I just posted this on my current grow page, but I was wondering in general what other folks' experiences are, how they defol, etc.

FUNDAMENTAL RULE FOR SERIOUS DEFOLIATION: PLANT MUST BE STRONG-GROWING ALL THE WAY. PERIOD.

I just emerged from the grow room, spent around 2 hours changing reservoir (30 min) and defoliating (1.5 hr). The girls are rounding out week 6 of 12/12, and I've been slowly and steadily defoliating throughout flower. Today I did a slightly more rigorous defoliation, as I see the stigma beginning to turn color and I see vigorous bud growth.

Yesterday (first pic) and today; I took off a lot of leaves:


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Cookies Kush, the tallest, will get compeletely filled in over the next 2 weeks, from how she's growing.

These are my defoliation rules:
  1. Anything with a petiole is fair game (which Nebula says somewhere on GWE);
  2. Fan leaves, including those with very short petioles, stay on for a max of 2 weeks, then I cut em;
  3. Any leaf blocking bud sites goes;
  4. I go slower with defoliation weeks 4-6 and I'm more thorough from wk 6.5 forward.
This saves me a tremendous amount of trimming when I cut the girls down. I really, really like this fact.

My experiences: After day 21 defoliation, some petioles grow out fast and others grow out slowly, over the following 3 or so weeks. I cut them as they grow out. Also, if you look closely at almost all of the pics all over the GWE site of colas in the final weeks of growing, you'll notice that many of them (though not all) have been pretty stripped of leaves. I'm just tryna do what the master growers do.

Thus, for me it is true that defoliation continues throughout flower. A defoliator's work is never done. Which is not the same as, There's no rest for the wicked. Unless we're talking about PaganRich But not in my case.