Do I remove fan leaves?

I am often asked about removing Fan Leaves to allow more light to penetrate in the Blooming cycle.

DO NOT CUT THEM.

IF you think they are blocking some lights, then get some paperclips and hold them back, if you insist on doing anything, but DO NOT CUT THE FAN LEAVES OFF.

IN MY HUMBLE OPINION, When a large FAN leaf starts yellowing, say it is half yellow, that means in the photosynthesis process, that leaf has ate nutrients, absorbed some LIGHT and made food for the plant and buds and NOW, half of that is gone, or used or consumed. Well, what about the other half? Can not it's energy still be used or consumed?
AND when it is ALL consumed or used, that leaf will naturally just fall off.

AND you say it is blocking LIGHT?
GREAT and GOOD, that means it is getting the LIGHT it needs and deserves more than the other leaves do, to do it's job, to make food and grow.


Years ago I tried removing lower fan leaves to allow more Light to penetrate in. When I did remove more than a couple, the plant went into shock for a day or two, and quit eating or only ate half as much, and just went on "stand by" mode. Then, after a day or two, suddenly I saw that big fan leaf replaced by a new leaf, and I saw my plant use the energy to replace that leaf and grow it back FAST to the size it was, more than it used that energy to grow the plant bigger and make more buds or bigger buds.

I now believe that removing fan leaves is pointless, and that a leaf has a purpose and will serve that purpose until it is dead. Then it will naturally fall off. You will have small and large lower leaves just naturally wilt and fall off daily.


Don't ever remove fan leaves before harvest for several reasons.

1. The fan leaves MAKE AND STORE energy for the plant. The fan leaves are doing a process called photosynthsis, and it is the most important part or task or job the plant does, to make it grow. They make the FOOD, the sugars and carbs needed to grow.

If you remove a FAN leaf, the plant will stop growing taller until it can replace that removed fan leaf.

Removing a healthy fan leaf is a big waste of time..they are rapided replaced, unless you are in the last 2 or 3 weeks of flowering.


2. Even if the fan leaves are yellowing in late bloom I do not remove them until they are almost ready to fall off. The yellowing in the fan leaves at late harvest is the plants metabolism at work. She is transferring all stored energy in the fan leaf to bud production. It is the easiest source of energy she has late in life. Let that leaf do its job.

The Wrong reasoning is like "I could run faster if I was lighter and weighted less, so I am going to cut my legs off".



From the Growers Bible by Jorge Cervantes:
Leave leaves alone! Removal of healthy leave hacks up a healthy plant. Removing large or shade leaves DOES NOT make plants more productive. This practice DOES NOT supply more light to smaller leaves and growing tips. Plants need all their leaves to produce the maximum amount of chlorophyll and food. Removing leaves slows chlorophyll production, stresses the plant, and stunts its growth. Stress is a growth inhibitor. Remove only dead leaves or leaves that are more than 50 percent damaged.
 
Hey @Roseman,

There is a thread like this already in the How to Grow Marijuana Everything You Need to Know thread. This is one of those things that needs reinforcement as many of our growers are in mid bloom at this point.

I honestly think it's awesome that a fellow member stepped up and started a thread to help others, regardless if the thread was started/created already. :cheer:

Honestly, on my last grow i had one plant that was very very very bushy, so i thought that a good ol' pruning was inevitable. turns out that the plant i did dat too underproduced wen compared to my other bitches, so i can definitely say from experience that you really don't need to prune. If anything just let the buds do they thing, and harvest the top and then let the bottom finish. idk JMO... But there are definitely some growers that prefer to trim all leaves off for the last week. So it whateva floats marshmallows in your hot cocoa ;)



dro:peace:
 
To cut or not to cut...the debate goes on.

When I grew outdoors, 17 years worth, we never, ever touched a fan leaf. We let the plant go until our pre-determined harvest date.

Fast forward to now, and my current indoor eforts, and you'll find I've completely reversed mysef on fan leaf removal, as well as the sparse, underdeveloped low growth.

Why is this? Actually it's all about light. First, the lights used indoors are not the same as the sun. How about that for a Captain Obvious observation? More to the point, the wavelengths are different and the light doesn't rise and set, producing a canopoy of fan leaves that can, and does, starve the plant for light from the midpoint down.

I do remove fan leaves, but not until late in the flower cycle...the last two or three weeks...and have never had any issues with the plants slowing down any at all. I'm not saying that there aren't strains out there that may get shocky after a trim...some must be handled with kid gloves...but by and large, I believe there is benefit to trimming up indoor plants, provided it's done properly and late in the cycle.
 
i recently trimmed all my fan leaves off my flowering plant the reason being that the leaves were all crispy, dry, spots all over not even green nor yellow at this point so i trimmed all off, but here's the thing i have not harvested my plant yet, the trichs are milky still and i am looking for amber trichs.

my question is will the trichs still change of over with no problem ???
DID I mess up by triming my leaves and not harvesting my plant ?

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gunjababy,
100s of growers, maybe even a majority of growers would say you did good, and lolipopped your plants. Lolipopping is cutting off all the leaves near harvest, to as they say, to allow the energy to go to the buds. Many experienced growers do it, and many do not.

But, if you ask me, I am very opposed to lolipopping and cutting off any healthy leaf in Flowering. The leaves are like solar panels that absorb the light to convert the nutrients into food and make cell growth. I have good friends who tried it and said that growth almost stopped to a stand still when they did it. It is debatable, and I urge you to next time, try NOT to do it to some plants and see for yourself the difference.
 
gunjababy,
100s of growers, maybe even a majority of growers would say you did good, and lolipopped your plants. Lolipopping is cutting off all the leaves near harvest, to as they say, to allow the energy to go to the buds. Many experienced growers do it, and many do not.

But, if you ask me, I am very opposed to lolipopping and cutting off any healthy leaf in Flowering. The leaves are like solar panels that absorb the light to convert the nutrients into food and make cell growth. I have good friends who tried it and said that growth almost stopped to a stand still when they did it. It is debatable, and I urge you to next time, try NOT to do it to some plants and see for yourself the difference.

roseman thanks so much as i mentioned before all the leaves were in very bad shape.

what i would like to know is what will happen if i continue to leave the plant in 12/12, like i said the trichs are milky and not amber as i would like them to be ?
 
roseman thanks so much as i mentioned before all the leaves were in very bad shape.

what i would like to know is what will happen if i continue to leave the plant in 12/12, like i said the trichs are milky and not amber as i would like them to be ?


If you leave it in 12/12, the calyxes will still swell, and the trichs will turn. It 's just a matter of time.
 
gunjababy,

how are they doing now?

Hey Roseman thanks for asking, I harvested a while back, i cured them and smoke them. It came pretty good for my 1st time, It's like they say you get what u put in. They were unknown seeds that i was using to practice but as i said not bad at all well worth the experience. Now i have blueberry and skunk #1 to work with and so far so good.............

STOP BY MY JOURNAL...........

BTW i read almost all if not all your tutorials...Very Very :goodjob::goodjob:
 
Very debatable subject with many opinions. I trim what I have to. That's very ambiguous I know. But In my own experience very yellowed leaves, or dead leaves, or into very late flowering fan leaves that are too big or blocking too much light are removed.

So experiment on your own. If you are having to ask this question then you should try it for yourself and then decide and then you will know if it works for you or not.

Do a little more research, or obtain more replies to this post then take the info you want and leave the rest.
 
here's my rant; thanks for listening

gunjababy,
The leaves are like solar panels that absorb the light to convert the nutrients into food and make cell growth.

Let's say that again:

"The leaves are like solar panels that absorb the light to convert the nutrients into food and make cell growth."

What's that Mexican's full name? Juan Mo Tyme ! !

The leaves are like solar panels that absorb the light to convert the nutrients into food and make cell growth.


Really, the leaves ARE the POWERHOUSES of the plant, doing that funky thing whereby light, water, and CO2 are converted into complicated sugars and used as food to grow.....well....FUCKING FLOWERS ! !

Takes a whole lotta' N.R.G. to made T.H.C.....right? Why deprive the flowers of their main Energy SOURCE ?!

Flowers contain little to zero chlorophyll, right? So if you chop off the fan leaves, who's making the fucking food?
Fan leaves are the powerhouses of the plant. Can't grow good buds w/o good foods.

Nice, healthy food factories here on day 18 of flowering. Wouldn't part with them for nothin' !

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and the light doesn't rise and set, producing a canopoy of fan leaves that can, and does, starve the plant for light from the midpoint down.

Get a light mover and it's like repeating sunrise, noon, sunset dozens of times each "day". The reason light movers are so great is just that...they move the light for MAX penetration.
 
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