Defoliation

[Guest]

How about those Yankees!

[Obi-Wan]

Ok so here are my thoughts. First to answer your question, no I haven’t seen any completed and well documented side by side comparison grows that detail defoliation as positive or negative. I believe that you don’t see them because the evidence supports both sides equally. What I mean by that is I think that you could potentially get higher yields by choosing not to defoliate but the quality of the bud will suffer. I also believe that while defoliation can potentially lower yields, the quality of those yields makes up for any loss in weight. I define quality by bud density, trichome production, and size.

During Veg, if you're looking to grow plants fast then I would say defoliation would be detrimental but if you’re looking to methodically train and shape your plant, tactical defoliation can help slow down the growth allowing for more structured and even growth across all branches.

In Flower I don’t think that the benefits of defoliation are based on the bud site’s exposure to light so much as their exposure to wind and space. Being a wind pollinated plant, the buds grow larger and healthier when they are exposed to gentle breezes throughout flowering. Excess leaves only serve to block those breezes thus stunting the development of the buds leaving them smaller and less dense. As with all things in life, finding the right balance is the key to being successful, taking away too many leaves can be detrimental. Defoliation during the early stages of flower can open up space for lower branches to stretch to the top of the canopy while they would have been stifled under heavy foliage. Defoliation late in flower can help to lower humidity to levels that increase trichome production.

These are my experiences with defoliation and I would encourage every grower to have their own experiences. I lollipop and defoliate every one of my plants to achieve the quality of bud that I desire most. I’d rather not spend hours trimming little airy buds that don’t pack quite the same punch as their counterparts higher up on the branch, even if it means losing out on an ounce or so in weight. To me better yields means better quality not increased quantity.

[D.A.A.S.69]

Obi-Wan great explanation, there's a time for it and a time not for it.
The last 2-3 weeks , I take all the inside leaves off, my buds,

[Weed Pharma]

The short answer is NO.
in practice, I do not defoliate to get more yield, directly.

I may defoliate for garden risk management, leaves off soil, damaged leaves, thinning to prevent/ treat WPM and bug prevention, etc.
My results have led me to never defoliate Sativa's and only defoliate a healthy growing plant, of any strain.

I routinely top all strains.
I usually lollipop, but have been doing much less, as newer CoBs and ChilledLogic pucks have better penetration with their light in the spectrum and I’ve been using staged harvesting to increase yields.

[az2000]

Has anyone ever found a side by side comparison grow done with a control and documented from beginning to end??

I saw one on THCfarmer, in the grow-journals subforum. I'm sure you can find it if you use their advanced search to search that sub-forum.

I didn't read it. (It looked like a lot of ongoing conversation. I didn't want to spend the time trying to find the results.). Honestly, even if it was demonstrably better... I don't think I could bring myself to pluck perfectly good leaves from my plant. It goes against everything I know about growing.

But... I feel the same way about HST mangling of plants. I often have LST accidents (a broken limb). I know for a fact that those limbs will produce the most output. I tend to have a mixed "oops, oh no!" reaction to an LST gone wrong -- simultaneous with glee. I know it works. But, I can't bring myself to do it intentionally. I'd feel the same way about defoliation if it were proven to work better. I almost don't want to know.

[D.A.A.S.69]

az2000 I agree with you 100percent, on the branch breaking.
Back when we used to sell it, long ago, we would always wound the best colas, those were the ones we would keep for our stash, they always had the most resin production, we didn't break them, but we wounded the hell out of them.
A little stress ain't gonna hurt nothin.
HappyGrowing

[kingfish]

My girls just finished the first week of flowering. I just gave them a good defoling.

[SiriusFourside]

Guest You're saying that defoliation doesn't work on a forum where many people (including myself) believe otherwise. You should expect to hear dissenting opinions and have valid evidence to back up what you're saying. If you can't engage in a debate without insulting people, it's best to avoid such a hot-button issue.

This is your house bro...I'm just visiting.

[SiriusFourside]

There's nothing wrong with disagreeing with the site; we've been wrong many times before. The problem is how you talked to Kingfish in these comments and I think you know that. If you're still looking for evidence, I'll leave some in this thread. No hard feelings! 👍

[Rwise]

I have another name for fan leaf, feeder leaf,,, Inside I defoliate, outside only for air/bug/other problems. I too think they need these leaf and do better with them than without.

This is something

[GreenState]

Actually there is a side by side(defoliate and not) grow comparison here on the forum, but damned if I can find it again. The poster took pics etc. through the grow.
Did a search but can't seem to find it. Was probably 2017/2018. I have always defoliated as I felt needed, no set time schedule. Basically taking all "in" pointing fan leaves off--a few at a time throughout the grow.

[Tersky]

Defoliation is not just used in cannabis.
"Incidentally, cannabis is not the only crop this technique works on. It is also used successfully in other kinds of agriculture. In fact, cowpeas can experience increased yields up to 50% when defoliation is performed correctly."
Link : https://www.royalqueenseeds.com/blog...ase-yield-n562

I think outdoors it's not as necessary but indoors when you are trying to control humidity in a tent or just control the shape/size of the plant it helps IMO.

[SiriusFourside]

Okay, here's what I got:

• This page has a side-by-side comparison of two plants where I defoliated one and not the other: https://www.growweedeasy.com/defoliation
• This page has many pictures of Nebula defoliating and the aftermath: https://www.growweedeasy.com/nebulas...ation-tutorial
• Royal Queen seeds calls defoliation "controversial", but says it works: https://www.royalqueenseeds.com/blog...ase-yield-n562
• Page 350 of "Marijuana Grower's Handbook" by Ed Rosenthal describes the same process and says it works (but calls it "lollipop pruning")
• As Tersky mentioned, snow peas also see increased yields from proper defoliation: https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...78429083900345

[YYCannabis]

What are your thoughts on defoliating autos? Most articles I’ve seen about defoliation pertain to photos and not autos.

[SiriusFourside]

I grow photos exclusively, but Nebula grows lots of autos and she defoliates them, but only if they're "leafy" and usually between weeks 3-6. She defoliates if a fan leaf is blocking a bud site, or if leaves are touching each other and making water droplets.

[kingfish]

Thanks Sirius.