ganicsarebetter
Well-Known Member
done. final answer. leave the leave
Pruning - When do you take all the leaves off?
- Thread starter John Stevens
- Start date
OP, dont touch the leaves until 3 weeks into bloom. Then you can safely remove all the fan leaves to maximize yield. Cannibas doesnt use the fan leaves hardly at all once you reach that point and the light they block from lower sights they become very counter productive. I have done lots of SOGs and with high numbers there is no other way you can do it. You have to remove most of the fan leaves . Done it both ways and removing them makes a huge increase in yield. With Chronic White Widow I have done SOGs that averaged 30 grams per plant dried and cut at 4 per SQ foot without the use of CO2. That is over 1.6 grams per watt. Numbers speak for themselves but I'll post a pic of one of my early grows with this strain done at 4 per foot.
Havent read all of this yet but you are incorrect. We arent growing fruit we are growing a weed that produces large dense buds. The leaves are needed during vegatative and early flower . After that it gets all it needs from the small bud leaves. Here is a pic of one of mine that I removed every single fan leaf on day 21 of bloom. I always do this and I always get great results. Notice how the bud is as thick and dense on the bottom as the rest of the plant. I have this same exact strain outside with ZERO pruning and its 7 feet tall. The buds on it are SMALLER then the one pictured below ! Proof is in the putting. Every one that has posted "oh dont cut the solar panels off, nature designed them for a reason blah blah blah" havent posted any results at all but are rather assuming you cant improve upon natures design. FAIL. Sorry but plain and simple FAIL. These threads get under my skin. All these people come in here talking all holier then though when they are for a fact wrong. They act like you are committing a sin by removing them. I first heard about guys doing this and getting better results I admit I didnt know. Guess how I found out? I actually TRIED it and compared the results. Not even close. Look at a huge plant outdoors. Where are all the large colas? On the bottom ? NOPE. On the bottom where its all shaded you get tiny crappy popcorn buds. I have several large outdoors trees just like that right now. Funny , there are lots of leaves down there but almost ZERO bud. It is very shady down there, it couldnt possibly be from those bud sites not getting light could it ?? HMMMMMMmmmmmm............. What do guys lollipop and remove a third of th bottom of the plant ? Why do guys Scrog ? Bottom line is every time I hear guys spouting BS about not removing leaves its always the guys with no prrof, picture or better then average results . The guys that post in these threads who do remove them are the ones with better the average results. With my style of growing the difference is 10-15 grams per plant or 30. But hey I am not a botanist growing orange trees so dont listen to me. LOL
Havent read all of this yet but you are incorrect. We arent growing fruit we are growing a weed that produces large dense buds. The leaves are needed during vegatative and early flower . After that it gets all it needs from the small bud leaves. Here is a pic of one of mine that I removed every single fan leaf on day 21 of bloom. I always do this and I always get great results. Notice how the bud is as thick and dense on the bottom as the rest of the plant. I have this same exact strain outside with ZERO pruning and its 7 feet tall. The buds on it are SMALLER then the one pictured below ! Proof is in the putting. Every one that has posted "oh dont cut the solar panels off, nature designed them for a reason blah blah blah" havent posted any results at all but are rather assuming you cant improve upon natures design. FAIL. Sorry but plain and simple FAIL. These threads get under my skin. All these people come in here talking all holier then though when they are for a fact wrong. They act like you are committing a sin by removing them. I first heard about guys doing this and getting better results I admit I didnt know. Guess how I found out? I actually TRIED it and compared the results. Not even close. Look at a huge plant outdoors. Where are all the large colas? On the bottom ? NOPE. On the bottom where its all shaded you get tiny crappy popcorn buds. I have several large outdoors trees just like that right now. Funny , there are lots of leaves down there but almost ZERO bud. It is very shady down there, it couldnt possibly be from those bud sites not getting light could it ?? HMMMMMMmmmmmm............. What do guys lollipop and remove a third of th bottom of the plant ? Why do guys Scrog ? Bottom line is every time I hear guys spouting BS about not removing leaves its always the guys with no prrof, picture or better then average results . The guys that post in these threads who do remove them are the ones with better the average results. With my style of growing the difference is 10-15 grams per plant or 30. But hey I am not a botanist growing orange trees so dont listen to me. LOL
There is the reason why only a small percentage of people get way above average yields. Most people just follow the popular choice rather then finding out for themselves like myself and others have done. These guys can talk all day long about grade school science and growing apples and oranges but in the end they arent growing huge indoor yields like some of us do. Thinking plants cant be manilpuated to grow better then they do in nature is plain ignorant.
Total Head
Well-Known Member
here we go again. the only fails here are that you clearly don't understand the argument and have merely slapped up a pic with no control plant to compare it to. whoopie. "proof" he says. lmao. had you actually READ the discussion (or your own post for that matter) you would see why your argument is silly. you are advocating removing leaves in sog setups and lollipopping, which are techniques specifically for maximizing the TOP of the plant only. the argument here is whether removing fan leaves gets better light to the BOTTOM of the plant, so which is your argument, focus on the tops or focus on the bottoms? lollipopping removes those budsites altogether and sog neglects them due to plant size. neither of them has to do with taking a whole plant full term with better bottom buds. it's actually the opposite because the idea is to get rid of those budsites altogether and focus on fat top colas ONLY. so you claim that you can take all that which would have developed on the bottom and somehow stuff it all into a few top colas and this will equal more yeild. which brings me to my next point (which has been beaten to death but you clearly haven't read any of it). there are several ways to maximize the yeilds of the lower budsites WITHOUT robbing the plant of its ability to photosynthesize and transport mobile elements. i can't believe this thread still lives.OP, dont touch the leaves until 3 weeks into bloom. Then you can safely remove all the fan leaves to maximize yield. Cannibas doesnt use the fan leaves hardly at all once you reach that point and the light they block from lower sights they become very counter productive. I have done lots of SOGs and with high numbers there is no other way you can do it. You have to remove most of the fan leaves . Done it both ways and removing them makes a huge increase in yield. With Chronic White Widow I have done SOGs that averaged 30 grams per plant dried and cut at 4 per SQ foot without the use of CO2. That is over 1.6 grams per watt. Numbers speak for themselves but I'll post a pic of one of my early grows with this strain done at 4 per foot.
Havent read all of this yet but you are incorrect. We arent growing fruit we are growing a weed that produces large dense buds. The leaves are needed during vegatative and early flower . After that it gets all it needs from the small bud leaves. Here is a pic of one of mine that I removed every single fan leaf on day 21 of bloom. I always do this and I always get great results. Notice how the bud is as thick and dense on the bottom as the rest of the plant. I have this same exact strain outside with ZERO pruning and its 7 feet tall. The buds on it are SMALLER then the one pictured below ! Proof is in the putting. Every one that has posted "oh dont cut the solar panels off, nature designed them for a reason blah blah blah" havent posted any results at all but are rather assuming you cant improve upon natures design. FAIL. Sorry but plain and simple FAIL. These threads get under my skin. All these people come in here talking all holier then though when they are for a fact wrong. They act like you are committing a sin by removing them. I first heard about guys doing this and getting better results I admit I didnt know. Guess how I found out? I actually TRIED it and compared the results. Not even close. Look at a huge plant outdoors. Where are all the large colas? On the bottom ? NOPE. On the bottom where its all shaded you get tiny crappy popcorn buds. I have several large outdoors trees just like that right now. Funny , there are lots of leaves down there but almost ZERO bud. It is very shady down there, it couldnt possibly be from those bud sites not getting light could it ?? HMMMMMMmmmmmm............. What do guys lollipop and remove a third of th bottom of the plant ? Why do guys Scrog ? Bottom line is every time I hear guys spouting BS about not removing leaves its always the guys with no prrof, picture or better then average results . The guys that post in these threads who do remove them are the ones with better the average results. With my style of growing the difference is 10-15 grams per plant or 30. But hey I am not a botanist growing orange trees so dont listen to me. LOL
The Ruiner
Well-Known Member
When studying plant and soil sciences classes in college we thinned fruiting sites on trees to promote healthier, stronger, and more uniform growth of fruits, that's why cleaning up the fruiting sites at the bottom of the plants is a great idea...in reality its just consolidating the energy resources of the plant. When I am thinning my girls at weeks 1-3 of flower, I remove only the growth tips - I leave as many actual fan leaves as possible so to keep as much photosynthesis as possible happening. This can be a pain in the butt, though I think the combination of less flowering sites versus more leaves gives me great results. Also, plants grow larger buds at the top of the plants because this is where all the growth hormones go... Thus, why commercial farmes use PGR's (plant growth regulators) and focus on the canopy versus the lower branches...the compounding effects of:
1. More direct sun for ripening of fruits
2. Less competition at the fruiting sites for resources
3. Energy sent and used where it is best utilized (the tops)
4. Manipulating the plant into redistributing the growth hormones generates a more uniform crop of fruits
promotes a better all around crop. When pruning I usually go at it twice a week for the first three weeks, in order to...
1. Let the veg growth finish
2. Decrease the chances of stressing by frequently removing small amounts at one time allowing the plant sufficient recovery time
3. decide which fruiting sites I want to keep based on the shape of the plant
1. More direct sun for ripening of fruits
2. Less competition at the fruiting sites for resources
3. Energy sent and used where it is best utilized (the tops)
4. Manipulating the plant into redistributing the growth hormones generates a more uniform crop of fruits
promotes a better all around crop. When pruning I usually go at it twice a week for the first three weeks, in order to...
1. Let the veg growth finish
2. Decrease the chances of stressing by frequently removing small amounts at one time allowing the plant sufficient recovery time
3. decide which fruiting sites I want to keep based on the shape of the plant
We just went over this again and again on another site..I lost and left the talk...But you guys that think you can get a better plant and yield by pulling the very thing that feeds the plant...YOU JUST DONT UNDERSTAND HOW PLANTS GROW..my friend does this all the time no matter how much i have told him to stop ...HE WILL NOT STOP DOING IT!..He grows good plants and lots of bud...but in 10 years he has never taken it to where i am....TOPSHELF...We grow the same plants the same way and people that SMOKE it say mine is always TOPSHELF and his is friend pass around weed...SAME PLANT!...This leaf pull is only done by people that grow pot...NO FARMER IN THE WORLD PULLS HIS LEAF OFF HIS PLANTS AND THEY ONLY PRUNE WHEN PLANTS AND TREES ARE DORMENT NOT WHEN THEY ARE GROWING..Ever wonder why?..Now i have heard of taking off small fruit and flowers that have not set fruit to help the other fruit ripen...But if you take leaf off you just dont understand how plants grow,and till you really understand that you will never get better!
Hey i havent been into the hobby for long, currently on my 3rd grow. I heard about people chopping leaves, but i use mine as the plants "facial expressions", i.e. telling me they are happy, sad, thirsty..etc. Without leaves i wouldnt be able to tell how healthy, happy or sad the plant is. Lol super stoney..anyone think this too?
The Ruiner
Well-Known Member
I think I agree with you.
Oldgrowth
Well-Known Member
I remove all my leaves about a week after harvest when the stems will snap and not bend just before i start curing my buds. I look at it this way if i take all those leaves off then a great majority of the light hits grow room floor and is wasted. my plants are so full no light hits the floor.
Well then you clearly didnt read or comprehend my post then did you? I was refrring to lollipo and SCOG because they are both different methos of manipulating the plant to yield MORE which clearly is comparable to what we are discussing. I do SOG trays all day long and I get consistant results using this method. When you start getting over 1.5 grams per watt (hell even 1 gram per watt) without CO2 then feel free to scutinize my very successful method of MAXIMIZING YIELD. Like I said very clearly in my post I went from 10-15 grams per plant @ 4 per SQ foot to 30. That equates to 1900 grams on a 4X4 tray with no CO2. Last round I did averaged 25 per plant. Yep cutting those leaves sure as hell hurt my yields BIG TIME didnt it ???? Those numbers speak for themselves while you are just flapping your lips as have many others in this thread. Havegrown scrog and lollipoping and this method I employ gets me a much higher yield. Solid thick buds 20 inches tall all the way to the pot 64 per 4X4 tray. Any other method you use to mazimize your lights efficiency will also require removal of leaves in order to get the highest possible yield for that given space, period.
AbsoluteChron
Member
I kind of skipped through for the most part, but did anyone mention the fact that this is a cfl grow and that light penetration is paramount. This is nothing like outdoor growth where light penetrates the leaves relatively well. With a CFL you are not only getting practically zero light penetration through leaves, you also have to keep plants in a very narrow range of distance from the lights before you have such a dramatic drop in PAR value that the buds outside of this range are popcorn. I would say that optimal growth (given that the light intensity from the CFL is the limiting factor in this situation) occurs when the maximum amount of photosynthetic surface is exposed to the highest intensity light available without burning the leaves, but before the PAR value drops off too much and the light is no longer useful. Using CFLs without a SCROG is generally too much work for the quality and production IMO.
Well thats entirely too logical for this thread =) Their "logic" dictates that you are killing all the bud producing leaves no matter what the scenario is.
If you are a casual grower and want decent yields putting 10-12 plants on a 4X4 tray without touching them is fine. If you want MAXIMUM yield you need to change that scenario. Scrog, LST, super cropping or SOG in that same space with lots of trimming of the precious little leaves will net much larger yields . Its the difference between getting 1 lb per light or getting 3+ lbs per light. Dont think so then simply try it yourself. Grow 12 plants, then try 64 plants with no trimming of leaves and finally try 64 plants and trimming all the fan leaves at day 21 of bloom. Your results will be all the proof you need to never look back. Plants have to be switched at just the right size, which for me is about 6-8 inches tall ending at 18-20 tall. You need to do some minor pruning from the very get go (clone stage) so they will form better single colas like the picture I posted previously. Lastly you want a strain that tens to grow large center colas. Other strains will work btu yield less and are more time consuming. Hell I used to grow in 7 gallon soil containers years ago. Migrated to 3 gallon, 2 gal, 1 gal then back to 2 gal and finally to my present 5 inch pots (maybe half gal) ebb and flow in hydroton.
Uncle Ben
Well-Known Member
(Botanically speaking) how so? Once you remove plant units that produces the simple and complex carbos that drive bud production, what plant material is left to do the job? I just got through harvesting an outdoor plant that got FULL sun, top to bottom, inside and out, sunrise to sunset, lost alot of its fan leaves due to my neglect (lack of water) while it was flowering and it was the worst yield I've ever had. Previous outdoor plant which retained its fan leaves yielded enough to fill up a wheebarrow (see photo), this plant sucked. Having said that, what I did harvest looks excellent with moist green leaves, bubble gum smell and very resinous.
Whether the plant material is a pecan tree, apple, tomato or pepper plant, hibiscus or olive tree.....you lose leaves and you lose flower/fruit production.
UB
You answered your own question. Lost its leaves due to your neglect hence seriously stunting your production. I already gave proof that removing the leaves works. That that huge single cola with no fan leaves doesnt show this I dont know what will. There are still lots and lots of leaves on a bud. Fan leaves are leftover from vegetative state.
Total Head
Well-Known Member
lmao. so now you've revolutionized agriculture AND developed esp. it's amazing how you know how much i yeild and what kind of grow conditions i have. and once again, you are advocating techniques that are for canopy control. no one is arguing that canopy control is not the answer to better yeilds. the argument is over WHICH methods are productive and which ones are counterproductive. in this thread we are focusing on the "productivity" of removing fan leaves. but since you seem hellbent on making this a pissing match here are some pics of my current canopy in veg about a week ago. does it look like i have problems getting adaquate light to any budsites? every cola that grows from that canopy will be similar in size to all the others. anything that is left underneath (which won't be much trust me) that doesn't get light will die all by itself. nothing gets cut ever. i submit that your alleged increased yeilds are simply due to better canopy control by effectively employing the sog method (which is interesting since the "proof" pic you posted does not appear to be part of a sog setup at all). the sog method is for growing several plants which obviously if done correctly could yeild more than a single plant left to it's own. this thread is about whether cutting the leaves off an individual plant impacts yeild in a positive or negative way.
Attachments
Brick Top
New Member
Anyone who has studied even just basic botany can tell you that if you remove leaves from healthy adult plants crop production will be reduced. That is a fact that no amount of ‘I think this,’ or ‘I was told that’ or ‘when I do this’ will ever be able to prove to be false. There are facts and there are beliefs and Uncle Ben is sharing facts while others are sharing beliefs.
Uncle Ben is correct.
I dont have to do any side by side test...this didnt work 40 years ago when i first heard of it and it does not work now...Call any College Extension agent...any real Plant Nursery(not home depo)..any farmer..any greenhouse grower...and grow store(if it isnt run by some stupid mim wage worker)..go check out ANY PLANT book...And when you call ask..."Have you ever heard of people taking leaves off plant to improve yield of fruit?"...The first thing out of most peoples mouth...It cant work that way because of PHOTOSYNTHESIS...its really that easy...But you guys dont even undertstand that..So you REALLY dont EVEN understand how plants grow...Thats how for from undertstanding you are....You guys are trying to tell people that REALLY know how plants grow that they are wrong and you are right...It would be like some kid in 1st grade trying to tell a pro football player how to play football...THATS HOW FAR FROM UNDERSTANDING YOU ARE..CAN I BE MORE CLEAR?..BUT YOU DONT LESSON!!!!..AND NEVER WILL!..so do what ever you want...You guys think this is new,you dicovered some great new way to get more killer bud?...Some guy told me this 40 years ago!..ARE YOU EVEN 40?
jeffbelize
New Member
you dont understand how a plant grows!
NovusSpiritus
Member
*SIGH* 
Botany 101
Plants need energy to grow, to replace worn out cells, to get rid of waste, and to reproduce. All organisms get energy from food. Photosynthesis is the process by which plants make food. Only plants can make food.
In this process carbon dioxide and water combine in the presence of light to form sugar, a food. Stomates are found in layers of protective cells on the surface of the leaf. Gases move in and out of the stomates. These openings connect to large air spaces in the middle layer of the leaf. Carbon dioxide in the middle layer of the leaf is then available to the chloroplasts. Chloroplasts are the food-making cells of the leaf. Xylem in the veins carry water to these food-making cells. The water comes from the roots and the root hairs which are in the ground.
Think of a chloroplast as a food factory. Carbon dioxide and water are the raw materials that go into the factory. Sunlight is the energy that changes the raw materials into the product; food in the form of sugar.
Photosynthesis is a complex process. A series of chemical reactions change the raw materials to the food product. The process can be shown simply by looking at the starting materials and the end products.
WATER + CARBON DIOXIDE + ENERGY → SUGAR + OXYGEN
Botany 101
Plants need energy to grow, to replace worn out cells, to get rid of waste, and to reproduce. All organisms get energy from food. Photosynthesis is the process by which plants make food. Only plants can make food.
In this process carbon dioxide and water combine in the presence of light to form sugar, a food. Stomates are found in layers of protective cells on the surface of the leaf. Gases move in and out of the stomates. These openings connect to large air spaces in the middle layer of the leaf. Carbon dioxide in the middle layer of the leaf is then available to the chloroplasts. Chloroplasts are the food-making cells of the leaf. Xylem in the veins carry water to these food-making cells. The water comes from the roots and the root hairs which are in the ground.
Think of a chloroplast as a food factory. Carbon dioxide and water are the raw materials that go into the factory. Sunlight is the energy that changes the raw materials into the product; food in the form of sugar.
Photosynthesis is a complex process. A series of chemical reactions change the raw materials to the food product. The process can be shown simply by looking at the starting materials and the end products.
WATER + CARBON DIOXIDE + ENERGY → SUGAR + OXYGEN
Although all cells in the green parts of a plant have chloroplasts, most of the energy is captured in the LEAVES. The cells in the interior tissues of a leaf are called the mesophyll. The mesophyll contain between 450,000 and 800,000 chloroplasts per square millimeter of leaf. The surface of the leaf is uniformly coated with a water-resistant waxy cuticle that protects the leaf from excessive evaporation of water and decreases the absorption of ultraviolet or blue light to reduce heating. The transparent epidermis layer allows light to pass through to the palisade mesophyll cells where most of the photosynthesis takes place.
I reeeeeeeally hope this helps the confused people out there...
I reeeeeeeally hope this helps the confused people out there...