Hey dudes! Love the show and what you do. Scotty is hilarious, guru is the man with the plan, and obviously the dude rounds it all off quite nicely, wicked content. Here’s my question, why does everyone hate on leaf stripping? As a novice grower, I try and collect as much info as possible and apply the tried and true methods of all the generous OG’s sharing their knowledge such as yourselves. A super hot topic I’ve found within the grow community is when, and how much leaf stripping is actually beneficial to the plant. Ive found better success this last round of growing by listening to gurus advice and stripping leaves during veg, day 21 of flower and day 42 of flower. Here’s my question, Is there a point to which stripping leaves may take away from flower production? Is there a way to tell if stripping leaves is stressing out the plant to the point of diminishing returns? And if guru has a recipe for leaf stripping, it’d be super sick to hear the run down of how he manages the plants energy via leaf removal. I included some picture of my single RDWC plant before and after day 21 strip and day 42 strip.
I typically follow a schedule similar to what you say GURU had suggested…. that guy is smart 🙂
Leaves are your plants solar panels, they perform photosynthesis, which creates sugars / carbohydrates to fuel plant growth. The more panels you have, the greater the photosynthesis potential. BUT, there are absolutely reasons to remove some of the foliage. They also transpire, which draws water and nutrient up into the plant from the root zone.
I’d say the most important reason to leaf strip is to increase airflow through the canopy and prevent micro-climates between the foliage. In a crowded tent, full of bushy plants, the transpiration from leaves can cause higher humidity and temps within the canopy and this can lead to mold issues, especially without proper air movement. Another popular reason to defoliate is to get direct light to lower bud sites, creating more photosynthesis locally, which that branch / bud will use. Those are the main reasons people defoliate IMO.
There are other reasons like if you detect bugs or PM, people will try and strip leaves to stay ahead…. not the best approach, but it’s done all the time.
The swazzing technique of removing almost all of the leaves……. well, you’re kind of limiting your plants potential for creating “power” for the plant, but it works (maybe not as well) in the fact of growing buds on the plant. So, ultimately, it is a fine line of defoliating to increase airflow, but leaving enough on to power the plant.
Cannabis plants are resilient and can take much abuse. You may notice that the plant takes a day or so to continue growth after a heavy defoliation but unless you are taking over 25% of the biomass, you’ll likely be good if you started with a healthy plant.
If you want to do extra credit on the subject, look up the Calvin cycle and then the Krebs cycle. Also of interest would be the sugar sink / source capabilities of leaves on the plant.
Chad dude, that was a damn decent comment! Always enjoy getting more sources to research. Much appreciated brother. So the long and short of it, leave the leaves on everywhere you can, remove what’s needed to keep the air balanced…?
cheers 🙂 Yeah, that is pretty much my approach. As you’ve already seen there are people who get passionate one way or the other, the truth is – do what works for you and your specific strains. Try it both ways, but this is the way I’ve decided to stay with.
Everything Chad said is on point! I defoliate on day 0, 21, and 42. The timing is very important if your goal for defoliating is for crop steering. There have been studies that show an increase in flower development if you time the strip correctly. On day 0 I lightly clean up the lowers so nothing is too close to the soil and this is more for cleanliness purposes than for steering. On day 21 I go more intense on defoliating and theoretically this day is an average of when plants have finished stretching so the energy you are directing is going towards getting the flowers established. I would say if you only strip once that day 21 is the time to do it. I have messed with the timing of defoliating before day 21 and it does seem to make my plants stretch more since the energy being directed is available during the stretch. But I have no hard data on that, just a personal observation. On day 42 I defoliate to direct the last stretch of energy into bud development but I tend to be lighter than on day 21.
I do also believe I remember guru saying in an episode that any leaf getting under a certain PPF will not photosynthesize and will only transpire, so leaves not getting enough light are only contributing to your humidity and not sugar production, which may be beneficial or not depending on your environment.
In general though if everything is dialed in and the plants are happy they can tolerate quite a bit. Just always have a purpose and a plan behind your actions in your garden and that will go far in helping you not doing anything to hasty.
Hope this helps as well! #growerslove
That’s almost exactly what I’ve done with this plant dr. Phil! Cut off everything I wasn’t keeping on flip day, heavy leaf strip day 21 and found I wasn’t really able to remove much day 42. Crop steering is exactly the motivation for wanting to know more about the defoliation process. I want my plant putting as much energy into the bud production as possible (I’m sure just the same as most other growers),. Thanks for all the help DGC!!
How much light you putting out? If you spend 700 dollars on a light for a 2X4 tent…….of course you can leaf strip! Your plants are like saturated in light…..still might affect yield. Vice versa also It sucks when you see how much you CAN leaf strip……but have to be modest because of the light footprint…….better have your nutrient game on par.
It’s a 4×4 ax infinity tent, running a mars hydro ts3000. Nutrient regime is pretty locked down id like to think, at least the basics that is. I can keep a plant healthy and growing all the way to chop. Trying to explore any kind of training I can do to help maximize my bud quality. I have a second tent for veg so quantity isn’t really the focus. I’d rather pull a pound of the stickiest, stankiest dank rather than two pounds of mediocre dope.
Hey buddy, He’s got a girlfriend!
It’s ok sunny! I wouldn’t do long distance anyway hahahaha
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