Is this leaf stripping too heavy?

[MarkoPolo420]

Hi there fellas!

Strain: fat zkittlez
Begining of Week 3 of flower
Medium: soil

Was wondering: how much do I actually need to remove when it comes to leaf stripping? Is this acceptable, or is it to much?

Secondary question: do I have to do one last leaf stripping when they begin to show trichomes??

Greetings

Marko

 

[013]

Hey Marko,

We have a strong dislike for blurple pics, it’s really hard to see anything. Next time please drop power on the blurples and turn camera flash on

Defol is controversial some swear by it - others swear at it. Light is food for the plant nutes are simply vitamin pills. So if light is food then wouldn’t it be wise to keep all the fan leaves which gather food? Yes we have read about defol & schwazzing and all that crap but the plant works to gather nutes then stores them in the fan leaves, fan leaves are also used for transpiration & many other functions. Often a week after defol she will have pushed out more fan leaves to replace the ones removed. Seems counterproductive to take energy away from making buds to grow more fan leaves since someone went all Edward Scissorhands on the garden. I’m sure a few may rake me over the coals for comments but that’s cool too.

I’m into running marathons and training for one this fall, I monitor my weight like a hawk. I’m thinking about cutting my feet off cuz that’s like 8 pounds of extra weight. Will this help me run faster???

while it’s piss poor analogy it does make one think, here is another recent thread on the subject for your perusal Defol in early flower

my 2 cents but please consider all opinions

 

[Morda Grown]

First I grow outdoors and conditions are different than indoors...

There should always be a reason for taking off leaves. Some say there is never a reason... Doing it just because someone says to is not a good reason. Doing it to increase air flow under a scrog would be IMO. General rule is to not take off more than 1/3 of the plants leaves. One reason is to keep leaves off the soil to prevent mold. One plant I did a more heavy defoiling on got a fungus anyway...

This year I cut way back on my trimming on most of my plants. I have been doing a tuck method and see my main fan leaves now deep in the plant. They are no longer covering my growing branches with shade. Before taking leaves off always ask your self "What is my purpose and end goal." If your answer is because I was told this or told that... Do more research. In the end I see both methods having a purpose.

 

[bluter]

defol is most often done in veg. a lot of growers do one defol as well at 2 wks past flipping the light schedule. this is just normally done to clean up the bottoms that don't get light penetration, and some of the excess.

a standard for defol is 10 - 25% of the leaves. go with the lower side in flower. once the plant is in flower it does not grow new leaves. whatever you have needs to get you through flower. the leaves are a store of nutrients the plant can pull from when needed. just keep that in mind.

do not defol more than the one time in flower.

 

[NuttyProfessor]

Yes and another thing the buds will grow a lot of leaves, i trimmed a shit load off my one this time , was getting mites , though i do not care as i want frosty leaves for trim to make oil ,some people do not like the leafy bud .

example and still ok for an auto , it will still get me stoned

 

[013]

Marko - it’s all good. No matter what yiu choose we will try to support you. Didn’t mean for that to sound negative, your plants will recover and do fine!

 

[NuttyProfessor]

They do not look too bad once you trim them though