Well guys.... it has been a long day of reading as much info as I could on this subject... as was stated above there sure seems to be alot of arguement over this issue. I looked at plant encyclepidias, gardening sites, pot sites, grow journals, etc and it seems the community is 50/50 split. What I did notice is it is much more accepted in other forms of horticulture.
Now I want you to understand that I am the kind of guy that needs to know how soming works, I honestly refused to fly in a plane till I knew what forces (lift etc.) kept the plane from falling from the sky.
When it came to this subject I really thought I had the knowledge to form an opinion and stick with it, but I see now that there were many things I did not consider when forming this descision. I have to thank you guys on this thread for challenging my assumptions and forcing me to do some good research.
I will say that in all my looking around there is some incredible yeilds being pulled in using this technique. I saw no side by side studies but there is deffinately some creedance to the whole idea. Although this began to sway my opinion I still needed some reason and science to back it up.... I think I may have found a couple of answers to help understand the results.
First off I will adrees the stance of Fractal Displacement. A plant is a fractal, it maintains the same structure below the soil as it does above the soil. It maintains this balance internally. If you cut half a tree down it will shut down half of it's root system since it no longer needs it and it will focus all of it's energy/nutrients to repairing the fractal balance... growing back what it has lost. As the tree grows more it then either begins using the dormant roots or grows new ones to replace them. Now in nature this would not mean much... but indoors where we have full control over the factors of light and nutrients this can be used for our benefit.
If I cut leaves off of my plant, the plant wants to replace that growth and durring a veg state it will use the nitrogen rich soil to produce more leaves, but when it happens in a flowering stage it is in a P +K rich soil and it replaces that mass with flowers since that is the nutrient it has an abundace of. On that same note it does also produce more leaves using it's limited suply of nitrogen. Hence by removing leaves the plant is replacing the mass with flowers. Does this make sense?... It seems to...
Now there is also the subject of leaves producing energy and resperation.
The function of the leaf is to breath in Co2, combine that with cloryphil to produce a carbohydrate (sugar energy) and exhale oxygen. So the leafs main job is giving the plant it's power. The plant sprends it's power in many ways but also in the transportation of fluids and nutrients. By removing the fan leaves I can see how the plant would have far less work to do therfore requiring less energy. The shaded leaves would the recieve enough extra light to fully replace the energy that was lost by the fan leaves. Once again this seems to make sense.... It would then allow the leaves nearest the bud to provide direct energy without the cost to transport that energy from a large leaf.
Suddenly it starts to look feasible... Mr."that would be Impossible" might have to eat a little pride here.
Lastly I want to chat about the fact that taking the leaves seems to increase the amount of budsites. This also does't seem to complicated. When you cut a branch it grows two more, so cutting off a leave could certainly force the plant to grow or develop another shute/bud site.
Well that is the end of my post. This experience has been eye opening and I am really looking forward to trying this. I keep great controls in my room and will be able to tell if it is beneficial. I will keep you informed via a jounal.
Thanx guys for pushing me to gain more knowledge.
Jonny
Now I want you to understand that I am the kind of guy that needs to know how soming works, I honestly refused to fly in a plane till I knew what forces (lift etc.) kept the plane from falling from the sky.
When it came to this subject I really thought I had the knowledge to form an opinion and stick with it, but I see now that there were many things I did not consider when forming this descision. I have to thank you guys on this thread for challenging my assumptions and forcing me to do some good research.
I will say that in all my looking around there is some incredible yeilds being pulled in using this technique. I saw no side by side studies but there is deffinately some creedance to the whole idea. Although this began to sway my opinion I still needed some reason and science to back it up.... I think I may have found a couple of answers to help understand the results.
First off I will adrees the stance of Fractal Displacement. A plant is a fractal, it maintains the same structure below the soil as it does above the soil. It maintains this balance internally. If you cut half a tree down it will shut down half of it's root system since it no longer needs it and it will focus all of it's energy/nutrients to repairing the fractal balance... growing back what it has lost. As the tree grows more it then either begins using the dormant roots or grows new ones to replace them. Now in nature this would not mean much... but indoors where we have full control over the factors of light and nutrients this can be used for our benefit.
If I cut leaves off of my plant, the plant wants to replace that growth and durring a veg state it will use the nitrogen rich soil to produce more leaves, but when it happens in a flowering stage it is in a P +K rich soil and it replaces that mass with flowers since that is the nutrient it has an abundace of. On that same note it does also produce more leaves using it's limited suply of nitrogen. Hence by removing leaves the plant is replacing the mass with flowers. Does this make sense?... It seems to...
Now there is also the subject of leaves producing energy and resperation.
The function of the leaf is to breath in Co2, combine that with cloryphil to produce a carbohydrate (sugar energy) and exhale oxygen. So the leafs main job is giving the plant it's power. The plant sprends it's power in many ways but also in the transportation of fluids and nutrients. By removing the fan leaves I can see how the plant would have far less work to do therfore requiring less energy. The shaded leaves would the recieve enough extra light to fully replace the energy that was lost by the fan leaves. Once again this seems to make sense.... It would then allow the leaves nearest the bud to provide direct energy without the cost to transport that energy from a large leaf.
Suddenly it starts to look feasible... Mr."that would be Impossible" might have to eat a little pride here.
Lastly I want to chat about the fact that taking the leaves seems to increase the amount of budsites. This also does't seem to complicated. When you cut a branch it grows two more, so cutting off a leave could certainly force the plant to grow or develop another shute/bud site.
Well that is the end of my post. This experience has been eye opening and I am really looking forward to trying this. I keep great controls in my room and will be able to tell if it is beneficial. I will keep you informed via a jounal.
Thanx guys for pushing me to gain more knowledge.
Jonny
