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To Defoliate Or Not To Defoliate

Great research and well written. I am an outdoor grower and from experience I will only prune for shape early in the season on some strains. I think the reason there are no good controlled experiments is because of the problems with cannabis not legal most places. I do very little experimenting because I need to keep number of plants at a minimum and try to grow sufficient smoke for a whole year. Keep up the great work. I enjoy reading well thought analysis.
 
So exposing more light to flower sites does not appear to offer any advantage to the flower development.
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Hey DANGERDAN I am not sure that the evidence that you provide justifies this conclusion. The fact that flowers do not photosynthesize enough to support the plant does not mean that they are not photosensitive. Plants invest more energy in flowers that are exposed to light. They cannot support themselves without leaves, but exposing flowers to light stimulates the growth of those flowers.
 
This would imply that there are photorecepter proteins that change the morphology of growth. Unfurtunately that is not even a concept worth considering as it has never been suggested that flowers have any photorecepter proteins. I have never seen any reading material with the suggestion that flowers play a role in photomorphogenesis. Although some flowers such as the common sunflower, follow the sun through phototropism. Thats why the first segment of the article was about "light & air" regarding photosynthesis, because the concept of morphological response was never a valid concept to start with.

But i think i will look into and perhaps add this to the original post, i was not happy when i finished the article as i felt what i wanted to provide was not exactly how i invision iy in my head. So i will likely be working on it more.
 
Phytochromes are not well understood. This is an area of interesting plant research to be sure.
Would you be willing to put little shade hats on your flowers? Would you expect that to not affect their development?
 
its just that those are not "shades" those are glucose producing leaves, so the premise is that taking off those leaves is going to affect the development more than leaving them do their thing. phytochromes like you said are not well understood but we know the balance between red and far red is what signals flowering, they do play a role in "energy" production in the synthesis of chlorophyll, size movement shape and number of leaves, elongation and flowering times. that does not mean they produce any energy by their own, they will signal more leaves to grow. phytochromes do not regulate flowering or fruiting size shape or weight, thats all up to the light and leaves

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phytochrome
 
Yes as fingerleafs points out nicely, we may not fully understand the physiology of photorecepters such as phytochrones. But we understand the fundamentals. Much effort before the 21st century has gone into the understanding of plant behaviour to light. Which based on what i have read in my books on plant biology is quite satisfactory, i personally do not think we are missing much. The way i have always invisioned photomorphology is that photosynthesis manufactures the energy, plant processes such as photorecepters direct where and how the energy is used.
 
I understand, but seems like a rather simple experiment. Two colas, same plant (same node), shade one - and compare to unshaded. At least would show something of whether flowers respond to light.
I am not really arguing the larger point, just the one conclusion that I quoted. I prune my plants rather aggressively at the end of the stretch, but certainly understand the need for leaves to do photosynthesis.
 
Totally understand campesino, but again that would imply that flowers have photoreceptors. Which i argue they do not, at least to the extent of my reading and understanding of the discoveries of how plants have been studied over the last century. For example, taken from long memory. Phytochromes were only found in leaves as plants that were presented with light cues never responded unless the light was presented to leaves. Other parts of a plant such as stems and flowers never responded.

A quote from a quick search on the subject

Hans Mohr · 2012 · Science

"The characteristics of the flowers (including stamens, pistils, corolla and calyx) are hardly modified by light. A potato plant will form very similar flowers under all circumstances which allow flower formation at all."
 
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Ohnestly, so could the larger fan leaves. The smaller "sugar leaves" are just younger leaves that develop between the calyx from the same branch as the surrounding larger fan leaves.
 
Omitted with new information and improved readability. I would really recommended reading again if you have already done so. There has been some good information from people that i decided to add. I am much happier with it now and feel it contructs the message more clearly. There will likely only be minor improvements from here on out.
 
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Holy cow. What a great series of reads. Thank you, very thought provoking. I'm definitely going to try to go au naturel on one of my current grows. I might try to get 2 clones to go together in 1 bucket or bin.
 
Yes i have followed your work since i was first a member here, i too grow outdoors and indoors. I like to at least top my outdoor plants once because i believe the main cola of a untopped plant acts more like a sink compared to the rest of the plant. Making the main cola larger while the rest of the plant is neglected.
 
I just read it twice and took notes from it; thanks a lot for all your effort! I had read Clarke on "leafing" before, and I am glad to find that particular passage again.

We watch lower buds mature all the time--buds that clearly aren't getting as much light as the upper buds. I understand why now.

Shade vs. Sun Leaves: Very useful information. Stress and sex change: ditto.
 
Yes, although i make the comment about leaf transmittance, not all light makes it down. Eventually the light that passes through leaves gets absorbed, by the time you get to the bottom there is not much left. Removing branches that develop flowers is beneficial here as they will only create smaller larfy flowers. So instead that energy is directed to the main flower sites.
 
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