My Gold Leaf have humongous fan leaves at the upper part of the plant. If you lift them up there is growth underneath that is certainly not getting much light because it is shaded by the larger leaf above. To trim it off or not to trim it off, that is the question.
6 Likes
That growth will probably go past the fan leaves in the next couple of days, but you can most likely tuck the leaf instead of cutting it.
7 Likes
Personally I would leave ( no pun intended ) them go a week or so to see if they branch out on their own. If still tight in a week or so trim the leaves back. I have found that those sugar leaves will generally turn yellow and fall on their own.
6 Likes
Thanks, I’ll take the wait and see approach for now. What is “tuck”.
2 Likes
push, fold, or turn (the edges or ends of something, especially a garment or bedclothes) so as to hide them or hold them in place.
We tuck big energy-producing leaves behind other leaves/buds that aren’t getting light. This keeps them there but allows the previously blocked leaves/buds to get light. You don’t want to cut many fan leaves off when they are little, that’s their engine! With that energy, they will grow and when they do, the leaves that were blocked suddenly grow out of that into the light. The more leaves you have producing energy for the plant, the faster your plant can grow. And produce more leaves to fuel the plant. It’s a great cycle!
5 Likes
You may also consider turning down the intensity of your lights or raising them up higher to encourage your plants to stretch a bit.
3 Likes
would be my suggestion 
2 Likes
I have same issue on stretch with a crack. I opened her a bit…cant tell…and have pulled 10 clones and 3 defoliates. Still wont stretch. Very thick. Put farther from light no help. Some just dont get tall.
Flipped last week. I let the leaves stay. Fans feed the WHOLE plant not just the immediate area. Hoping she will open in stretch. Let her keep her hair now i believe. This girl has been a fat little toad like yours whole way.
2 Likes
This is an interesting topic, because I have the exact same situation with this OG kush. I’ve never had a plant like this, nor have I ever grown under an led before (new hlg 350r). I just transplanted it today into a 7 gal. pot.
3 Likes
Impo with photoperiod plants you can most definitely remove a few leafa here and there within a week or 2 youl never even know they where missing these plants are extremely hardy and typically bounce back with a vengeance now if we are talking autoflowers id suggest leaving it and just tucking but with photos i have no hesitation to pluck realistically its personal preference
2 Likes
You went the right way for first led for sure.
You guys are awesome. Thanks for the input
1 Like
First timer myself. Running the same light as you now. Despite starting off under an inferior light for the first couple weeks my girls are short like yours. I have them at the minimum DLI for veg with the light as high as I can get it in my tent. Hoping that they stretch a bit. If not I hope it’s like the old addage and big things come in small packages…
Welcome to the community , your plants look great. Gold leaf produce some big fan leafs. I have grown several gold leaf plants , You gotta get pretty creative tucking some of those big leafs and you can also take a few along the way. From my experience it’s also good to start spreading the plant out early For better light penetration. Good luck
1 Like
You can manipulate the plant by cutting it as well. Not the entire leaf but I clip the edges to make it think it’s being eaten.
Clipping the top of the plants leaves will make it bush out while clipping lower leaves will make it naturally sprout upward.
They do this as a defense mechanism for survival. We use it to make our plants how we need them to be.
This being said is clip the ends of some lower growth and have it jump up to give the branches some space then clip the ends of the upper leaves once they have enough exposure to bush her out again.
Nice looking plants
4 Likes
Thats interesting,
Tuck your leaves in
1 Like
