Defoliation?

Stltoed

Well-Known Member
I started with RDWC. When I went to try soil I found I didnt really need to trim too much off... not like hydro. I HAVE to cut leaves quite a bit when I'm in water. The benefits are obvious
 

K Rae

Member
I feel you... outdoors vs indoors and dwc vs soil is incredibly different and offers a steep learning curve I wasn't entirely prepared for... many things I didn't pay attention to outside are my top priorities inside. The speed at which everything happens in the dwc world is insane!
Mimicking mama nature isn't nearly as easy as I thought it would be
But I'm learning and I'm in the flush right now so I'm hopeful I can pull a gram per watt but if not I'll be happy with some quality stuff over quantity.
Even a half gram per watt for my first ever dwc/indoor grow will make me happy!
 

Stltoed

Well-Known Member
I feel you... outdoors vs indoors and dwc vs soil is incredibly different and offers a steep learning curve I wasn't entirely prepared for... many things I didn't pay attention to outside are my top priorities inside. The speed at which everything happens in the dwc world is insane!
Mimicking mama nature isn't nearly as easy as I thought it would be
But I'm learning and I'm in the flush right now so I'm hopeful I can pull a gram per watt but if not I'll be happy with some quality stuff over quantity.
Even a half gram per watt for my first ever dwc/indoor grow will make me happy!
Theres nothing wrong with lightly defoliating, or just tucking leaves under a scrog. It seems to me that this is a plant by plant issue. I have a Strawberry Banana plant now that is kinda thin. It doesnt need too much defoliation meanwhile the other plants are going crazy. Sativas sometimes dont need a shave. Just dont shwazz it.
 

MoodyShoes

Well-Known Member
I defol the hell out of my plants. Treat em mean keep em keen.

They love it.

Last grow was just under 1kg from 5 plants, 6 weeks veg.

It's a personal thing but I don't go for the the whole careful growing thing. I twist em, defol, scrog, lollypop and anything else that gets the plant to focus in the buds rather than massive fans that are of no use.
 

5BY5LEC

Well-Known Member
My last grow I left nothing down the last 3rd of the plant. It helped enormously with airflow.
The big fans up top I will avoid taking if I can, I will just try to move them. I think the big fan leaves up top build your buds, so I would not want to take too many.
 

shiva71

Well-Known Member
Hiya
Wouldnt normally threadjack but this is exactly what i need to know at the moment, a rookie looking for advice!
This is a DP Euforia auto at day 60. She was topped, and pretty much all side brancing was removed. This gave me 6 shoots with a lot of growth near the top, just where i want it, near the lights. Its almost as if it was a scrog which is pretty much what i wanted.
euf.jpg
View from below you can see the canopy...
thumbnail (2).jpg
The thing is it is getting VERY leafy up the top, true its not blocking the light cos there is nothing growing below but still im wondering if i should defoliate at bit...
SORRY for barging in on your thread OP but it seemed like the right place to ask...
Ta very much :)
 

Attachments

JSB99

Well-Known Member
Hiya
Wouldnt normally threadjack but this is exactly what i need to know at the moment, a rookie looking for advice!
This is a DP Euforia auto at day 60. She was topped, and pretty much all side brancing was removed. This gave me 6 shoots with a lot of growth near the top, just where i want it, near the lights. Its almost as if it was a scrog which is pretty much what i wanted.
View attachment 4368813
View from below you can see the canopy...
View attachment 4368815
The thing is it is getting VERY leafy up the top, true its not blocking the light cos there is nothing growing below but still im wondering if i should defoliate at bit...
SORRY for barging in on your thread OP but it seemed like the right place to ask...
Ta very much :)
A couple weeks into flower, I remove the majority of the big fans. But, only if there's something below. When you remove those huge fans, and let all that lower growth get some light, she'll explode! All those bud sites get blocked by the huge fans. I tried not trimming, a couple grows ago, and it was a disaster! Only the very top buds we're good, but everything below was all larfy. Leave the smaller leaves that are attached to the bud sites. Those are the ones that matter.

I may be wrong on this, but I relate the big fans to the growth of the plant during veg, and the smaller ones to bud development. Removing those big fans will also concentrate much more of the plant's energy into the leaves and buds that matter during flower.


Go half way down the page, on the thread link below, and I start talking about the grow comparisons. I also show what I trim, if you wanted some ideas.
Thread
 

Aqua Man

Well-Known Member
I'll just add my own little opinion on the matter, and say that with plants grown normally outside as nature intended, it doesn't make sense to defoliate. The power of the sun reaches all the leaves (it has traveled 93 million miles, so a few extra feet is nothing). When grown inside, this isn't the case at all. Many, many things are done to the plants to try and make up for the shortcomings of indoor lights, compared to the sun. Another example of this is how outside plants can handle much higher temps than indoor. The reason is because of the massive amount circulation outside compared to trying to match it with fans.

When you think about all of the things we do to indoor plants, like topping, supercropping, manifolding, scrogging, etc...,why is it so much of a stretch to say that it may be beneficial to remove leaves from under the canopy, where our whimpy lights can't reach, or thinning out the middle, so our whimpy fans can circulate the air throughout the whole plant(s).

I have seen the benefits of trimming, and I think it may be needed more with hydro, especially dwc. With dwc, my plants grow too many leaves during veg, because of how agressive they grow. I'm growing the same plants I just grew with dwc, but in soil this time. I noticed a pretty significant difference in how they veg. Even though they didn't veg the same as with dwc, I still thought they needed to be trimmed.
Well put
 

Aqua Man

Well-Known Member
Simply put trim as needed. This will vary depending on indoor, outdoor, strain, grow style, lighting etc

There is no one answer. Airflow, light to budsites, leaves that are stacking, unhealthy leaves are all important to consider and the grow will dictate how much of what you need to do
 
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