Should I defoliate my auto?

[Pankace]

She's looking good. Seeing some nice buds starting to form on her long branches. My original plan for this auto was not to touch her at all and let her do her thing and she has for this long. Now that I see her as forming flowers I'm starting to wonder if we should remove alot of the fan leaves that are taking up light for some of the branches that are out to the side. Is it okay to do this or should I stay the course and leave her alone?

[insomniaczzz]

I'm not the expert but I would say thin it out a bit. Green will tell you till she looks like a chicken bone, but most of us would be way to scared to do that.

[Pankace]

I'm terrified lol

[Green75]

Not so much the same way as photos...only take the ones covering bud sites. Do it over a process of a few days.

I had to consult my auto grow buddy for this....

He said it is a process which you start at an early age so they get used to it.

[Pankace]

Maybe we will leave her alone then. Azlyn made a point. We have more Purple Aurora, so if we wanted to do things differently we can next time. It is however a learning experience for us both.

[Little]

What's up my friend , me myself I would not cuz it could really hurt her,, from what I've read it is not good to cut anything of an autoflawer but like I said I wouldn't do it that's just me especially as beautiful as her ,, my last auto grow was lemon OG Haze i did good all I did was LST ,, but I'm no pro hope u find ur answer my friend and I would appreciate it if you let us know what u did

[Pankace]

That was the problem I had is that autos can't take the stress that photos can. The other girl in the tent will be defoliated for sure, just wasn't sure if I should with the auto. Might not do anything to her.

[Wannabebotanist23]

I would if I was you, but just the biggest fan leaves since it's an auto and it doesn't have time to regrow all new leaves like a a regular plant would, but taking off the biggest fan leaves probably won't hurt it

[Little]

With the lemon OG Haze auto i also did some tucking of the leaves that worked out good

[Flockshot]

With my autos I "tucked" leaves every day. I go through the plants and tuck fan leaves in such a manner as to expose as many flower sites as possible. If the fan leaves were real big, or difficult to get out of the way I would take as many arms off the leaf off as I had to. Sometimes I would take a whole leaf but always to get more light on a specific flower site. Never just to thin the plant.

[NebulaHaze]

Your plant looks amazing! I could see you taking off a few of the big fan leaves (hand size and bigger) but you could also leave it alone too since it's an auto-flowering strain. It's sort of on that line where it's bushy but not too bushy

My one piece of advice is to see if you could possibly bend over that tallest middle cola over so that the tip is lower than the other growth tips, and secure the tip there. Your plant can actually tell which growth tip is the highest on the plant. Bending over the main growth tip help breaks the apical dominance so all your colas stay at the top of the plant instead of only that middle one getting bigger. Then again, your plant looks so nice and already has a lot of growth from the side branches rising to the top I'm not sure I'd recommend changing anything

How much more height do you have in the grow space to move up your light? From looking at your plant I think it's going to keep growing for a while

[Pankace]

The height is at the max! I've been considering bending the main cola to get it away from the light. I definitely need a taller tent. 5 ft wasn't nearly enough for my girls. The distance from the light passes the "hand" test and I've been watching for signs of burn very closely. And yes LOTS of side branches soaking up plenty of light

[NebulaHaze]

If you're out of room definitely try to bend over and spread it out, because I believe it's going to get a LOT bigger 😟 Luckily it does seem like you have some space around the edges to help spread out wider. If you bend each stem down and away from the center, and secure it in place by tying it to your bucket, it can reduce the height a lot! If you do tie them down, make sure to attach to the bucket so you can move the plant around independently

You can get the plant to "hurry along" (finish flowering) faster if you give it fewer hours of light each day. For example if you're giving it 18 hours a day, you could reduce it to 12 hours a day. Even though an auto-flowering plant will make flowers on its own, they will still respond to longer nights by flowering faster, otherwise I think this plant is going to keep getting bigger for a while.

Is it possible to get a taller tent?

[Pankace]

So close to Xmas, I don't think so, but I have done my research and even picked out the tent we will get. :/

[NebulaHaze]

I hear you, the holiday season can get expensive if you're not careful!