Actually, it’s gone the other way in our open rec market. It was a huge fad for awhile here. Some small grows and med swear by it, but you go looking up large farms today, indoor and out, and you don’t really see defoliation anymore.
Perhaps it just boils down to being regulated by plant count vs plant canopy in square feet?
There are much fewer craps to give when you are regulated by plant area rather than plant count.
For example, people wanted 5 pound plants in med grows regulated by plant count. Makes sense, but I can grow 5 smaller plants for cheaper than 1 giant plant in the same area. I absolutely do not want 5lb plants. That just means more work. 1lb to 1.5lb plants are ideal from a throughput perspective.
As your market begins to flood in you area, be prepared to adjust your paradigm. Lowest cost wins every time.
In the CO market, we are limited by plant count. Most grows I’ve seen however, it’s not really a limitation. Many grows have adapted and are implementing perpetual harvest models to keep production in par.
I’ve only seen a couple outdoor farms actually defoliate “heavy-ish”. It’s not such a big deal outdoor (more airflow, more light, etc), plus it’s a huge job to try to get done in a timely manner.
I think it depends on your market. In my opinion the goal for a commercial operation is the best quality for the lowest price. Now depending on your level of acceptance that can mean a lot of things.
There are plenty of budget shoppers in CO looking for the $79,$89,$99 ounces. There are twice as many grows willing to be the suppliers to the budget shoppers because they know that means their price to produce a pound can be lower as well. And the profit margin is still decent. There are a lot of canna snobs too. That want to pay $400 ounces because it’s “heady”, and they believe it to be the best. These are going to mainly be supplied by sota greenhouses and indoor facilities. Which mean a higher cost to produce that same pound.
When you take the profit aspect out of the equation, many things change. I find defoliation to be therapeutic even if time-consuming. It gives me a chance to really inspect things too. In fact, it could be posited that those who inspect their plants this way, use fewer pesticides because we can get ahead of that need before it becomes an issue. Of course, I’m growing <25 plants while others are growing many many more than that. Thoughts?
Defoliating and pruning are my fav things to do! Its a great break up from moving pots and dirt, plus thats when we usually have the best conversations .
Thanks so much for sharing all the great pictures and numbers and experiences. That’s so great to have people that are leading the way to a better industry. I grow in soil, which is a different ball game when it comes to defoliation. Healthy plants typically expend up to 30 or even 40% of their photosynthate products on making microbial associations! That means that our large leaves have a lot of extra value. I’ve done some very rudimentary side by sides, trying to defoliate heavily in early flower, only to be very disappointed.
We definitely do quite a bit of shaping in veg, and some minimal pruning up and thinning out in early flower. I’ve found that we get the best results in really anticipating what any given strain will look like in flower, and trying to cater to that in veg pruning so that we hardly have to touch it in flower. Organically, we are currently yielding 40 - 45 lbs out of 10-light rooms. So that’s a nice 4.5 lbs/light number, but I will admit that we get a good amount of popcorn and trim. But hey, pre-rolls sell better than anything for us, and concentrates are becoming more and more popular it seems.
Another main focus is to keep plants pruned up enough for good air circulation and watering/top dressing/etc. underneath the canopy. But we grow big plants with a 6 week veg time. We have the room as our facility has a weird/large common area that can only be for veg.
I like a nice full canopy, but I always cringe a little bit when I see growers with these extremely tall and skinny plants that they’ve spent hours pruning to keep the canopy from getting too thick. (I’m not referring to your pics.) What a waste of energy (plant and human)! You don’t see other sects of agriculture try to push recommended plant spacing tighter - and for good reason. In growing cannabis, we don’t have a standard for this because we can veg for any time we choose, but I like to keep in mind that planting too dense increases risk of pests and disease and makes for stretchy plants that waste a lot of energy and inputs.
Ah ha! I couldn’t remember what topic this thread was posted under, but I’ve been meaning to get back to it. Sorry for the long delay.
So the 4.5 lbs per light includes dried and cured A buds, popcorn, and trim. No wet weigh or whole plant weight. 1150 watt DE HPS alone. Obviously there’s no magic bullet, it takes a little of everything to have your genetics yield to their potential. Genetics themselves are obviously key, but honestly we are not growing many strains that offer heavier than average yield. One influential factor is that we grow with low watts per square foot. Our license is limited by plant count, not canopy area here in CO.
Honestly, we need more light in our flowering rooms (we have much lower than average ppfd), but each new fixture added will probably lower our yield per light average just a little. (Update - we have added more light since this original post, and adding 20% more fixtures has decreased yield per light very little if at all, but there is certainly a point where the law of diminishing returns will kick in and efficiency will decrease.) Less light does mean less heat, so you save on your HVAC costs a little.
However, more light should help increase cannabinoid production and total yield. And higher yields from more light will make for greater net profit as long as the demand is there, even though it might lower overall production efficiency. So yeah, 4.5 lbs is very efficient per watt, but it’s not something I brag about. It has its trade-offs, especially if you have high demand and are limited by canopy area.
The relevant importance of efficiency in this industry is sure to catch up to the more-is-better bubble that we’ve been riding for a while, so I think room setup and lighting implementation are definitely worth revisiting fairly often as market prices shift.
The way i approach this is. No defoliation three weeks before flower. And no defol after week 4. Same goes for sprays. after week four. LEAVE IT ALONE. Defoliation is for air flow. and light obstructions from leaves, for lower buds.
We jumped from 1.5-2 pounds average a light, to a solid 2.7-2.98 a light of dired trimmed bud(including smalls) because of defoliation. All but 2 strains we have get full ( every single leaf) day 0 in Bloom, then just big fan leaves week 4-5 ish. I have played with our strains enough and they all very a little. The 2 strains that did not respond to week 0 defoliation get defoliated 2 weeks before they go into bloom and then another light big leaf at week 4 . There is no set rule on when and how much to defoliate a certain cut or strain ,you have to play with them to dial them in, but defoliation definitely plays a huge role in yield
There’s a lighting company called Thrive Agritech great led lights ! They also specialize in "under canopy " lighting yield increases a minimum of 10%.Worth checking them out.
I set up new grows in the Midwest and always have my clients use Thrive’s LED Lighting.
Nothing in it for me, I just like their lights, their quality, and the high quality people they have working for them.
