How to trim fan leaves to focus energy on flowers?

[SmokeDoggy]

I am trying to learn more about these plants in general - I have taken a pic of one of my tops and numbered several key areas: 1/3/7 are bud sites and 2/4/5/6 are fan leaves.

I am considering trimming some of the fan leaves on some of my stalks, but I am not sure how these all interact with one-another.

For instance, if I trim fan leaf 2 will that affect bud site 1? If I trim 4 will it affect 3? If I trim 5 and 6 will it affect 7? Doesn't 7 have it's own leaves though?

See how this guy trimmed all of his fan leaves??? https://www.420magazine.com/forums/...heels-garden-bonsai-style-35.html#post1692856

I am trying to understand the inter-dependency of the fan leaves and the buds. I obviously want the plant's consumption of water/nutes to be focused on the bud sites and not the leaves themselves, so I was thinking of removing them, but not if it negatively-affects my (larger) bud sites.. Thoughts???


Note: If you can't read the numbers in the attachment pop-up, try this view: https://www.rollitup.org/attachments/foo-jpg.3555232/

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

You're going to get a fight started with questions like that!

In all seriousness, you sound like a man (or woman) of science. Why don't you try it and see what happens!

Take pictures now, and trim #2 and #5 or 6 and take pictures from the same angle and distance (if possible) and document your results.

I think what you will ultimately find is that the leaves contribute collectively and do not maintain a strict relationship with a specific bud site.

 

[SmokeDoggy]

Sure I could do that, but I'm looking for folks who already have. I know it's a huge debate, but seems like nobody informed ever jumps in on those debates..

 

[xmatox]

I wouldn't worry about that high up on the cola. I would look at the part on each cola that is around 3/4 the way up and trim down from there. Better yet looking into lollipopping. You are a little into flower, so you do not want to be cutting any leaves now anyways. Might cause to much stress on your plant. I'm confused in reference to the link. I checked out the guys pictures and he has fan leaves in every one except when he is harvesting. The picture of the plant upside down is taken of a plant drying after being harvested. The grower probably trimmed away any dead foliage that wasn't to be used later. The grower in the link however did use a topping technique and pinching technique that might help you in your next grow!! Hope this helps!

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Sure I could do that, but I'm looking for folks who already have. I know it's a huge debate, but seems like nobody informed ever jumps in on those debates..

I've done it and found the results to be inconclusive. I had a fairly even distribution where:

A) The node where the leaf was taken ended up smaller than an adjacent node.
B) The node where the leaf was taken ended up similar in size to an adjacent node.
C) The node where the leaf was taken ended up larger than an adjacent node.

 

[SmokeDoggy]

Ok thanks all - and HDS, yeah what you're saying sounds about right - it's a bit random in how the plant wants to focus it's energy. Sometimes the buds win, sometimes they don't. I get that.

I did fim and have scrogged this one and got 4 main tops though I've lost track of where all of them are exactly now. I think next time I will try to minimize my tops and only have a few good ones not so many smaller ones. This should help me reduce the overload of fan leaves a bit too.

Yeah I don't plan to do mass pruning at this point as I don't want to shock it. I took maybe 10 leaves off the other day when I had it out flushing it good, and I think I shocked it by removing those leaves. That next 24h it did almost nothing, but now it seems like it is growing again today at least. I will probably just not touch it.

My next grow maybe will be a few soda bottle lollipops in a SOG, basically just keep cutting off the branches as new tops form and as it goes into flower there will only be a single top per plant.

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Yeah, I hear ya. Sounds like you and I have been trying similar things.

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

The main thing I've discovered through trial and error is this:

Are we talking about removing fan leaves because they are shading bud sites on the *same* plant or are we talking about removing fan leaves from Plant A because it has leaves shading bud sites from Plant B?

For leaves shading sites on the same plant, I think it is counter-productive. For the latter, it can be done effectively in moderation.

 

[SmokeDoggy]

Right, I totally am on board with the removal of fan leaves shading some bud site or another plant's bud site even. In my case I have only this one plant. My query was more about removing fan leaves which are not blocking bud sites. If they are going to continue growing, does it take away nutrients and energy going to bud sites or is there more than enough to go around?

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

In this case I think you really don't need to worry much. I would tuck leaves before removing them but even that might not be necessary. When I was doing these tests, I had plants in 3" and 4" pots and kept them very close together. They ended up being 3 feet tall on average and just single stem plants. What side branching was there remained hugged up against the main stem.

What I found at the end was that the lower bud sites that never received any light (the canopy allowed very little light through) were still very healthy and dense and mature. It was as if they had received direct light the whole time when in fact they received none. This was when I became convinced that leaves do not correlate to their individual bud sites.

That said, I had a lot of plants that generated total and utter crap underneath the canopy. It appeared to certainly be strain dependent and even plant dependent.

 

[SmokeDoggy]

yeah, I guess that is my key Q here - does the correlated/respective fan leave affect that specific bud site's production or does it just affect the overall plant health/ability in general.. I have seen grows with buds half way up the stalk and no fan leaves at any nearby nodes, so that tells me there is no real correlation, which is what I am hoping for. I had trimmed a few fan leaves the other day and those bud sites still look healthy, so I guess I'm fine. I have tucked as much as I can and a lot of those leaves look like shit now. My poor perfect baby is all bruised and beat up underneath. I had to yank some of the half-dead leaves already, but will do my best to leave the rest as I don't want to shock it any more..

good discussion, thanks for your interest..

 

[Hot Diggity Sog]

Anytime and good luck

 

[churchhaze]

Seriously? This thread is 5 days old and nobody said a thing?

"How to trim fan leaves to focus energy on flowers".

How do you expect to focus energy on flowers without leaves?

Sure I could do that, but I'm looking for folks who already have. I know it's a huge debate, but seems like nobody informed ever jumps in on those debates..

Why do you ask such a ridiculous question?

 

[2ANONYMOUS]

Seriously? This thread is 5 days old and nobody said a thing?

"How to trim fan leaves to focus energy on flowers".

How do you expect to focus energy on flowers without leaves?



Why do you ask such a ridiculous question?

Yes after one week of flower remove all leaves on plant this will triple yield even stop a plant from turning into a Hermie, Specially in a high hermie strain and most importantly possible Bud rott its surely a win win

 

[Resinhound]

The sugars created in the leaves during photosynthesis are used throughout the plant for growth.Ive never seen myself or read any real scientific studies to refute that.This info is readily availiable from just about any mainstream botany reference.Even the leaves that are shaded and not actually creating energy have a use.The plant will use them to store starches for later use.

 

[2ANONYMOUS]

The sugars created in the leaves during photosynthesis are used throughout the plant for growth.Ive never seen myself or read any real scientific studies to refute that.This info is readily availiable from just about any mainstream botany reference.Even the leaves that are shaded and not actually creating energy have a use.The plant will use them to store starches for later use.

Exactly and that is why i do not bother with threads really like this lol i love it when i see them growers rape there plants i just love it haha

 

[BobCajun]

I don't know about your specific question but here's how plants look about a week after extreme upper defol and topping, leaving all live bottom leaf. It was at 4 weeks flowering that I defoled. What happens is that the first few bud leaves get bigger than they normally would to make up for the missing fan leaf.

I also clipped the tips of a few leaves, just trying another form of defol but without actually removing whole leaves. As you can see, the rest of the leaf is perfectly healthy.

The pics are pretty similar, slightly different angles of the same area. The bud at lower middle of pic 2 is an untopped/defoled shoot. It was able to catch up due to the topping/defol of the others. Strain is Bubble Bomb. BTW they had to get topped anyway because they were getting too close to the light, which couldn't be put any higher.

This is how plants look growing under a 240w Cree CXB high bay rigged to the outside of the top of a 3'x1.5'x5' Walmart portable clothes closet with mylar emergency blankets inside. No, I ain't buying no overpriced grow tent when I can get the portable closets for $30 and emergency blankets for $5. I also made the top more solid with cardboard and put a computer fan over a hole cut in it, running at 9v not 12 to keep the noise down, also put padding between the fan and cardboard when I screwed the fan down to reduce vibration. A computer fan on 12v is noisy as hell. That's the actual LED lighting in the pics. I just stuck the camera in through the zipper and clicked it twice. The tops are about 18" from the bottom of the reflector. There was some slight bleaching when I transplanted from the CFL veg chamber but they bounced back and are dark again.

 

[2ANONYMOUS]

One week after extreme defoliating yeah right OK ,, This is how any grower should look at removal of leafs ..
With leaf eating insects, its common for most plants to get approx 15 percent damage, with that said, If a person is dead set on removing leafs then do not go over 15 percent of the plants foliage,,, gradually through out plants life veg and bloom..

Truth is when removing leafs you actually are in fact slowing growth rates, stressing plant and pretty much chocking it out plants need to breath and they breath through leafs, you effected plants osmosis other related functions ....
So is it really worth it
Personally i do not care WTF anyone does to there plant ,, but trust me from many years of growing ,,, This defoliating and flushing are tied for 1st place for the stupidest things a grower should do
One must realize that removing leafs will change hormones in the plant in other words in Bloom phase some of the energy that was suppose to go to bud production??? From You removal of leafs , plants is now repairing..

There is a huge difference between pruning and leaf removal,, and yes its a good idea to remove lots of the extreme lower bud sites that will be larf same thing as them suckers on tomatoes etc etc
Key to yield and Quality is keeping a plant healthy through out all of its cycles not removal of leafs its keeping it healthy and not fading out to quick ,

To Be honest a plant has the function to uptake nutrients that it needs and also not need

Also another Key Note is by removing leafs your also effecting C02 uptake and plants respiratory system ..
One thing training a plant which has been known for a long time in pretty much any fruit berrying plant ..
MJ has been around for a long time its only real purpose is to reproduce off spring that's it and like any species it evolves ,, with that said ,
One would think that through the evolution of marijuana the plant would of dropped its leafs or apples trees , orange trees , tomato plants etc etc but they do not

Like i said key is keeping plant healthy specially in flower cause there really is no corrections once in this stag,,
Fad to quickly damage is done ,, Over dose them Damage is down , remove leafs again Damage is done

 

[Jimmyjonestoo]

Step one : Don't.
Step two : Repeat step one til flowering phase has finished.

 

[saiyaneye]

This is all based on personal opinion It allows more light to the lower nodes, don't be too aggressive.

I don't do it to often, maybe once to three times during flower.