fan leaf pruning

[puff puff pass]

i just cut all my fan leaves yesterday and my buddy said i ruined my crop. this is my first time growing and i need some advise on what to do. is there something out there to fix the problem, or should i chalk it up as a loss?

 

[kiksroks]

Yeah, I'm the buddy. Way to go dude!

Is there any hope?

These plants (ak47) were in week 3 of flowering and were lush and green. He's growing indoor in soil under a 400w hps. In a small closet with good airflow/temps.

 

[dman1234]

well, you need fan leaves to grow the bud so it doesnt look good,
in the future never cut off any fan leaves at all just let em fall off,
the only thing i cut off are the useless bottom branches 1 week before i start flowering

 

[DonJones]

puff puff pass,

Why in the Hell did you do that? I'm sure you were given some kind of advice to do it, but that doesn't even make sense that early into flowering. AK47s are known for taking around 9-10 weeks in flower. What do you think is going to do the photosynthesis to feed the plant now?

So far as I know, you are SOL on "fixing" it now. All you can do is to ride it out and see if they recover. I'd cut your nutes way back and maybe try flipping it back into veg until you get new growth to replace those missing leaves.

This is just a friendly piece of advice, but ALWAYS ask for advice BEFORE taking radical action like that, especially if you are not real experienced at growing. This advice is the result of a lifetime of acting first and then asking after I have really screwed something up. Fortunately I haven't done anything quite that bad with my plants yet, but I'm fairly sure that if you give me enough time I will.

GOOD LUCK.

Great smoking.


Hopefully, some one may know of something you can do and will share it.

 

[Closetfarmer]

I believe the fan leaves should stay for the most part...they are responsible for the majority of the photosynthesis that makes the plant grow...IMO removing them will be detrimental to the final product. I only remove leaves that are over half dead, or yellowed or whatever.

 

[redbud123]

Just leave them alone, keep watering and see what happens. Don't panic. There should be pleanty of leaf area on the buds to keep them alive. We don't ever deleaf except yellow dead leaves. We aloso use very sharp, clean clipperrs when removing any leaf.

 

[legalize_freedom]

you probably just cut your yeild in half or more...they will probably survive, and you should get a little bit of smokables...but not nearly what you would have, or should have been able to get from a good AK pheno. It's normally not hard to pull a qp per plant with AK....live and learn!

As far as yellowed leaves you need to leave them to, all my leaves are yellow right now because I'm 7 weeks into flower, and haven't fed much (N) for awhile, but they still need those leaves regardless of the color. I only prune a leaf if it is dead and brown.

 

[Rosebud]

I think of the roses that are completely defoliated and have big roses on top. These wonderful people here know a lot, so I would assume you have lowered your harvested weight. Breathe, breathe again. Like they said, ride it out and see what happens. I bet you don't do it again. I don't think you go to hell or anything if the fan leaf God finds you.

 

[Jericho]

So far as I know, you are SOL on "fixing" it now. All you can do is to ride it out and see if they recover. I'd cut your nutes way back and maybe try flipping it back into veg until you get new growth to replace those missing leaves.

was just wondering, couldn't that cause it to hermie if the lights go back to 24/7 again after being 12/12? or is it to far along for that?

 

[kiksroks]

I went and saw the hacked up plants. It's not as bad as i thought. He didn't remove all of the fan leaves. But he did remove all of the large fan leaves. Still quite a bit of nice healthy foliage. He asked me about cutting them a while back and I told him to leave them alone. I guess he thought he'd outsmart mother nature. LOL. Poor plants

 

[OldHippieChick]

Well just move on - what's done is done.... I'm coming up on 7th week in flowering on a WW and all the fan leafs are dead and they were dead or dieing around the same time (3weeks) but I got plenty of bud growing. I don't care if my yield is half what it could have been..... I just want to see this through to harvest. Not saying the advice here is wrong.... not at all. But go with what you got and don't beat yourself up. Call it a learning experience.... just one more mistake you never have to make again.

 

[Locked]

Like I say to a lot of new growers...sometimes the best way to learn something is hands on and not through reading it in a book or on a web page...you made a big mistake but so what...learn from it and continue on...you won't make this mistake again i bet...

 

[zem]

i dont understand why this keeps happening like once every week or two we get a grower who does that to his plants they remove the fan leaves claiming they want light to penetrate down but down where? to the medium? healthy fan leaves are what we all want to see when growing, when i see them big and healthy i know i will yield good big bud

 

[leafminer]

Me, I like digging around in the roots with a sharp knife. People have told me that it helps the nutrients penetrate into the plant better.

 

[Dr.Autoflower]

ya i was told that old wise tale a long time ago too. usally i got info like that from big talkers who wanna look like they know everything about everything but really there pullin the info out of there asses. Always be on the watch for those IAP's (Info *** pullers) Research is your friend.

 

[kiksroks]

ya i was told that old wise tale a long time ago too. usally i got info like that from big talkers who wanna look like they know everything about everything but really there pullin the info out of there asses. Always be on the watch for those IAP's (Info *** pullers) Research is your friend.

I couldn't have said it better. He won't tell me where he got the idea...

 

[legalize_freedom]

Like I said and a few others...live and learn. I have done the same thing, luckily mine was years ago, outside and it was still in veg, so it bounced back.

You could flip them back to veging if you wanted to, but it will take quiet a bit of time for them to fully revert back to the vegative state, I would say that you should be okay to keep flowering them...all you have done is decreased your yeild, and possably prolonged the flowering time...but you learned a lesson here, so it wasn't in vain!

Like OHC said don't beat yourself up about it. I've been growing for a long time, and I still make stupid mistakes...water stuff and realize that I forgot to adjust the pH, or dang it did I already put this in that jug??...it happens alot...we are human. Good Luck with the rest of your grow!

 

[ta2dguy]

:rofl: @ bluntman. IAP's lmoa. i once had a buddy try and tell me the best thing to do is take off all the fan leaves cuz this will help push all the nutrients into the buds blah, blah, blah. we both grew from the same batch of seeds and kept conditions close to the same but after 4 weeks into flower he ripped off all the fan leaves and i didnt. his buds were alot looser, like they were trying to grow new leaves instead of bud, and just a little over half the weight of the nice tight dense buds i grew with keeping the fan leaves intact. i dunno if this sells you on the point but it did my buddy. i also learned a long time ago to, as stated before, not to trust very many people when it comes to weed growing and what to do. i got books and now the internet, no more uninformed attempts by me anymore. i believe the plants will be ok they will probably take a little longer than normal to finish and may not be the weight you would expect but will still produce some good smoke. i hope things work out for you. happy growing.

 

[LEFTHAND]

Me, I like digging around in the roots with a sharp knife. People have told me that it helps the nutrients penetrate into the plant better.

my gramma dose this in the garden
LH

 

[leafminer]

My gran used to think that if there was nothing plugged in to the electrical sockets, electricity would 'leak out'.