Hey guys, this is my first grow and I have trimmed my girl in the past I was wondering if I need to. I have good airflow and light but she is getting bushy. I’ve watched videos and read articles but I’m still leery on Lolipopping and trimming so much off.Any advice would be much appreciated especially tips as well LOL
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Never defoliate unless the health of the plant is at risk. The first thing I’d do is open the plant out by spreading branches apart: either supercropping or LST, depending on photo vs auto.
I do strip leaves around week 3 of flower and then ongoing as leaves yellow and die.
Lollipopping is really a technique reserved for just before harvest.
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I appreciate your response!Yeah she’s very healthy, she’s a photo. I did some LST to her two biggest branches I will go in and do the rest! I always hear on videos that If you want nice big buds you have to defoliate! I’ve been very skeptical about this. So I should just keep an eye out for wilting or yellowing fan leaves and remove those as they pop up correct?
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Really; just apply a little common sense. The leaves on a plant are both the ‘engine’ that produces sugars for flower production but also act as a reservoir of nutrients for the plant to use over time. Now if you have top of the line lighting and plenty of it you can give up some surface area. In general though you won’t be able to match sunlight and plants do just fine without any ‘help’ from us haha.
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"Sun"light being the key factor… outdoors defoliation is barely needed, indoors it can be very beneficial. Bur it is a very fine line and less is mostly more.
also two techniques that aim at diffrent things.
one
getting rid of lower growth that has no chance to reach direct light, doing this will give the plant surplus energy to put into the Canopy. done once or twice before and/or after flip
Two
Getting rid of fan leaves that shadow budsites done after stretch.
If you don’t know what you do… Less is more… Do one branche observe the differences…
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All of the above at 3 weeks into flower
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Just curious why?
what’s the common sense behind it?
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Fan leaves start to drop about week 3 and this is the time to strip the lower third of plant if needed. There is another round of leaf removal at about 6 weeks. I find I usually just pluck leaves as they break down, making the second defoliation unnecessary. All of that said, plants are on a spectrum so you can have a real self-pruning plant with few leaves near harvest or the plant could look like a tarantula lol. You as a grower have to decide.
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