Defoliation

I've read this a couple of times and all I can say is......Know your audience. We are well aware of what goes on (even if we can't put it into words) while growing, defoliating, cutting lower limbs, more light, less light, what gets light, what doesn't, hydro, soil, etc. Like I said...know your audience.

 

"A plant transports dissolved sugars and amino acids in solution through a component of its vascular tissue called the phloem. The movement of fluid in the phloem... can occur in any direction, up or down the plant. However, the fluid typically flows from source cells to sink cells. Source cells are cells that produce sugars and pump them into the phloem, ...whereas sink cells are cells that do not make enough sugars for their own growth and metabolism and must import them from the phloem."

Great link Dumme thanks for that. I know to a lot of folks this is basic, but that's where I am at in the academic world of botany. I had to edit the text above to focus it on my particular interest. Which is growing pot - er - cannabis, for fun and profit! But to me it reads easier and communicates better without the additional stuff.

So for defoliation - I think it's a useful tool, and in the hands of the skilled grower, and in combination with other techniques can redirect plant growth to create more marketable weight AND less trimming hassle (which is very important for the single handed sailor). How much defoliation, when, etc. is very much dependent on the plant, the grow style, the grower, the purpose.

Sometimes I'm a tucker. Sometimes a plucker. Always an ucker of some kind.

http://www.pbo.co.uk/seamanship/shortening-sail-single-handed-24295

 

One More Thought

I am at the end of week 5, beginning of week 6. They will get food another week, then I start the flush for 14 days.

I just noticed that there are a shit ton of dead and wrinkled fan leaves all though out the bush. The rest of the plant is green and healthy. I spend collectively hours probably plucking them out by hand one by one as I pace around the rooms throughout the day.

Now it is probably true I am underfeeding them. They look a little yellow especially under the HPS. But the thought occurred to me that the plant does a certain amount of it's own defoliation just by nature.

 

How much does bb's cheese stretch?

 

Not much, at least indoors. I get 6-8" of vertical growth in flower. that's on a plant about 15" tall at flip.

 

Good to know, I try to let my plants only get so tall before they flower otherwise they go higher than the fence when they stretch. Flowering starts in about 3/4 weeks and they stretch for about a month.

 

I just thinned it and took cuts a couple of weeks ago, just got roots on them yesterday, going to run them in hempy outside so I can get a look at how they do in hydro. All the plants get thinned pretty good from now until they flower. Looking at Paul's cheese, it looks like it's going to stretch hard. We shall see.

 

ya know now that you mention it i had a friend grow out a few of BB's Cheese in her backyard last summer. When i saw them i thought they were diesel. they did stretch over head height. Huge bush easily 6' high. I don't remember what size they were when she planted them but I know they were started indoors. I also don't remember when she put them out. So I need to edit my comment above and say i think it can stretch pretty good outdoors. I chalked it up to not topping, maybe. I top all my plants at least once in veg. I don't think she did at all.

 

I don't defoliate. I trim up the undergrowth enough to allow airflow if I'm indoors but I never pluck fan leaves that are actually getting enough light to survive. I try to top as little as possible, too, unless I'm trying to bonsai a mom, and then I have my own particular method to prevent the plant from growing in to itself over time. Mostly pulled off of this site, actually. I can't remember who wrote the article but he was a genius who's done me good for ten years come October.

In my experience the lag time from vegging out long and stunting them over and over just isn't worth it as a standard practice. If you need them to veg longer then sure. But as a general practice I FIM them twice tops if I'm doing 4-6 plants per light, 4 times tops if I'm doing one plant per light. And I never defoliate, and I never prune past the second week of flowering.

That said, I will do some LST/bending before I start cropping if I'm trying to bush them out. I'm a big fan of tying my ladies down to show them who's boss. Don't have to cut on them, just need a little rope. Seems to me like it slows the growth down a little less that way.

Assuming we're not talking about a vert grow. Those things are entirely different for training. I could write a friggin bible on how to train plants into donuts. The big trick is to never try it with pure or heavily dominant indicas. They don't fill lateral space for shit. Easily twice the veg time of a sativa or superhybrid.

 

These girls are 4 weeks into flower and were completely defoliated a week ago. The plant in the back is Grape stomper, Left front is Lemonberry and the right front is BBs cheese blazerwill420

 

Yeah I'm not too sure indica doms all respond as described. I know the one I'm running grows almost as much out as up even without topping. I've been topping for the last great while but sometimes I don't at all. What plant manipulation techniques you use is largely dependent on your setup, space, etc.

Also you can make most pot plants grow into almost any size or shape if you take the time in veg. Commercial guys not so much. Time is money yo

 

Pretty much. It is amazing what the differences are between home cultivation and growing commercially once you get into it and look at the ROI. A 1/2 gram per square foot loss over 30,000 square feet is a 15-kg loss. That could be most of your profit margin if the person running your business is a Financial Consultant instead of a marijuana consultant. And they all are. It just kills the diversity of strains since everyone grows Dutch superhybrids. But it's what you have to do to compete. Both pure indica and pure sativa are undesirable. Indicas can't fill the space for plant limits and limits on labor for plants and sativas can't produce for the same square footage. It is not even worth it to get a medical card to buy in Colorado anymore because that model has been absorbed by the medical dispensaries. Washington has already followed suit and California is close behind.

But there's no point in talking about Washington's medical system any more is there? Because it's a fucking joke.

But it's fair to say that commercial genetic traits are dominated by Indica characteristics. The tight bud formation and branching structure makes a huge difference in processing costs.

 

It was a group jack, for what it's worth. Do me never pop up much.

 

10-12 week Sativa dom hybrid. Super Silver Haze. Smoked some tonight. Damn good. Had an old school smell, similar to but not like a pure skunk, that reminded me of former days.

A buddy had some, vac sealed bag so prob from otherwhere. Damn good. Somebody is growing it.