds, let the lower ones develop etc. Cutting does not seem to cause any visible "stress" to the rest of the plant. just keeps on truckin. Cut one whole side down, the other does just fine.
That is all...

Once I had a red pepper bush that was covered in peppers and just before harvest a tomato worm demolished it. One day it was a bush, the next day it was a twig with half a leaf left. Long story short, it came back beautifully, and looked more like a tree than a bush. One of the few times I saw a pepper make it through two years outside.

The worm was laying on his side on the ground, looking drunk...and he was huge. I doubt he recovered. Never saw evidence of another worm, but he did the plant a favor, it became spectacular.

I wonder if the same sort of defoliation would do something similar to mj?

Tahmi.Guhnn said:

some trimming isn't a bad thing but if you cut "ALL" of your fan leaves then your plant is going to have alot harder of a time converting the sunlight to energy. Remember everyone those fan leaves are effectivly the plants solar panels. trimming some isn't necisarily a bad thing but taking them all away puts a big deficit on the energy that it can use.

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Cheers. Yeah, I left about half on but it doesn't look like its achieved anything anyway. Its not male, as far as I can tell & still growing. I'll let you know if I end up with some buds or if i'm just gonna be baking a whole lot of cake.

Japanfreak said:

That's stupid. You are obviously not an experienced grower.

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Here is yet another of your threads where you are going back and forth trolling....

Serapis said:

Here is yet another of your threads where you are going back and forth trolling....

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Oh look how cute, he thinks he can win a fight he shouldn't be fighting. Ok well then tell me....to your knowledge has trimming ever turned a plant hermie? Any experienced grower knows the answer and knows that telling somebody that cutting off a few fans hermied their plant is stupid.

hey pullen weeds

Don't let their bullshit upset you, there are many people here who would love to watch you experiment wether its perfect or not i want to know what happens.

fuck i don't do anything perfectly so in fact i need to know what will happen if i try to do things in my own ghetto way!

please keep growing experimenting and telling us all about it!


to everyone else

if you find your self only making negative comments every time you post are you really enjoying yourself? also if you already know everything why are you here?

If you are like me and enjoy learning new things help us support ingenuity and creativeness in all its forums. (pun intended) ;p

Japanfreak said:

Oh look how cute, he thinks he can win a fight he shouldn't be fighting. Ok well then tell me....to your knowledge has trimming ever turned a plant hermie? Any experienced grower knows the answer and knows that telling somebody that cutting off a few fans hermied their plant is stupid.

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Calling someone else stupid is another thing entirely. I agree with you, that telling someone cutting fan leaves will hermie a plant is dumb. Calling them stupid, however, is a violation of terms and good manners. As I said earlier, you have several e-fights going on, which is why I flagged your posts. Surely I'm not the only one that is tired of the name calling and bickering?

Viagro wrote

The worm was laying on his side on the ground, looking drunk...and he was huge. I doubt he recovered. Never saw evidence of another worm, but he did the plant a favor, it became spectacular.

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lol did you let the worm go?

I said, "That's stupid" I suggest you lose your hard-on for me and move on.

Lonestand, you do understand the negativity around the "experiment" don't you? There is no control plant. The subject plant will release auxin throughout the entire plant when pruning is done to only a portion of it. It defies all logic what the OP intends to prove or disprove. His statement and hypothesis is very vague. In reality, one could not call this a trial or experiment in any way. I propose that someone else may be in a much better situation to conduct such testing. Afterall, the OP already stated he only had access to one plant at a time. How are they to make comparisons? What observations can be made with no control subject?

yeah i do understand, however i still want to see what happens and once you state your opion and or facts on the topic we dont need to hash it over and over ya know..

oh yeah i also encourage someone else to take all the facts or ideas discovered here and try to make the perfect experiment!!! with correct scientific method. I will subscribe to them all and thank you for your time is posting.

I'd love to see the "priceless solar panel" theory scrubbed. We already know that training encourages more colas and thereby a higher yield. Pruning does the same thing, by encouraging new growth. Those fan leaves might be priceless outdoors, protecting delicate flowers from direct afternoon sun, providing a large area for transpiration, and acting like a storage tank for the plan't nutrients.

However under controlled growing environments, that same fan leaf becomes a liability as it blocks precious light, takes from a plant's water and nute resources, yet the plant can thrive without it. I'd like to see 4 plants, 2 that undergo maintenance pruning and two left alone and never cut. It is obvious to me, at least, that the plant's getting shaping and excessive leaf removal will fare far better.