Can I Cut Off The Fan Leafs?

Ghost of Davy Jones

Ghost of Davy Jones

Well-Known Member
Hey friends,

Picture 553.jpg Picture 550.jpg I have a plant 28 days from sprout, that seems to have huge fan leaves. Leaves are almost as big as my hand and its almost like they completely shade the under growth. The undergrowth seems very small... Should I cut like maybe 4 Big fan leaves to give the undergrowth light? I know plants need their fan leaves but doesn't the undergrowth need light too? Somethin's gotta give right?

Advise please.....
 
TheSecretGuy...

TheSecretGuy...

Member
Absolutely you can! It's a very effective way to get your plants to stay short and produce more nodes. Very controversial subject, I'm on the side that says hell yeah and defoliate threw veg and bloom. I've been on the side that says don't chop fan leaves until I tried it myself and I'll never go back. My fan leaves never see more than about 2 weeks life. I now grow for a dispenser and maintain about 50 to a 100 plants per every cycle. Every 2 weeks my plants get defoliated, every plant gets topped twice once when clones set root and again about two weeks after. 1 month veg end up with 4 to 6 ounces of medical grade dence buds per plant and double the ounces at 2 month veg. After your plants do their final and largest veg phase that most call stretch, fan leaves are on the road to slowly dying, you take that energy strain off the plants back and she'll reward you for it.
 
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Ghost of Davy Jones

Ghost of Davy Jones

Well-Known Member
TheSecretGuy... said:
Absolutely you can! It's a very effective way to get your plants to stay short and produce more nodes. Very controversial subject, I'm on the side that says hell yeah and defoliate threw veg and bloom. I've been on the side that says don't chop fan leaves until I tried it myself and I'll never go back. My fan leaves never see more than about 2 weeks life. I now grow for a dispenser and maintain about 50 to a 100 plants per every cycle. Every 2 weeks my plants get defoliated, every plant gets topped twice once when clones set root and again about two weeks after. 1 month veg end up with 4 to 6 ounces of medical grade dence buds per plant and double the ounces at 2 month veg.
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Thanks SecretGuy. I've seen youtube videos on defoliating so I'm well aware that people do it. I just wasn't sure if my lady is too young or if i need to wait. Also, how many leaves to cut or if i should just cut the lower and keep top or vise versa...
 
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Bugeye

Bugeye

Well-Known Member
You plant isn't very big and you are new to growing, I'd leave them alone.

Nice safe buffer if you get your nutes off.
 
Cubes15128

Cubes15128

Well-Known Member
You can start a manifold if you wanna chop leaves off lol it's old enough. Chop at 3rd node and clean everything below that node :D
 
Bugeye

Bugeye

Well-Known Member
Pull the leaves, don't pull the leaves, it doesn't matter if you plan to keep growing, try it all and see what works for you.

But just looking at your bottom leaves I can tell that your plant was slightly over fed at some point and is now happy again with nute levels. If you were to see splotchy interveinal yellowing on them, you would know you may need more magnesium. Just an example of how keeping those fan leaves on can give you useful information to use on your next nute decision.
 
TheSecretGuy...

TheSecretGuy...

Member
Every 2 weeks throughout cycle from root set. Take all the fan leaves. 99% of people's problems that occur are from over watering. If your plants ever start to yellow, pale or blotch and you've been feeding a responsible regimen of nutes and ph is kept in check then it's always over watering and that's when newbies make their worse mistakes because they think their girls have a deficiency and start hitting them with more water and more nutes. There's a rule I live by after several years of trial and error, never should your plants leaves droop, when light is on, not even after a heavy watering because if they do their trying to tell you you didn't wait long enough. I know this doesn't apply to your question, just friendly advice to people, most people that run into them kind of problems.
 
Bugeye

Bugeye

Well-Known Member
TheSecretGuy... said:
Every 2 weeks throughout cycle from root set. Take all the fan leaves. 99% of people's problems that occur are from over watering. If your plants ever start to yellow, pale or blotch and you've been feeding a responsible regimen of nutes and ph is kept in check then it's always over watering and that's when newbies make their worse mistakes because they think their girls have a deficiency and start hitting them with more water and more nutes. There's a rule I live by after several years of trial and error, never should your plants leaves droop, when light is on, not even after a heavy watering because if they do their trying to tell you you didn't wait long enough. I know this doesn't apply to your question, just friendly advice to people, most people that run into them kind of problems.
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I would interpret that scenario as a soil structure problem that requires increased aeration on next soil build.
 
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