To Defoliate Or Not To Defoliate

[9fingerleafs]

its just that those are not "shades" those are glucose producing leaves, so the premise is that taking off those leaves is going to affect the development more than leaving them do their thing. phytochromes like you said are not well understood but we know the balance between red and far red is what signals flowering, they do play a role in "energy" production in the synthesis of chlorophyll, size movement shape and number of leaves, elongation and flowering times. that does not mean they produce any energy by their own, they will signal more leaves to grow. phytochromes do not regulate flowering or fruiting size shape or weight, thats all up to the light and leaves

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytochrome

[Campesino]

Phytochromes are not well understood. This is an area of interesting plant research to be sure.
Would you be willing to put little shade hats on your flowers? Would you expect that to not affect their development?

[DrPhoton]

This would imply that there are photorecepter proteins that change the morphology of growth. Unfurtunately that is not even a concept worth considering as it has never been suggested that flowers have any photorecepter proteins. I have never seen any reading material with the suggestion that flowers play a role in photomorphogenesis. Although some flowers such as the common sunflower, follow the sun through phototropism. Thats why the first segment of the article was about "light & air" regarding photosynthesis, because the concept of morphological response was never a valid concept to start with.

But i think i will look into and perhaps add this to the original post, i was not happy when i finished the article as i felt what i wanted to provide was not exactly how i invision iy in my head. So i will likely be working on it more.

[Campesino]

So exposing more light to flower sites does not appear to offer any advantage to the flower development.

Hey DrPhoton I am not sure that the evidence that you provide justifies this conclusion. The fact that flowers do not photosynthesize enough to support the plant does not mean that they are not photosensitive. Plants invest more energy in flowers that are exposed to light. They cannot support themselves without leaves, but exposing flowers to light stimulates the growth of those flowers.

[abadtrip]

Awsome read I have an auto I didn't defol and I am going to leave it now.

thanks for putting the time in to provide us with this information

[9fingerleafs]

excellent article my friend... im glad someone is clearing the air about this whole hardcore defoliation trend going on

[Camk]

Great read thank you helps me a lot on this subject!!

[desertdan]

Great research and well written. I am an outdoor grower and from experience I will only prune for shape early in the season on some strains. I think the reason there are no good controlled experiments is because of the problems with cannabis not legal most places. I do very little experimenting because I need to keep number of plants at a minimum and try to grow sufficient smoke for a whole year. Keep up the great work. I enjoy reading well thought analysis.

[DrPhoton]

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