Can these fan leaves go?

first grow,3 days into a 10 day flush. my question is i started hack'n the fan leaves off a couple plants. the idea was to make the actual trimming a little less time consumeing.with only 7 days left before i start drying i dont see how fan leaves would hurt me this late in the game, but like ive said before,im no expert.whada u guys think???

i only prune when they are damaged or dead. killing perfectly good leaves will only stress as well as decrease the amount of photosynthetic energy....but i just realized ur pretty much done so i guess it wouldnt do too much damage being what u see now is prb what ur gunna get.

so what do u think? it might hurt em? b ok since ive only got a week of flushing left??? id jus hate to come all this way to start damageing em now!!!

Guess I'll throw my two cents into the ring. I'll answer your question with a question. You say you are now in a 10 day flush, I don't subscribe to flushing per se but, so you are not giving your plant anything to produce more bud. What is the plant consuming to stay alive? itself. The last two weeks of a plant's flowering cycle you can see amazing growth in its last effort to procreate. I find that my buds grow at least a 1/4 in size (on average) the final couple of weeks. If you are pulling or cutting of leaves now and not feeding it, the plant has less and to consume of itself.
This is a question which has been around forever it seems and there are basically two schools of thought and practice. So my two cents if you aren't going to feed the plant, don't touch the leaves and if you feed your plant don't touch your leaves. Exceptions, health of the leaf or it's causing a severe air circulation problem.
Good Luck and Happy Growing

GOOD POINT CANE you should let your plants pull as much sugar as they can from your leaves. That fading is a VERY GOOD THING i would suggest doing it a day or 2 before harvest if your going to

All you are doing is starving your plant from 2 directions at the time in its lifes when it putting on the most bulk......

Hotsause said:

GOOD POINT CANE you should let your plants pull as much sugar as they can from your leaves. That fading is a VERY GOOD THING i would suggest doing it a day or 2 before harvest if your going to

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the fading isn't a very good thing lol. the fading just means that you are letting your plant eat it's self. You don't need to let it eat it's self, you don't need to flush for 2 weeks before harvest. I am growing some Purple Bubba Kush and had to harvest one early about 3 days after I fed it. Dried the buds, did a week long cure and it was smooth, nice and fruity flavored and already decently potent at 6 weeks.

As for pulling off the leafs, go for it. At this stage in the game you can't really do much to mess things up besides maybe get some pollen on your ladies or get a bug infestation or mold problems, none of which come from cutting away some fan leafs.

I clean the plant off before I cut it down, cleaning all the leaves off 2-5 days before I harvest. Also, around the fourth week in I usually pop all the huge and older fan leaves off with my fingers, they just cover up the buds taking lumens away from their mean light intake. Do however keep the large fan leaves that do not cover buds, they still absorb large amounts of light.

Two cents well spent canefan.
Glad u bothered , got a pineapple crush on the go and the fan leaves are friggin huge , I'm gonna remove only the ones blocking by budd.
+rep

Thanks all for the favorable comments, just one other thing to throw in about the leaves. Now I am no botantist or biologist but I do try and devote at least an hour a day to reading plant biology. This is my understanding of the leaves, light and the bud, could be wrong, I am often about things. The fan leaves as we all know abosrb the light and shade the lower buds. My reading indicates that about 85% of useable light passes through the leaf leaving ample light, in most grow situations to stimulate the lower buds. The fan leaves are the most efficient of the leaves on the plant and the sugar leaves are the least.
The light intensity is necessary to promote the denser buds. Well, since most of those shaded buds are popcorn size anyway I don't personally care if they are a bit fluffier. Whether the trade off of a bit fluffier for lower veruses better overall production and health of the plant is a worthwhile trade everyone has to answer that for themselves.
Since I don't sell anything I grow and only give away to a couple of cancer patients, I am more interested in the health of the plant and overall production/potentcy. For people that have the extra plants to do a side by side I suggest giving it a try. I truly believe you will find better results overall leaving the leaves on the plant.

+1 for leaving ANY and ALL leaves alone till harvest.