Increasing yield with defoliation indoors: What's it mean? How to do it?

[CascadianDank]

Hello Bassman. Ive been referred to you on 2 separate occasions now so just wanted to chime in and say thanks for this post. I have been defoliating since I started growing about 3 yrs ago just because it makes sense that lower buds are not getting the light they need when covered by big leaves. I have tried to do comparisons on my own before but I just cant stop myself from pickin them off when I see a little bud begging for light.

Also I skimmed thru your first journal because Ive decided to go with LED for my new setup due to size and potential heat issues and I am now waiting for a GS300 pro bloom to arrive.

 

[Bassman59]

Hello Bassman. Ive been referred to you on 2 separate occasions now so just wanted to chime in and say thanks for this post. I have been defoliating since I started growing about 3 yrs ago just because it makes sense that lower buds are not getting the light they need when covered by big leaves. I have tried to do comparisons on my own before but I just cant stop myself from pickin them off when I see a little bud begging for light.

Also I skimmed thru your first journal because Ive decided to go with LED for my new setup due to size and potential heat issues and I am now waiting for a GS300 pro bloom to arrive.

Thanks for stopping in and welcome to 420mag!
I'm sure you're going to love the GS300 too!

 

[CascadianDank]

Thanks Bassman and yea I think It will be perfect for my setup. Its a DIY tent in an RV shower Im gonna use for flowering once the light arrives.

 

[Xlr8]

It seams as if most growers that speak of defoliation mention that they don't keep dedicated mother plants. If they do keep em do they defoliate the moms? The ones that don't when do they take there cuttings? I am assuming sometime after the stretch in veg.?
Thanks

I keep moms, and personally I just don't think it matters much on the moms. I'm keeping hydro moms right now, and they grow so damned fast that I'm constantly trimming and thinning and whacking. I could do a lot more but there's no reason too, so even with all that they get pretty bushy. I just cut out extra branches, leaves, whatever when they get in the way or when they get too tall. A plant perpetually in veg can have just about anything done to it at any time without hurting them a bit. However, I do try to give them some time after thinning/defoliating before I take a cutting from them. I never take cuttings until they've perked back up from a trimming (they can look a little tired for a few days after trimming/thinning).

Like you said, you could just take a cutting from the group you are flowering for the next round, too. I prefer taking cuttings in veg. and giving the plants a week or more before flowering them to recover from the decapitation.

As far as cuttings later... I've taken cuttings up to about day 16-18 (or so) in bloom (prior to end of stretch) but you could take cuttings later yet. There is a technique called "Monster Cropping" which involves taking your cuttings around day 21 that supposedly produce branchier than normal clone plants. Keep in mind, that cuttings taken any time after the bloom phase has set in good will root really slowly vs. cuttings taken when the plant is more in veg/growth mode.

They are pretty sturdy, so I don't worry about trimming/cutting/defoliating at almost any point with decent genetics.

 

[Bassman59]

good stuff Xlr8!

 

[kimmy]

It seams as if most growers that speak of defoliation mention that they don't keep dedicated mother plants. If they do keep em do they defoliate the moms? The ones that don't when do they take there cuttings? I am assuming sometime after the stretch in veg.?
Thanks

After I take cuttings is when I give my mums a good going over. I take off the fans and stems that are growing to the middle. When I take a cutting, I leave a node and leaf on the stem where it is pointing out so that I don't have a bunch of little stems growing up the middle. After the shoot starts growing well out of the node, I will cut the fan off then. Sometimes there will be 2 shoots that pop out after a cutting and it is easier to pinch one off right away if it is growing in an undesired direction.

 

[GigaGrew]

It seams as if most growers that speak of defoliation mention that they don't keep dedicated mother plants. If they do keep em do they defoliate the moms? The ones that don't when do they take there cuttings? I am assuming sometime after the stretch in veg.?
Thanks

If you keep a mom in a small air pot it causes it to bonsai. once its reached a desired height you can totally defoliate, as soon as its recovered from that, you then top it. this causes a small mother that uses very small amounts of water, nutrients and light, the top and then consequent tops can be your cuttings and much like a hydra, cut one off and 2 grow back.

fully defoliated clones have very short node length and its not unusal to have a 6 inch cutting with 7 nodes on it already, i find the perpetual defoliation method (cut a leaf as soon as you can get at its stem) gives much tighter nodal distance than the phased defoliation method.

a clone of many nodes is begging to be a lollipop when it grows up =D

 

[BigIrishDoode]

i see cascadiandank made it over to mr bassmans dealio sweet bass is a great grower and guy! with balls too! not easy to shed the norm sometimesi smell a motm

 

[Xlr8]

If you keep a mom in a small air pot it causes it to bonsai. once its reached a desired height you can totally defoliate, as soon as its recovered from that, you then top it. this causes a small mother that uses very small amounts of water, nutrients and light, the top and then consequent tops can be your cuttings and much like a hydra, cut one off and 2 grow back.

fully defoliated clones have very short node length and its not unusal to have a 6 inch cutting with 7 nodes on it already, i find the perpetual defoliation method (cut a leaf as soon as you can get at its stem) gives much tighter nodal distance than the phased defoliation method.

a clone of many nodes is begging to be a lollipop when it grows up =D

This is exactly what I did until recently. I kept mini moms in the smallest airpots you can get (with coco coir). They are like... 1 liter airpots. About the size of a pint mug maybe? They can stay in these quite a while and it does aid in keeping the size down, but they end up needing to be watered/fed about every day, which gets old after a while if you have enough of them. I'll probably do a couple more like this again, at least for a short period of time, while I make some decisions on which moms to keep long term.

Great feedback and info Gig!

 

[Bassman59]

@gig & X, Great stuff, thanks for chiming in with that! What gig states about bonsai moms and nodal tightness goes right along with what we speak of when using defoliation on a full grow as well. The tightening of the nodes spacing is one of the things we're striving for. These means more bud sites for the same size plant. Taking clones from a defoliated mom helps this even more because the clone is already predisspositioned (sp?) to tighter nodes so when we grow out, we may see this benefit even more.

Personally, I have been really lagging in this. I haven't taken clones now for two grows and will have to pop some seeds any day now for the next grow. This is affecting my yield. I know it is, how much I'm not sure. But one of the reasons I haven't taken clones is because I don't want them too big before going into flower and I wont flower until those in flower already are harvested. It's a timing thing. But really, I think I'm being kinda stupid about this because I can just top or bonsai a little to shorten them up if needed.

I would care less though if I had a recommendation for more plants. Our state only allows 7, 4 in flower, 3 in veg. I'm already pushing that by 1 plant extra in veg to flower all 4 together. I guess I need to pay another $150 or whatever for a damn doc to make said recommendation. 17 seems perfect, 8 in two grps at various stage of flower, 8 in clone-veg stage, 1 mother. Sounds like a lot, but then I would only be chopping 4 per month anyways.

 

[GigaGrew]

This is exactly what I did until recently. I kept mini moms in the smallest airpots you can get (with coco coir). They are like... 1 liter airpots. About the size of a pint mug maybe? They can stay in these quite a while and it does aid in keeping the size down, but they end up needing to be watered/fed about every day, which gets old after a while if you have enough of them. I'll probably do a couple more like this again, at least for a short period of time, while I make some decisions on which moms to keep long term.

Great feedback and info Gig!

exactly, with a small pot and a good amount of leaves for respiration the moisture can vanish in an hour. my personal mantra is perlite for big pots and vermiculite for the smallest and scale up the ratio, i wouldnt use any vermi in a container over 3 litres.
combine this with the huge reduction in moisture loss by removing all the leaves except the very tip of the growing tops and you CAN end up with once per week watering or even a really slow drip feed

my smallest gigapots (diy air) are about 1/2 litre so real sensitive and great for bonsai.

This was grown in one of my smallest airpots, its now in dwc and hopefully going to revert to not a bonsai. ive seen a tiny amount of swelling in the trunk but its mainly working on making roots atm. look how many nodes for its height!

 

[Ruhaa]

I do think that I might try this on my next grow with a plant or two for trial and air

 

[donpaul.p]

i have taken clones well into flower to try this monster cropping method, now once the clone has rooted and is re-vegged then it grows like crazy throwing out branches all over the place, but does this increase yield or just give lots of smaller buds, well with mine it gave me lots of small buds and i had to harvest the plant in stages as the growth was crazy and branches were all over the place, but i think this method would be perfect for some crazy monster outdoor plants or if it is used indoors like i did then the best option would be to give it a longer veg than i did, then it would produce a good solid yield

 

[Bassman59]

Yes donpaul, using this method does require a little bit longer veg time. When the girls are in veg and we strip them hard, they go right to creating new nodes, hence closer as well. If we don't allow them to leaf out some more then we send them into flower prematurely. We don't really want them to get flipped until this new growth is far enough along that the plant is not shooting out new growth super fast like it was right after we stripped. This will slow down the stretch a lot. We don't mind stretch if we plan for it. We hate too much stretch. So the idea is to strip at 5 nodes or so, let them releaf, then strip again at full regrowth, and when they bounce back fully, they should be at about 12-14" tall before flipping if we're indoors and going for that 28-32" tall girl and wide 28" mid section.

These numbers above are somewhat dependent however on your light(s). We have to consider what the max height can be with our lights, still giving say 5k lumen at the furthest point (plant base or lowest growth).

I believe once we have done this 2-3 times we begin to understand how it all works and will intuitively know what the best end height is for our strain/lights and can easily act accordingly with our veg stripping and timing.

 

[donpaul.p]

thanks for the info mate, ill be trying this method for sure, im using a 400 watt dual spec hps with 55,000 lumins, now the best height from top of the plant is 1ft, but by using some computer fans i am able to get the top of my plant within about 6 inches of the bulb, as long as the fan is blowing across the top of the plant and just above it then this enables me to lower the light further without damaging the plants, i found young plants suffer from some bleaching so i make sure these are far enough away to stop this happening, ill be doing more testing with this defo method when i have my next plants in veg,

its worked well on the plants i have used it on so ill be starting it early in veg this time to get the plant ready for when it happens in flower, thanks for all the info mate, ill reps you if it lets me, damn i got to spread it around a bit first, ill reps you when it lets me mate

 

[vangs]

Thanks for the compliments.

I finished my harvest. Yield was approx 2600 grams wet from four plants. Dry should yield around 22 oz. Not bad, but there were yield costing mistakes.

1. Don't let them veg too tall with limited height/light.
2. Four plants in 5'x5' tent may be too many. Three in triangular setup might be better. At four, the two big girls, with bending, still way over shaded the other two. I didn't realize because they were so tall that I was covering so much with my lateral bends. But I needed light clearance REALLY BAD. (refer to #1 above!)
3. I broke and couldn't repair one of two main branches on the big girl. This probably cost me 2-3 oz but then again I would have had more mass at canopy top and no room for it. Pay attn when bending! I didnt get a good twist on her.
4. I either need a wider reflector, or throw two 600w setups in. The spread needs just a bit more in 5x5.


I'll be starting flower on my next batch in a day or three. Have to clean up tent and prepare. Decide on 3 plants or four again. They are at perfect to just a hair too tall right now, but still plenty trainable. If all goes well it will surpass the 22oz from above.

So now I'm basically just working on dialing in the defoliation grow in terms of size, light, etc. Once I can avg 10+ oz per plant I'll be pretty well dialed in. So long as I can do it in under 36" cubed per plant.

i had the same issue with the spread of the 1000w bulb, so i decided to get a better reflector, bigger too.. the oone i had was 23x28 still bigger than alot, but then i went on HTGSUPPLY.com and i found the BIG DADDY reflector.. its 36x36 or 3ftx3ft, a perfect square, perfect for a 5x5 tent, the reflectors so big that it covers the whole tent evenly. check it out, you might not need to buy a whole new set or 2.

 

[Bassman59]

i had the same issue with the spread of the 1000w bulb, so i decided to get a better reflector, bigger too.. the oone i had was 23x28 still bigger than alot, but then i went on HTGSUPPLY.com and i found the BIG DADDY reflector.. its 36x36 or 3ftx3ft, a perfect square, perfect for a 5x5 tent, the reflectors so big that it covers the whole tent evenly. check it out, you might not need to buy a whole new set or 2.

Thanks, but last week I picked up a Raptor, 37x29 or something like that. But ya, a nice big hood for 5x5 tent and not too tall either!

 

[vangs]

Thanks, but last week I picked up a Raptor, 37x29 or something like that. But ya, a nice big hood for 5x5 tent and not too tall either!

good to hear. if you dont mind me asking, do you think in your opinion that if someones lollipoping a plant taking off 4 lower branches that would give each branch about 5grams, and in return the plant ususes the energy to focus on the top colas from the top sprouts which then gives each branch an extra 10 grams.. so basicly making 5 grams extra in each branch......... do you think the technique your using willl give the plant more yield than a plant thats been lollipoped???

im thinking of trying this because ive done it in every grow just not severely.. mostly to shock the plant and keep it from growing for acouple days but over time ive noticed it on plants over the years, so now i want to try it your way.

 

[Bassman59]

good to hear. if you dont mind me asking, do you think in your opinion that if someones lollipoping a plant taking off 4 lower branches that would give each branch about 5grams, and in return the plant ususes the energy to focus on the top colas from the top sprouts which then gives each branch an extra 10 grams.. so basicly making 5 grams extra in each branch......... do you think the technique your using willl give the plant more yield than a plant thats been lollipoped???

im thinking of trying this because ive done it in every grow just not severely.. mostly to shock the plant and keep it from growing for acouple days but over time ive noticed it on plants over the years, so now i want to try it your way.

I'll try to answer with a combination of what I learned from reading everything I could by a guy that has defoliated for 30yrs and what I've learned from experience.

I don't lollipop. But, at the same time, taking the really tiny bottom branches that won't yield even 5g is fine and wont slow any growth or misdirect energy as you put it. That being said we don't lollipop when using this technique. We also don't really grow main colas. Not in terms of what we're used to seeing per se. The idea of all of this is to grow more buds total, and make all those small popcorn buds become medium good size buds we're happy to trim.

Another thing to think about is we're never shocking the plant. When we strip early in veg we still leave the small fans that are developing at the tops of branches. This doesn't shock the plant, as it's still in a young grow more nodes/branches stage. It does however make those new nodes come sooner, and thus more leaf is grow quite rapidly. Within days they are fully releafed and even more than before. In flower, when we defoliate, we still are not pulling 100% of leaves. We are taking fan leaf that is fully developed, with a reasonable stem, not attached to a newly developed bud or node that has yet to make it's own leaves. Again, this doesn't stress nor shock them. There are still plenty of leaves on the plant. But we're sending tons more light all over the place and this promotes all facets of growth. Yet defoliating will put a near halt to stretch when done during that period, so it can be used to control height. But it doesn't seem to affect bud development at this stage whatsoever.

In the end, if you use what I've described in the first posts of this thread fully, I am a believer that your yield will be higher than a lollipoped plant. It may take a few grows to dial yourself in. Know your strain, have your other growing conditions down pat. From there it's just learning how they react, when to defoliate, how tall to grow in veg, when to defoliate in veg, when to flip, and how to support the entire plants bud development rather than just the large stuff at the top.

I started doing this kinda halfheartedly on one grow and started learning right from the start. My 1st grow saw better yield. My 2nd grow was done better and saw better yield, my 3rd attempt at this, saw the magical 10oz from a single plant and I knew I made mistakes and what they were. And so the learning curve grows (pun intended).

 

[crashnfool]

I've been thinking about this for awhile now and I have decided to do a side by side comparison..I'm gonna try soil first then...Next round will be in DWC. I might even make a journal this time....:icon_roll