A radical thought on defoliating sugar leaves

[PaulZ]

A little insight;
I have become a huge fan of defoliating finger leaves during flowering stage to provide more light to the flowers. I am not interested in huge harvests so I also defoliate many of my buds leaving the plant’s energy to concentrate on a few select buds. (I only grow for myself and I enjoy variety so I don’t need a ton from each plant.) I think it is common knowledge that each plant has only so much energy to produce buds, so fewer buds mean bigger buds and who don’t like big buds?
Now on to the sugar leaves…
We all know sugar leaves grow trichomes, which end up on the cutting room floor after trimming, but I was recently growing some Tardis (Natural Wonders / Oregon USA) when I noticed a TON of trichomes growing on the sugar leaves. I was thinking it a shame to waste all that energy making garbage when I got the idea that the plant’s energy building trichomes would be better spent on the buds…. so I started progressively defoliating sugar leaves for a few weeks before harvest. I ended up with a forest of huge trichomes on my buds and have been doing it to every plant ever since with excellent results!
This is of course only a theory, but I have been getting much better trichome results and intend to continue. I do expect lots of naysayers (as with any defoliation topic) and welcome any thoughts, but please keep it constructive & civil 😉.
Not only does it give me something to do over the last few (so tired of waiting) weeks before harvest, it makes trimming after harvest a lot quicker! Cured and in use now I have Seedsman Blueberry & White Widow, Natural Wonders Forbidden Fruit & Tardis, and two of my own I call Tutti-Frutti & Purple Haze. In the grow rooms I have another Seedsman White Widow & Peyote Gorilla, A Natural Wonders Sonic Screwdriver plus another Tutti-Frutti.

[OldManGrower]

I like your wide variety. I enjoy it as well and currently have three strains going. I don't really have an opinion on defoliating sugar leaves but your do have an interesting take on the matter. My general rule has been to only remove leaves that are covering up bud sites or interfering with light penetration and leave as many leaf's on the plant as possible. I have a grow that is 3-4 weeks from harvest. I may try your idea on one of the plants. Do you think trying it out on just a few colas will show improvement or must you do the whole plant at once.

[PaulZ]

That would be a very good test for sure. I do have a 1000x microscope that would tell the difference but have not done the comparison side by side, and only by different plants. I do recommend you try it and would enjoy hearing the results!

[Tersky]

I only take off fan leaves that block bud sites like OldManGrower as the leaves are what convert light into food so removing too much is actually bad. The main reason i try not to defoliate the last few weeks is every time you cut the plant it has to spend energy repairing the injury. This is not a huge deal in veg or early flower, but in the last few weeks when buds are supposed to be fattening up by doing too much cutting you could be seriously effecting bud growth because instead of spending energy fattening it is spending energy healing. That said if plant is healthy enough and you do it conservatively it may not effect it too much. I dont do it but if it works for you thats good.

[PaulZ]

I don't believe a plant would spend too much energy trying to repair a fan leaf removed properly as only a stump end is exposed with nothing to repair, but then I am not removing fan leaves in the last few weeks anyway. Sugar leaves can block the light too! A technique I use to minimize the affect on the rest of the plant FOR FINGER LEAVES is I try to leave the stem itself in place (at least an inch or two from it's trunk) and pinch it off instead of a clean cut which will help seal the wound with less leakage. Of course that's not possible with sugar leaves, but I do try to pinch them off instead of cutting.
I have also read the opinion that damaging a bud site will actually force the attention to the bud itself giving the bud even better growth. I dun-no but I have fun trying new ideas. Thanks for your input!

[CircusDogCannabis]

OK I’m gonna sound weird, but I “ask” the plant if they want their leaves removed. Some do and the just pop off in my hands, others hold onto those suckers until the bitter end and in those cases, I pull the crunchy fans off and leave the stem. It falls off eventually anyway. The girls get to pick. I’m a slave to their whimsy’s! 😂

[Ckbrew]

That is weird. I talk to mine and ask questions of them all the time, but they never answer. I have to wait until they ask me for something, then I do it for them.

[VN1970]

Interesting idea but I like to make bubble hash and edibles from the sugar leaves trim. If you throw em away you are losing out on some fine smoke and eats.

[SoOrbudgal]

Me too i save the suger leaf and small buds for butter.

[DeadlyFruit]

That is just the comment I was going to make. I keep and even cure my trim/sugar leaves (anything with decent trichomes). Given I don’t prefer smoke I am more likely to use my trim for all of my edible making while the bud sits in jars waiting for me to first use up the trim (takes a while to use up all of the trim so the bud continues to pile up! 🙂)

[grouchyoldman]

Interesting idea PaulZ, and there's plenty of experimentation and innovation to be done yet in canna-cultivation.

I wonder though if cutting off near-harvest sugar leaves that are already loaded with trichomes in the hope of replacing them with more growth on the flowering buds is only a breakeven proposition?

Perhaps you are removing sugar leaves before they develop trichomes, but at that early stage those leaves are still important for the full development of the flowering buds.

As SoOrbudgal mentioned, sugar leaves aren't considered "waste" here either. I collected 13 grams of potent bubble hash from my last harvest, sort of a bonus prize.

Regards,

-Grouchy