Question about pruning on the top cola

Hey guys, I have read by many people to resist the temptation of trimming off fan leafs. My top cola's are looking very good but the fan leafs are certainly blocking light from lower portions of the cola. So my question is do I leave it alone or prune some of the fan leafs to allow light onto the lower sections. If I do leave it alone will the cola produce a good density? My buddy has been telling me to prune it back to allow the light in. He has a grow room as well and he just finished his harvest. He had topped the plant creating two cola's and kept the fan leafs off the cola (still had fan leafs well below the cola). He had a pretty good density but what he did goes against pretty much everything I have read so far. Can anyone clarify this for me.

Admortis

Trimming fan leaves is another huge issue of debate which has no clear definitive conclusion.
Many supporters will say to trim only when you have applicable issues. Often used more for ventilation/circulation concerns as opposed to getting more light on the lower buds
BTW: maybe post a pic so we can see your gal
Dr. Jekyll

Trimming leaves is a great way to stress your plant with limited value or results, but what the hell, trim away
Mr. Hyde

Hi DR Jekyll, thank you for taking the time to share your experience. Here are some side angle views. As you can see they are producing some nice buds. This is my first grow so it is very much a learning experience for me that I would like to get right. What I wonder is if I do not remove some of the fan leafs from the top allowing for greater light penetration , will the lower sections of the cola continue to develop?

Admortis:

nice looking gals, my advise is don't do nothing different, keep them going as they are, no issues/no concerns, so don't finger poke a well oiled machine, they are looking great!
Dr. Jekyll

the last thing you want to do is to defoliate those tall skinny bitches, only a fool would cut those fan leaves
Mr. Hyde

Yah.. don't trim your fan leaves in flower. They'll fall off when there ready

Good Luck on Your Grow.

i usually say, "if you can't tuck em, pluck em." but you don't have much to tuck or pluck, leave em alone....

Good morning guys, Thank you for the input and I will not prune the fan leafs from the cola. I think I will try a different approach trying to maximise yield. I have a 100 watt four bulb t5 fixture. It came with the veg lights but I ordered the 3000k bulbs yesterday and they should be here the first part of next week. I am going to hang that fixture vertically on the back wall. However, this still leaves me wondering, and this is strictly for personal knowledge. I hear everyone saying do not cut the fan leafs; tuck them to allow the light to shine on the shielded bud. I understand the fan leafs are the solar panels of the plant delivering and storing energy for the plant. But if you do not cut and can not tuck how will the buds continue to achieve a greater density if the light can not shine on the lower portions of the cola?

Admortis said:

Good morning guys, Thank you for the input and I will not prune the fan leafs from the cola. I think I will try a different approach trying to maximise yield. I have a 100 watt four bulb t5 fixture. It came with the veg lights but I ordered the 3000k bulbs yesterday and they should be here the first part of next week. I am going to hang that fixture vertically on the back wall. However, this still leaves me wondering, and this is strictly for personal knowledge. I hear everyone saying do not cut the fan leafs; tuck them to allow the light to shine on the shielded bud. I understand the fan leafs are the solar panels of the plant delivering and storing energy for the plant. But if you do not cut and can not tuck how will the buds continue to achieve a greater density if the light can not shine on the lower portions of the cola?

Click to expand...

Leaf tuck....?
How do you do this.....???

Admortis said:

Good morning guys, Thank you for the input and I will not prune the fan leafs from the cola. I think I will try a different approach trying to maximise yield. I have a 100 watt four bulb t5 fixture. It came with the veg lights but I ordered the 3000k bulbs yesterday and they should be here the first part of next week. I am going to hang that fixture vertically on the back wall. However, this still leaves me wondering, and this is strictly for personal knowledge. I hear everyone saying do not cut the fan leafs; tuck them to allow the light to shine on the shielded bud. I understand the fan leafs are the solar panels of the plant delivering and storing energy for the plant. But if you do not cut and can not tuck how will the buds continue to achieve a greater density if the light can not shine on the lower portions of the cola?

Click to expand...

Your buds don't need the light. If your buds did need light you should be able to cut every leaf off the plant. It doesn't work that way.
The buds are the fruit of the plant. There end product, a good portion of energy goes to growing them.
The plant pollinates by wind. The plant grows larger buds at the top of the plant, and at the end of each branch.
Larger buds. cola, and buds at the end of branches have a better chance to be pollinated. The plant puts more energy into growing those buds for this reason.
Buds close to the shoot and farther down the plant will be smaller, because they don't have a good chance of pollination, unlike the big buds on the outside of the plant.

Now that makes more sense to me, thank you for clarifying that for me. If I am understanding this correctly, more fan leafs would actually mean a greater density due to the leafs absorbing more energy.

topfuel29 said:

Yah.. don't trim your fan leaves in flower. They'll fall off when there ready

Good Luck on Your Grow.

Click to expand...

PERIOD. Well put thank you.

I use the analogy of ones ten fingers. With ten fingers you can tie your shoe laces well.

If you were to lose a finger of two for any reason, you would have to learn to tie your shoes with 8 fingers. It would work but not nearly as well as if you had 10 fingers.

Sun leaves are factories for your flowers.

Another analogy would be war. If you are at war and you have 10 factories making you armaments, removing a factory or two does not mean you lose the war necessarily, it just means that you get 10 or 20% LESS efficient output.

Listen to top fuel29 and do NOT remove sun leaves until they die and fall off naturally.

Happy Growing.

Thank you guys, what you are saying makes a lot of sense to me now. Reading a lot of these post you hear people saying to tuck fan leafs or selectively remove some which I think is what confused me. It almost seems to me that tucking a fan leaf would be counter productive as well. If the fan leaf is what absorbs the energy tucking it or removing it would be foolish. Thanks again for the input..tomorrow is my water change day and that is when I take and post my new pics for the week..

Hey Topfuel29, I hate to keep bothering you but you seem very knowledgeable and your advice has been spot on so far. I have been having some plant issues on two of my plants; yellow spotting on newer growth and deformed new growth. In earlier post it was suggested to me that my nutes where too strong for a small to medium plant and that my problems were likely lockout due to this. I had been running my nutes at 950ppm with my ph ranging from 5.5 to 5.8. As suggested, I lowered my nutes to 625 and maintained my ph as listed before. Now today as I started my weekly water change I started by turning off the HPS and using regular lights so I can see. I can now see the problems are not getting better and have now moved onto a third plant. It looks to me like it may be a cal/mag deficiency, but I am not sure if as stated my plants are locked out due to a high ppm. I am using FloraDuo 3 part with A, B, and CaliMagic. At this point I am not sure if I need to lower my nutes some more or increase the Cal/mag. Would you please take a look and let me know what you think? BTW, this is a DWC, and currently I am flushing the nutes thinking it may just be a buildup. Here are some pictures if you would not mind looking. Thank you for your help.


,

pH is good. your PPM are good.
How is the solution Temp? Grow Room Temp? Do the roots look decent? No spider Mites? Your cleaning your system with a H2O2 solution when you change nutrients?

Instead of removing fan leaves etc what I have done and have not seen any negatives is cut the fan leafs not all of them but a few make them half size imstead of removing them. Trim some fan leaves that way the leaf still holds nutritional value etc

The actual bud wont really benefit from light. The leaves are what give it the stored energy it obtained to grow big and healthy buds. Don't be fooled. Less leaves=less bud. Good luck

topfuel29 said:

pH is good. your PPM are good.
How is the solution Temp? Grow Room Temp? Do the roots look decent? No spider Mites? Your cleaning your system with a H2O2 solution when you change nutrients?

Click to expand...

Good Morning Topfuel29,
The solution temp is 73.1, and the room stays around 80 degrees with the light on and falls to the room temp at night (around 73-74). I had not heard of using H202 during cleaning, however, the roots look great, nice white color with no slim. Reading up on the H202 it suggests, "Three percent Hydrogen Peroxide may be added at up to 3 ml's per liter (2 1\2 tsp. per gallon), but it is recommended that you start at a lower concentration and increase to full strength over a few weeks." Do you leave the H202 in your solution or simply do a flush each week during reservoir cleaning and water change? The spider mite question looks to me like it may be a possibility, although it is really hard for me to see. I was thinking it would be a good idea to treat for the pest as the damage does fit the look and from what I can see with a magnifier it appears little specks are on the back side.

A Potassium deficiency can cause really lush leaves like you have.
Nitrogen Toxicity can also cause really lush leaves like yours, but IMO it thinks it's Potassium.
IMO- it also looks like you have a Magnesium deficiency. Calcium can also cause those dead spots on the leaf but they usually start around the leaf margin.
Radiant heat can also cause those dead spots you see on the leaf.

I have a couple bubble ponics systems.
every week I change nutrients to keep with my feeding schedule.
I take my plant out of it's container, look at the roots, and put it in a spare plastic tote I have.
take my bubble ponics system to the sink, and wash every thing, the container the hoses everything gets cleaned with a H2O2 solution.
rinse it off really good, and put the system back together with new nutrients.
I do that for every system I have.

Usually if you have a good or slime problem you can run a H2O2 solution through the system for a day or so to clean up those types of problems.

If you run into big problems, you can dump your nutrients, and just run water until the plant recovers from the stress. Like a day or so.

wish I could give you more help, All I can say is if your in Hydro, and you pH is Good, and your PPM are good, and your Temp is good. You should be good to go man.
Keeping in mind to add some Cal/Mag if your water is filtered.

Good Luck on Your Grow.