Auto Defoliation Myth Test

[WildBill]

How about this. In my never to be humble opinion and my limited six years experience with growing autoflowers, it's a myth.
Sorry I don't know how to add the funny figures or abbreviations. I'm an old.

Let's put it this way on my theory on defol. I defol for light and air flow. I'm always, unless I experiment, gonna LST. Using those parameters, it maximizes the amount of leaves dedicated to photosynthesis which in turn goes into growing bud.

The true question is this: Does the energy gathered for bud production by limited defol, exceed the energy expended in new foliage is offset by the possible hormone production for bud expansion in response to the "Fight or Flight" induced by heavy defol.

This is assuming canna has a sorta similar response to such stressors as other garden vegetables, such as beating your indeterminant tomatoes to induce blooming.

 

[Brownthumbs]

@JSH1973 What's she look like now, bro?

 

[JSH1973]

@JSH1973 What's she look like now, bro?

She's absolutely fine, been defoliated some more and lollipopped since then, I'm not even sure which one of them it was anymore.

 

[Brownthumbs]

Nice forest!! That's a thing of beauty!

 

[JSH1973]

Nice forest!! That's a thing of beauty!

Coming up to the end of 9 weeks... 63 days next Tuesday
It said 11-13 weeks on the website description so I'm leaning mostly towards the 13 weeks as there seems to be still a bit of stretching going on.

 

[Brownthumbs]

What breeder & strain? I didn't see it at the start of the thread.

 

[JSH1973]

What breeder & strain? I didn't see it at the start of the thread.

It's Northern Lights x Big Buds (auto) that I got from Weedseedsexpress, they had a buy 10 get 10 free deal on them, actually they have a good few others now on a sale like that.

 

[The Iconoclast]

I not only have no compunction to strip out leaves by the armload at any stage of the growth but if the situation warrants it, I will also strip out masses of healthy branches full of buds if this is needed.

But it's horses for courses. Sometimes you hardly have to remove any leaves at all, other times it might be branches only. So while defoliation does not harm a healthy plant how much and how far you go is plant dependent.

In the end I ended up with 18 zips from this Think Big auto that had a lot of stuff removed.

 

[WildBill]

I not only have no compunction to strip out leaves by the armload at any stage of the growth but if the situation warrants it, I will also strip out masses of healthy branches full of buds if this is needed.View attachment 1274183View attachment 1274185View attachment 1274186

But it's horses for courses. Sometimes you hardly have to remove any leaves at all, other times it might be branches only. So while defoliation does not harm a healthy plant how much and how far you go is plant dependent.

In the end I ended up with 18 zips from this Think Big auto that had a lot of stuff removed.

View attachment 1274188

She does have a lot of sugar leaves. You can afford to lose some fan leaves.

VERY pretty girl!

 

[SethMcfarmhand]

Yeah, I will wade in and say that I have done a few dedicated experiments with Quick One from Royal Queen Seeds and defoliation is certainly one of them. Firstly RQS reports up to a 325g per sq meter max which is about 30g per sq ft or in my language 30grams per plant because I grow SOG 1 plant per sq ft in 8lt pots with a coco/soil/peat mix. So over many grows with this particular strain I found my best and most consistent yields were with LST, Heavy Defol twice during the cycle and removal of any small buds/branches. Over many grow cycles and many seeds popped (over 100) using the same substrate, nutrients and environment and trying various grow styles I found I was averaging 40g per plant with LST from the time it has third node and defoliation firstly when the hairs start to show and second major strip of leaves and branches/ small buds when the growth stops. Then when I start flushing I strip back all fan leaves and smaller leaves that remain leaving mainly sugar leaf and bud. This means I was averaging 438 per sq meter. Over 100 more than the seed bank was suggesting. It was taking about a week longer than the seed bank suggested (70 days as opposed to 63) but it certainly proved to me that defol worked wonders on this strain. I was adjusting the LST every couple of days also.

having said all of that this method also seems to work for me on other similar varieties that have a good indica shape but not too bushy with dense buds and a bit of spacing between nodes. I have many varieties I like that fit this and that are giving me now up to 50g per sq ft.
For bushy varieties like RQS Jack Auto or Royal Creamatic this same method proved quite disastrous as it stunted some plants badly, caused a couple to hermie and slowed them right down and I was only averaging 30g per sq ft. In the case of these strains I found just some basic LST, folding leaves blocking sites ( or removal of any major leaves if folding did not work) and letting them do their thing worked best and I was up over 40g.

so really folks, I think it’s heavily strain dependent and based on experience of the grower and knowing the strain. There are not many controlled experiments with this question of defol however what I did came pretty close and having used the controlled environment and using many different grow techniques on over 100 plants then I can vouch for defol in this case.

I have a list of other Auto seeds from various seed banks I found benefited from my suggested “Quick One” defol method as well if anyone is interested.

again, case by case everyone, there is no definitive answer.