Trimming / Budding Experiment

[Strawberry Cough]

ok, so I was a little bored tonight, so I took one plant of the 4 flowering girls and trimmed off all of her fan leaves (only 4 & 1/2 weeks into 12/12).

I want to experiment to see if it is better to have the budding sites receive the light, or if the fan leaves are the important parts. After all, the flowers do have green leaves to do photosynthesis, and from my experience it is those buds at bottom which receive the least light that are the smallest.

So why not trim off the fan leaves, let more light in, and see which plants produce the biggest buds: the 3 that have not been trimmed at all, or the one that has all fan leaves trimmed and the only green is the buds and her spear leaves.

We will see.

 

[tester]

I would like to see the outcome of this

 

[leafminer]

You certainly will! That plant is going to stop budding and just sit there.
The buds at the bottom aren't smaller just because there is less light. It is because they are a long way down from the meristem and getting less hormones, nutrients, etc.

 

[BBFan]

That would be great if you could post some pics to show how the plant does compared to the other 3.

Guaranteed though that the question will come up again in another month or two.

With pics- maybe we can get it made into a sticky. Keep us posted. Thank you for your sacrifice.

 

[cmd420]

I'm so sorry!
sorry that you didn't post before doing this....

here's the deal...

your buds will not really grow anymore...

they will not really get anymore dense....

they will not get much bigger


you have pretty much stopped all growth for the rest of the plant's life...

I need to see pics, but just a guess is that you will probably get less than an ounce from that plant..

I did this..exactly what you did and exactly when you did it..

I was an idiot though cuz I did it to more than one plant and screwed my whole harvest...(at least you had the sense not to do that)

I got about 2 ounces under 2000w...totally sweet, huh?


You took all the growth factories (fan leaves)....buds don't really need light..

the fan leaves do .....to supply them with growth

I'm totally not trying to be harsh and I hope your experience isn't anything like mine..

post some pics for us to see...

 

[FA$TCA$H]

:yeahthat:

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

While there are some things that can be experimented with (flushing, molasses) and are up for debate, there are some things that we know to be a fact and are not really debatable. Any book on marijuana botany will tell you that the bulk of photosynthesis takes place through the big fan leaves. You need them for bud production. The little sugar leaves on your buds are not nearly enough leaf surface. Your plant will certainly suffer.

Next time you are bored, may I suggest donating some time to someone less fortunate...

 

[ASEgrower]

unlike some others I appluade you for doing this! Hopefully with pictures you can put an end to the "trim fan leaves" debate that crops up here.

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

unlike some others I appluade you for doing this! Hopefully with pictures you can put an end to the "trim fan leaves" debate that crops up here.

LOL--He isn't the first person here to have tried this--we had someone do this a while ago. We already really know the outcome. We are not going to change marijuana botany here.

 

[zem]

While there are some things that can be experimented with (flushing, molasses) and are up for debate, there are some things that we know to be a fact and are not really debatable. Any book on marijuana botany will tell you that the bulk of photosynthesis takes place through the big fan leaves. You need them for bud production. The little sugar leaves on your buds are not nearly enough leaf surface. Your plant will certainly suffer.

Next time you are bored, may I suggest donating some time to someone less fortunate...

:yeahthat: why not try some plants in the 24hour dark room plant it in wet cement and give it salt water and see what happens as well? there are facts and if you came to learn things it is to let you avoid any big mistakes, your grow was a long effort too bad you cut the leaves now, IMO thats not an experiment, how will these tiny bud leaves photosynthesize and give enough food for the buds to grow? simply no way and this is a fact

 

[ASEgrower]

LOL--He isn't the first person here to have tried this--we had someone do this a while ago. We already really know the outcome. We are not going to change marijuana botany here.

No one said he was the first, what I said was that if he takes pictures we will have something to show people when the question comes up again. Of course we know what the outcome will be, but pictures are much better than words.

 

[surreptitious]

some things i guess you have to learn on your own...i can understand that.

i would suggest if you were going to do this, do it, while it's still in veg and not halfway through bloom.

i'm experimenting with lollipopping right now, but i have a friend that lollipopped the hell out of one of his white rhinos. he topped it and then trained it. so he basically has 5 tops. he then removed all the leaves and branches below the tops. the tops were about 7-8 inches or so. then he hit them with bushmasters. then he veg'd for another 2 weeks. now, he's half way through flowering now and i'll be visiting him next week. i'm curious how they turned out.

his reasoning for doing this is he believes that the plant has so much potential energy and if you remove the stuff on the bottom where the "popcorn buds" will be then all the energy will be focused on the tops. he says it will make it easier to trim when harvest comes...5 big buds vs a bunch of popcorn everywhere.

i'm also curious about the before and after picutres. i hope it works out...

 

[BBFan]

Anyone who has any experience growing any type of plant knows what the outcome is going to be. This is not an experiment to learn anything new or change the laws of nature. It could be a great tutorial however, as this question seems to come up nearly once or so every month.

No one said he was the first, what I said was that if he takes pictures we will have something to show people when the question comes up again. Of course we know what the outcome will be, but pictures are much better than words.

Well said ASEgrower. With pics, perhaps Strawberry Cough can help a few first timers from making a horrible mistake.

I too, applaud the effort.... a thread with pics showing the trimmed plant with her untrimmed sisters will be a great tool to new growers in teaching them how to effectively trim their plants- and the consequences of going too far!

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

I apologize in advance, but I just could not help myself . Here is the link to another fan leaf trimming experiment: http://www.marijuanapassion.com/forum/showthread.php?t=38984

Hope everyone gets a chuckle out of this (as this is my intent).

 

[FA$TCA$H]

OMG! thank you THG! my wife keeps lookin at me laughin and wipin the tears from my face. goin, what? so i showed her the pics. now were both holdin our sides laughin. $

 

[Growdude]

ostpicsworthless:

 

[Growdude]

Buds at the bottom of your plant dont get big because there at the bottom and because there are so many.

Remove the lower branches and the plants potential energy moves to form bigger but fewer main cola's

This does not mean butcher the crap outa them, just look at the main stem and the points cola's will form.

Look at the WW monsters and you will see that there was many branches left and were allowed to grow tall to form monster cola's, the biggest buds ive ever seen grown indoors. Y ou had to lift your arm up in the air as to not drag the buds on the floor when going up the stairs.

 

[kaotik]

i agree with everyone about leaving them..
though i have a friend who strips nearly everything right when he goes into bloom.. and he has huge yeilds. i don't how he does it, always baffles me.
i'm not saying it's because of that (and i'd advise against stripping them) but it definatly doesn't stop/kill his plants.

 

[OGKushman]

I don't see any evidence posted about this. That thread about cutting off all the leaves is "overkill" and off topic.

At the end of EVERY harvest I cut the top half of my plants after a week long flush (3/4) of my crop). I lower the lights, re- nuts at half strength, and let the bottoms go for a few days on nutes. 2 weeks later I get another ~4 oz's and the bud is as dense as the first cuts.

Anyone who has dealt with powdery mildew know the importance of getting light down low to the other leaves.

Let me assure you that cutting off some fan leaves won't make the plant stop growing. That's halarious.

 

[zem]

I apologize in advance, but I just could not help myself . Here is the link to another fan leaf trimming experiment: http://www.marijuanapassion.com/forum/showthread.php?t=38984

Hope everyone gets a chuckle out of this (as this is my intent).

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: