My first attempt at defoliation was a flop! I did 2 of my 5 plants (which are 4 weeks old). I removed all the fan leaves and many of them resulted in tearing a strand of skin away from the stem! I guess the only positive note is I read more before doing it to all 5 plants. Going in I was nervous and did some reading, but I guess not enough. Do you think the 2 plants I massacred will recover? I suppose for the remaining 3 plants I could just remove some of the largest leaves using a scissors so as not to tear. Or I could just leave them alone, maybe defoliation is not for me?
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Pics would help. 4 weeks old should jeed much defoiliation
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This is a terrible plan my friend. Why would you remove all of her energy making solar panels? Can you post some plant pics so we can see your current situation please. Typically there is a strategic plan when doing defol, often we are removing inner canopy growth for better circulation and lollipoping all growth from the lower 1/3 of the plant.
But never fear, these plants are very resilient and if they are photos you can veg longer while waiting on new growth to fill back in.
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yah, I was ignorant, now I know. They are autoflowers so it’s a dire error. I basically removed every single fan leaf.
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These plants, shoot, most plants are pretty tough. Give it chance. If you can, post some pics. If it’s got a decent root system it might recover. Being an auto it is more of an issue but I’d give it every chance until it gives up on itself.
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Ohnwow… 3 4 5 are great… 1 and 2 should bounce back but you added a week or 2 to them finishing… so the thing with defoilation. Less is more… really try to leave the plants alone untill they are done with the strevh… then lollipo and defoiliate
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This is my first grow so I don’t really know what “the stretch” is yet. When I defoliate (after the stretch) approx. how many of the fan leaves should I leave on? 50%? 80%?
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Anything on the bottom 1/3 of the plant. And then any leave blocking bud sites
In this pic its anything below the black line
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Never be afraid to ask questions here before you do things your unsure of. A lot of great guys and gals here that love to help… i just started my 3rd grow so still a lot to learn on ny part also
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Not as bad as I imagined. I pictured sticks. At least you spoke up. @Mmanson1981 is getting you on track. We are all learning and this place is full of folks that want to help us all. I think you’ve avoided catastrophe on those two.
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Did you snip the leaves or pinch and pull with your fingers? Just curious. Doesn’t really hurt, just not common practice.
Your plants will be fine, just let them kinda go. No need for all fan leaves to be removed, just ones taking up prime real estate, meaning they won’t tuck or you can’t move them from bud sites or something.
If they are autos, they maaaay be on the smaller side just because of recovery time and autos start flowering kinda whenever. If they’re photos, let them rest and recover, then proceed as normal.
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I used my fingers. Some of them broke off cleanly from the stalk, but others tore a strand of skin down the stalk. I read that is bad as it creates an entry point for disease and other problems. What I read now is snipping with a scissors or using your fingernail to get a clean cut next to the stalk is best.
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Yep. I do it all the time. Just pinch a little ways from the main stalk. Make sure you pinch through, though, or you’ll tug the plant. Dang thing are sturdy lol.
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Do you have a humidifier? If so next time you “defoliate” and happen to “skin” the stalk. Example I have a 2 gallon humidifier, I would put 1 PHed 5.7 gallon in tank and then second gallon 5.7ph with 2 teaspoons of 3% hydrogen peroxide into 2 gallon humidifier tank.
Honestly when my lung room starts to smell like moisture I do that mix an in 24 hours the tents and lung room all smell new and clean again.
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Use a pair of scissors to trim off unwanted leaves. Wipe the blades down with alcohol before trimming any leaves (and between plants) to reduce the chance of infection.
Only remove leaves if they are preventing air flow through the plant when it’s flowering. If the leaves aren’t restricting air flow around the flowers, don’t remove them.
If you have to remove leaves, only remove a few at a time and give the plant a couple of weeks between hair cuts.
Try not to trim or prune auto flower plants because they have a short lifecycle and you can stunt them and get virtually no flowers if you start pruning them. They just don’t get enough time to recover before flowering and that messes them up.
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@DanB
We have “all” made mistakes with our grows. You will survive.
You’ll be able to compare the two you defoliated to the non defoliated to see the impact over the remaining growth time.
Live and learn!
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Hey growmie!
One thing i didn’t see answered, you aren’t sure what “the stretch” is. Once your plants switch from veg to flowering, the plant will take off and really start to grow taller along the Colas structure. That’s called the stretch, and can double the plants height. Once they kick into flower lollipop and trim away, but be pretty selective. As others have said, autos have a limited time to do there thing, so you don’t want to impede that too much, and any time you cut something off it stresses the plant a bit.
Good luck!!
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5 days later and the stronger of the two plants I massacred is basically fully recovered. The other one is significantly smaller than the rest. I’m considering culling the small plant. I’m not sure exactly how big these plants will get, but I know a total of 4 in my 4x4 tent would give them all plenty of room.
Plants 3,4,5 for comparison
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Did you ever hear of buying a book on growing and doing some research?