Regarding defoliating, training, and clone selection.
Those have read "Ghengis Khan and the Making of the Modern World" by Jack Weatherford may know Ghengis was far more than a barbarian. In conquering and ruling an empire that stretched from China to Ukraine, he linked them with the world's first "pony express". Scholars, artists and merchants were transferred from one end to the other in both directions, combining Chinese chemistry with Arabic architecture. Korean paper made literature cheaply portable which helped lead to universally literacy. He embraced and imposed religious tolerance, gender equality (not perfect, or even good by modern standards, but far better than the status quo) , or the idea that being "royal" vs. "common" was not defined by blood. We can thank him for both spaghetti and the black plague.
Here is a more amusing Youtube rendition of Mongol history:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqcVro-3f4I
So here is my approach to early veg "defoliating" and pruning. It does not mean barbaric hacking and pruning and stripping. It is meant to seek balance in maximizing the growth of buds, not just big leafy plants. This is the time to train the plant's branches and their suckers into the canopy from which an open arrangement of colas can emerge to fill the space under the grow light with fat, sticky buds that have room to breathe. I also selective cut away tiny branchlings that I don't want, and let the plant focus her energy on growing nodes and leaves where I do want them to capture abundant light to power for growth.
Some suckers that would otherwise be pruned might make good clones, they will be left to grow out until immediately before before flowering. I plan on cutting some clones for the upcoming Clone Along, and if any of those make it, will go in solo cups for the upcoming Duel.
I start by taking off bigger fan leaves that are at the base of suckers IF that sucker has mature, fully open, happy leaves. I especially take older leaves that have had evidence of growth problems, like Calcium deficiency blotches once I'm on track of fixing the problem, and newer growth leavesare not still showing the same problem. This particular young plant didn't have any big old leaves, it's still a fairly new clone from
JDU . Hey brother, how along ago did you cut these clones? We're meeting
SoOrbudgal here in a little bit to deliver her clone and seeds, and hopefully one of my seedlings, if she believes she can help. But there weren't many big leaves to start with.
I also cut off some of the little branches if they are growing out in a direction that will not be conducive to making a fat bud, or will crowd out the colas that will grow fat, especially tiny suckers low down near the stem that will only grow out a little popcorn bud.
Topping and manifolding or quadlining are versions of this. I like to clone the top of the seedling when I do cut it off. These clones are already big and vigourous because they were quite generously cut. The left one is the end of a nice branch with 2 nice branches already growing from it. The one on the left is a topped branch with 6 smaller branches coming from it. They were probably close to 10 inches long when cut with 3 or 4 planted into the yogurt cup of soil. The bigger one was just becoming root bound when I transplanted it. The smaller one was in a 4 inch cup probably 8 inches with 2 inches in the cup, not quite as heavily rooted, I assume she was started a few weeks behind.
Here is the branch end, cleaned up a little bit and trained to spread the branches out. I will let her grow out a bit more before flipping.
Thanks again for the wisdom and the genetics I've received and have the opportunity to share with all you master growers.
