If you defoliate autos what day do you start doing it?

[The123321]

I have a small tent and I want to defoliate autos to be able to fit the number of plants I want in the tent and have good air flow on there. This is not really a should you defoliate or not post. The tent is small and with how much I lst the plants to keep the plants from being very tall the plants end up bushy and short and not easy to have good air flow or water and train the plant if you do not defoliate. This post is to ask those that do defoliate when they start defoliating and when they stop defoliating on there.

If you defoliate when do you start and do you do it a little at a time like a few leaves then wait a few days then a few leaves or do you do it in like 2 or 3 bigger sessions or what do you do and when do you start and how old is the plant when you stop defoliating? I defoliated in my first grow and I think I waited too long as it looks like it stunted the plants quite a bit on there.

 

[Rexer]

I'm still in my first grow, but it's a debatable subject and seems to have variables (lst, strain, grow space,how heavy of defoliation,etc.). I've watched YouTube videos arguing both, but so far I'm for it, selectively. Look up Bill Ward on YouTube if your thinking of defoliation, he shows it fairly well for his Autoflowers. Otherwise consider lots of LST and leaf tucking, pony tails will also help avoid defoliation. Personally it's a risk / reward decision to make each snip. Sometimes you need to open up the airflow to avoid leaf condensation and a leaf just has to go (that's how I view it).

 

[Emilya Green]

I know you dont want to hear it but I am going to say it anyway. You should not defoliate an auto. Most auto growers jump through hoops trying not to stress their plants in the very least, but you appear about ready to try to see how much stress you can cause. If you stress and stunt an auto for even one day, you have affected the yield.

 

[Apoc]

The problem isn't defoliation it's tent size. Stop overstuffing a small tent. Better 5-7oz off one good plant producing head banger than 4 plants producing 5-7 of mediocre.

One plant, 3x3x6' 300w, 11oz of sour Lowryder Auto. Just mega Crop and Cal mag. All I did was top it and pull the limbs down with pipe cleaners. Plant wasn't 2 1/2 foot tall.

 

[Stunger]

The problem isn't defoliation it's tent size. Stop overstuffing a small tent. Better 5-7oz off one good plant producing head banger than 4 plants producing 5-7 of mediocre.

One plant, 3x3x6' 300w, 11oz of sour Lowryder Auto. Just mega Crop and Cal mag. All I did was top it and pull the limbs down with pipe cleaners. Plant wasn't 2 1/2 foot tall.

She's a beauty! How did you find her to smoke/vape?
I have only grown 1 auto so far, a Gorilla Glue, it does the job, but makes me wonder what other auto strains are like and which one's are special.

 

[nickeluring]

I defoliate a little bit in veg if needed to expose hidden bud sites. After autos have started to flower there's no reason to treat autos any different to photos. At the beginning of flower I defoliate to make sure all bud sites have light and airflow. I then make a heavier defoliation after 2-3 weeks when the plant has new foliage that covers things up. I usually defoliate pretty hard. Then usually again at around 40 days of flowering. In between and after I pick any leaves that block buds.

 

[Apoc]

She's a beauty! How did you find her to smoke/vape?
I have only grown 1 auto so far, a Gorilla Glue, it does the job, but makes me wonder what other auto strains are like and which one's are special.

The Sour Lowryder 2 if you finish a half gram bowl it's head banging for 4-5 hours. High yield average 9oz.

Critical Kush auto earthy taste and laid back high 4ish hours. Medium yield 7oz.

Zkittlez auto so many trichomes if you squeeze it it crunches, candy taste. Medium yield but it only got 200w light.

Northern lights very high yield but had to defoliate heavy.

So far grown well no difference from photoperiod high but yield is lower but finishes in 90 days. I enjoy the larger variety produced faster. I'm legal but don't sell so having a pound of one type would get old smoking it so autoflowering makes sense for me.

 

[multiVortex]

You should not defoliate an auto.

Beginners should not defoliate an auto, or a photo really. In general though, outside of that, the comment is bull squeeze.

If someone wants to do so, there is absolutely no reason not to do so. None. Zip. Zilch. Zero. But this is where experience comes into play, and why beginners should shy away from it much as they already helicopter parent their first few plants.

There's a trick to it, but if performed properly it actually turns into something beneficial to the plant. Here's why, in a big picture sense.

Autos start out producing veg hormones like crazy. After a couple weeks the flowering hormones start to build until they overtake and become the dominant hormone and they start to flower.

Now, during veg you can trick the plant into producing more veg hormones which results in a delay of that balance of hormonal power shift. You cannot delay it forever, but you can absolutely delay it enough to veg your plants a few weeks longer than they would have untouched.

The trick to it is light defoliation and pruning every other day. You don't want to do it all at once. Take a handful or so (a dozen or two) of leaves every couple of days, as well as a node or two that won't ever make the canopy anyway. The amount you take is kind of proportional to what the plant has available. The more bushy and more nodes it's pushing out, the better.

However, the best route is to start with topping first. Top above the 4th node, no later than day 21 from sprout (above ground, not seed cracking), and remove nodes 1 & 2. This should leave you with nodes 3 & 4. From there, use LST to keep it growing horizontally. You end up creating bushy plants, which produce a lot of leaves and nodes. This is good. This gives you something to gently snip on!

Now, keep it up until flowers show, and then let them begin to grow vertical. But we're not quite done yet.

During stretch, if you really, really need to, you can take more leaves to help curb the amount of stretch. It won't stop it, just slow it a hair. Once the stretch is over, then you can take more leaves to expose more bud sites to light. Once you're about 5 weeks into flower, you can do one final round to take all you need to get it opened up to light and air. (Note that we're talking about the water leaves, the big fans, not sugar leaves.)

That's that.


Doing this works. The gist of it is that by taking a little bit from it every other day kind of mimics an animal coming by for a little munch. This does stress the plant a little, but not in a bad way. This will cause it to produce more veg hormone to try and catch up to make sure it's as big as possible for entering the reproductive phase. So with more veg hormone being produces, it will take more flowering hormone than it would have to overtake the veg hormone and start to flower.


How well does it work?

17.25oz from this lovely auto, for starters. She was total cabbage, and made it really, really easy to defol/prune during veg. She vegged for about 2 months, actually 9 weeks but close enough. Then she took about 9-10 weeks to fully flower.


Which brings us to the downside of it all, and pretty much a 180* move from why most people run autos: speed.

When you do this to autos, it will delay them in veg a little longer. While this allows them to get bigger, it also means you are negating the main desirable trait of an auto: their ability to finish quicker than their photoperiod counterpart.

So really, unless there is a reason to run autos other than for their quicker turnaround, then it really won't be of any benefit. However, that by no means makes it a bad thing to do.

 

[Emilya Green]

Beginners should not defoliate an auto, or a photo really. In general though, outside of that, the comment is bull squeeze.

If someone wants to do so, there is absolutely no reason not to do so. None. Zip. Zilch. Zero. But this is where experience comes into play, and why beginners should shy away from it much as they already helicopter parent their first few plants.

There's a trick to it, but if performed properly it actually turns into something beneficial to the plant. Here's why, in a big picture sense.

Autos start out producing veg hormones like crazy. After a couple weeks the flowering hormones start to build until they overtake and become the dominant hormone and they start to flower.

Now, during veg you can trick the plant into producing more veg hormones which results in a delay of that balance of hormonal power shift. You cannot delay it forever, but you can absolutely delay it enough to veg your plants a few weeks longer than they would have untouched.

The trick to it is light defoliation and pruning every other day. You don't want to do it all at once. Take a handful or so (a dozen or two) of leaves every couple of days, as well as a node or two that won't ever make the canopy anyway. The amount you take is kind of proportional to what the plant has available. The more bushy and more nodes it's pushing out, the better.

However, the best route is to start with topping first. Top above the 4th node, no later than day 21 from sprout (above ground, not seed cracking), and remove nodes 1 & 2. This should leave you with nodes 3 & 4. From there, use LST to keep it growing horizontally. You end up creating bushy plants, which produce a lot of leaves and nodes. This is good. This gives you something to gently snip on!

Now, keep it up until flowers show, and then let them begin to grow vertical. But we're not quite done yet.

During stretch, if you really, really need to, you can take more leaves to help curb the amount of stretch. It won't stop it, just slow it a hair. Once the stretch is over, then you can take more leaves to expose more bud sites to light. Once you're about 5 weeks into flower, you can do one final round to take all you need to get it opened up to light and air. (Note that we're talking about the water leaves, the big fans, not sugar leaves.)

That's that.


Doing this works. The gist of it is that by taking a little bit from it every other day kind of mimics an animal coming by for a little munch. This does stress the plant a little, but not in a bad way. This will cause it to produce more veg hormone to try and catch up to make sure it's as big as possible for entering the reproductive phase. So with more veg hormone being produces, it will take more flowering hormone than it would have to overtake the veg hormone and start to flower.


How well does it work?

17.25oz from this lovely auto, for starters. She was total cabbage, and made it really, really easy to defol/prune during veg. She vegged for about 2 months, actually 9 weeks but close enough. Then she took about 9-10 weeks to fully flower.


Which brings us to the downside of it all, and pretty much a 180* move from why most people run autos: speed.

When you do this to autos, it will delay them in veg a little longer. While this allows them to get bigger, it also means you are negating the main desirable trait of an auto: their ability to finish quicker than their photoperiod counterpart.

So really, unless there is a reason to run autos other than for their quicker turnaround, then it really won't be of any benefit. However, that by no means makes it a bad thing to do.

I stand corrected. Thank you for providing common sense and proof.

 

[multiVortex]

I stand corrected. Thank you for providing common sense and proof.

You bet. There is a trick to it, and why it’s not first-grow type of stuff, but it does work out really well.

This go around I was trying for about a 6 week veg, and hit it close enough. More messing around than anything, but it further proved to me that what I knew was true. I could have messed with them longer, but was working within a timeline for later on.

 

[Stunger]

Beginners should not defoliate an auto, or a photo really. In general though, outside of that, the comment is bull squeeze.

If someone wants to do so, there is absolutely no reason not to do so. None. Zip. Zilch. Zero. But this is where experience comes into play, and why beginners should shy away from it much as they already helicopter parent their first few plants.

There's a trick to it, but if performed properly it actually turns into something beneficial to the plant. Here's why, in a big picture sense.

Autos start out producing veg hormones like crazy. After a couple weeks the flowering hormones start to build until they overtake and become the dominant hormone and they start to flower.

Now, during veg you can trick the plant into producing more veg hormones which results in a delay of that balance of hormonal power shift. You cannot delay it forever, but you can absolutely delay it enough to veg your plants a few weeks longer than they would have untouched.

The trick to it is light defoliation and pruning every other day. You don't want to do it all at once. Take a handful or so (a dozen or two) of leaves every couple of days, as well as a node or two that won't ever make the canopy anyway. The amount you take is kind of proportional to what the plant has available. The more bushy and more nodes it's pushing out, the better.

However, the best route is to start with topping first. Top above the 4th node, no later than day 21 from sprout (above ground, not seed cracking), and remove nodes 1 & 2. This should leave you with nodes 3 & 4. From there, use LST to keep it growing horizontally. You end up creating bushy plants, which produce a lot of leaves and nodes. This is good. This gives you something to gently snip on!

Now, keep it up until flowers show, and then let them begin to grow vertical. But we're not quite done yet.

During stretch, if you really, really need to, you can take more leaves to help curb the amount of stretch. It won't stop it, just slow it a hair. Once the stretch is over, then you can take more leaves to expose more bud sites to light. Once you're about 5 weeks into flower, you can do one final round to take all you need to get it opened up to light and air. (Note that we're talking about the water leaves, the big fans, not sugar leaves.)

That's that.


Doing this works. The gist of it is that by taking a little bit from it every other day kind of mimics an animal coming by for a little munch. This does stress the plant a little, but not in a bad way. This will cause it to produce more veg hormone to try and catch up to make sure it's as big as possible for entering the reproductive phase. So with more veg hormone being produces, it will take more flowering hormone than it would have to overtake the veg hormone and start to flower.


How well does it work?

17.25oz from this lovely auto, for starters. She was total cabbage, and made it really, really easy to defol/prune during veg. She vegged for about 2 months, actually 9 weeks but close enough. Then she took about 9-10 weeks to fully flower.


Which brings us to the downside of it all, and pretty much a 180* move from why most people run autos: speed.

When you do this to autos, it will delay them in veg a little longer. While this allows them to get bigger, it also means you are negating the main desirable trait of an auto: their ability to finish quicker than their photoperiod counterpart.

So really, unless there is a reason to run autos other than for their quicker turnaround, then it really won't be of any benefit. However, that by no means makes it a bad thing to do.

Thanks a lot for your post it is really interesting!

 

[Clancy2]

Every experiment I've read, of the benefits vs disadvantages of defoliation, has shown me that defoliation is not unly unecessary but will also reduce your potential harvest. Believe it or don't believe it: If you don't believe it you'll arguing with the science. Never mind Youtube "research"....read the studies.

 

[multiVortex]

Horseshit.

 

[Mdlroad]

I stand corrected. Thank you for providing common sense and proof.

This explains a lot why my gorilla glue autos took so long to flower. I'm a newbie and I defoliated a little about once a week.My girls are doing great. I just got lucky

 

[Apoc]

Beginners should not defoliate an auto, or a photo really. In general though, outside of that, the comment is bull squeeze.

If someone wants to do so, there is absolutely no reason not to do so. None. Zip. Zilch. Zero. But this is where experience comes into play, and why beginners should shy away from it much as they already helicopter parent their first few plants.

There's a trick to it, but if performed properly it actually turns into something beneficial to the plant. Here's why, in a big picture sense.

Autos start out producing veg hormones like crazy. After a couple weeks the flowering hormones start to build until they overtake and become the dominant hormone and they start to flower.

Now, during veg you can trick the plant into producing more veg hormones which results in a delay of that balance of hormonal power shift. You cannot delay it forever, but you can absolutely delay it enough to veg your plants a few weeks longer than they would have untouched.

The trick to it is light defoliation and pruning every other day. You don't want to do it all at once. Take a handful or so (a dozen or two) of leaves every couple of days, as well as a node or two that won't ever make the canopy anyway. The amount you take is kind of proportional to what the plant has available. The more bushy and more nodes it's pushing out, the better.

However, the best route is to start with topping first. Top above the 4th node, no later than day 21 from sprout (above ground, not seed cracking), and remove nodes 1 & 2. This should leave you with nodes 3 & 4. From there, use LST to keep it growing horizontally. You end up creating bushy plants, which produce a lot of leaves and nodes. This is good. This gives you something to gently snip on!

Now, keep it up until flowers show, and then let them begin to grow vertical. But we're not quite done yet.

During stretch, if you really, really need to, you can take more leaves to help curb the amount of stretch. It won't stop it, just slow it a hair. Once the stretch is over, then you can take more leaves to expose more bud sites to light. Once you're about 5 weeks into flower, you can do one final round to take all you need to get it opened up to light and air. (Note that we're talking about the water leaves, the big fans, not sugar leaves.)

That's that.


Doing this works. The gist of it is that by taking a little bit from it every other day kind of mimics an animal coming by for a little munch. This does stress the plant a little, but not in a bad way. This will cause it to produce more veg hormone to try and catch up to make sure it's as big as possible for entering the reproductive phase. So with more veg hormone being produces, it will take more flowering hormone than it would have to overtake the veg hormone and start to flower.


How well does it work?

17.25oz from this lovely auto, for starters. She was total cabbage, and made it really, really easy to defol/prune during veg. She vegged for about 2 months, actually 9 weeks but close enough. Then she took about 9-10 weeks to fully flower.


Which brings us to the downside of it all, and pretty much a 180* move from why most people run autos: speed.

When you do this to autos, it will delay them in veg a little longer. While this allows them to get bigger, it also means you are negating the main desirable trait of an auto: their ability to finish quicker than their photoperiod counterpart.

So really, unless there is a reason to run autos other than for their quicker turnaround, then it really won't be of any benefit. However, that by no means makes it a bad thing to do.

Bingo. You got it exactly right and I can confirm exactly what you are doing. I do it and get a good 16 zips or more. People are freaked out about it and in total denial while drinking the bro science kool-aid.

I have two going right now I ran 24 hours light for 50 days and defoliated then dropped the light schedule and they are massive. Harvesting the Amnesia Auto now and the White widow auto is still 3 weeks out.

Here's proof this method works.

 

[Mdlroad]

Bingo. You got it exactly right and I can confirm exactly what you are doing. I do it and get a good 16 zips or more. People are freaked out about it and in total denial while drinking the bro science kool-aid.

I have two going right now I ran 24 hours light for 50 days and defoliated then dropped the light schedule and they are massive. Harvesting the Amnesia Auto now and the White widow auto is still 3 weeks out.

Here's proof this method works.

Most Impressive

 

[Apoc]

Just an update, the Amnesia Auto yielded 19 zips and there was about a zip and a half unweighed popcorn/larf I tossed in some MCT oil.

 

[multiVortex]

Just an update, the Amnesia Auto yielded 19 zips and there was about a zip and a half unweighed popcorn/larf I tossed in some MCT oil.

The methods work. Ain’t no denying it whatsoever.

 

[Stunger]

@Apoc & @multiVortex, super impressive your feats with autos!

I grew a Gorilla Glue auto last year which a grow buddy also grew one of the same seeds on the same germination day. His finished 2 or 3 weeks before mine, but his was grown untrained in Christmas tree fashion, whereas I LST'd mine and I noticed the effect you guys mentioned, that the plant then stays longer in veg, which I think is a good thing as then it's veg base is bigger to grow more buds ( for what it's worth, I got maybe a third more than what his plant yielded). So I can see how a little training can impact vegging and cause the plant to stay longer in veg, and it makes sense that removing a few leaves a day will cause this too, I noticed how restraining the plant with LST had that same effect.

However, it seems you are then defoliating perhaps in the 4th or 5th week of flowering, how 'robustly' are you defoliating? Is it like Schwazzing where the plant is almost denuded of leaves, or is it just maybe removing, say, a third of them? I'd love to see a pic or two after such a defoliation of one those heavy weight beauties that were posted above, to see to what level of leaves were the plants reduced to.

I have done defoliation previously but in those cases I believe the nutrition available to the plants was quite deficient and so I think that was the reason that I didn't notice any massive different in yield (it makes sense right? No point bitching about something not working if the plants are struggling for other reasons). On my previous grow, I carried out what I'd call a light defoliation that was not really too much more than pruning leaves from shading bud sites. On that grow I felt the nutrition available to the plants was better and the 2 main plants gave me 8.5oz and nearly 11oz, but I didn't think the leaf removal in that case made any difference, it may well have done, but it just didn't strike me that in that particular grow that it did much, as I think in hindsight that grow was also borderline needing a little bit more oomph in the soil. And now on my current grow I feel the nutrition available to my plants is even better again this year (I grow in organic living soil that was further amended over Winter), the current plants have been flowering for a month now and are still nice and lush and green from watering only with some worm wee added in.

So... sorry about the preamble, but I had been thinking that given that I feel my current plants are looking the best I have so far achieved, I was thinking of just letting them continue with minimum leaf removal, where I just remove the odd leaves that block bud sites, but now on reading this, I wonder if I should do more. After all nutritionally speaking, I feel that they are very happy and they don't appear to currently be in need of anything. I actually germinated the plants 2 months later than last year with the intention of growing smaller plants that would produce less dank smell, as last year I got 23oz from 3 plants and I experienced a little stress on whether others in the neighbourhood were also smelling them (I am growing on my balcony 20 feet from neighbours). I feel my soil this year is even better and now the plants look pretty big already surprisingly enough for their later germination. Last year I pretty strictly supercropped all the colas to be pretty flat. This year I have still kept them within my stealth height (they are no more than 2 feet high), but I started supercropping earlier and lower, as I wanted to let the colas grow longer vertically for the nice baseball bat appearance.

I'll post a couple of pics. My photos are always taken into the sun unfortunately, so the plants often appear overly dark and shaded but the main one is probably 3.5 feet or so across, so side on she is always going to look dark. I have tried to keep her canopy constrained as otherwise the larger they are the more of challenge it is to care for them. Anyway, I'd be interested in any thoughts on defoliation or not for her, how much a difference could it make? Any thoughts much appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Balcony girls as viewed from the side window - 23/Feb/21

• Stunger
• Feb 24, 2021

Godfather OG - 24/Feb/21

• Stunger
• Feb 24, 2021

p.s. these aren't autos but presumably it's all the same with photos.

 

[Mdlroad]

@Apoc & @multiVortex, super impressive your feats with autos!

I grew a Gorilla Glue auto last year which a grow buddy also grew one of the same seeds on the same germination day. His finished 2 or 3 weeks before mine, but his was grown untrained in Christmas tree fashion, whereas I LST'd mine and I noticed the effect you guys mentioned, that the plant then stays longer in veg, which I think is a good thing as then it's veg base is bigger to grow more buds ( for what it's worth, I got maybe a third more than what his plant yielded). So I can see how a little training can impact vegging and cause the plant to stay longer in veg, and it makes sense that removing a few leaves a day will cause this too, I noticed how restraining the plant with LST had that same effect.

However, it seems you are then defoliating perhaps in the 4th or 5th week of flowering, how 'robustly' are you defoliating? Is it like Schwazzing where the plant is almost denuded of leaves, or is it just maybe removing, say, a third of them? I'd love to see a pic or two after such a defoliation of one those heavy weight beauties that were posted above, to see to what level of leaves were the plants reduced to.

I have done defoliation previously but in those cases I believe the nutrition available to the plants was quite deficient and so I think that was the reason that I didn't notice any massive different in yield (it makes sense right? No point bitching about something not working if the plants are struggling for other reasons). On my previous grow, I carried out what I'd call a light defoliation that was not really too much more than pruning leaves from shading bud sites. On that grow I felt the nutrition available to the plants was better and the 2 main plants gave me 8.5oz and nearly 11oz, but I didn't think the leaf removal in that case made any difference, it may well have done, but it just didn't strike me that in that particular grow that it did much, as I think in hindsight that grow was also borderline needing a little bit more oomph in the soil. And now on my current grow I feel the nutrition available to my plants is even better again this year (I grow in organic living soil that was further amended over Winter), the current plants have been flowering for a month now and are still nice and lush and green from watering only with some worm wee added in.

So... sorry about the preamble, but I had been thinking that given that I feel my current plants are looking the best I have so far achieved, I was thinking of just letting them continue with minimum leaf removal, where I just remove the odd leaves that block bud sites, but now on reading this, I wonder if I should do more. After all nutritionally speaking, I feel that they are very happy and they don't appear to currently be in need of anything. I actually germinated the plants 2 months later than last year with the intention of growing smaller plants that would produce less dank smell, as last year I got 23oz from 3 plants and I experienced a little stress on whether others in the neighbourhood were also smelling them (I am growing on my balcony 20 feet from neighbours). I feel my soil this year is even better and now the plants look pretty big already surprisingly enough for their later germination. Last year I pretty strictly supercropped all the colas to be pretty flat. This year I have still kept them within my stealth height (they are no more than 2 feet high), but I started supercropping earlier and lower, as I wanted to let the colas grow longer vertically for the nice baseball bat appearance.

I'll post a couple of pics. My photos are always taken into the sun unfortunately, so the plants often appear overly dark and shaded but the main one is probably 3.5 feet or so across, so side on she is always going to look dark. I have tried to keep her canopy constrained as otherwise the larger they are the more of challenge it is to care for them. Anyway, I'd be interested in any thoughts on defoliation or not for her, how much a difference could it make? Any thoughts much appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Balcony girls as viewed from the side window - 23/Feb/21

• Stunger
• Feb 24, 2021

Godfather OG - 24/Feb/21

• Stunger
• Feb 24, 2021

p.s. these aren't autos but presumably it's all the same with photos.

I'm a newbie 1st grow. Running gg autos. I defoliated lightly a few times a week not knowing you shouldn't defoliate autos. Turns out it was a good thing. It did delay flowering to the point I thought I had photos. Now I have nice looking girls lots of buds. There is such a thing as begginers luck