Chris, Your observations are of the utmost importance…
Makes sense to me…I’ll explain but the explanation may be a little long-winded ! (What else is new?!)
Fan Leaves are a botanical expression of ‘luxury consumption’ remember when flower/bud formation begins there is a tremendous demand for metabolism and translocation of nutrients from the leaves to the flower/bud/fruit tissue. In veg those demands are not present so the plant expands the apical meristem and then grows huge leaves with the excess energy. You have probably noticed the same phenomenon when you prune some wood out of a tree…the following season you get some new vigorous suckers with leaves twice normal size…luxury consumption.
If you remove those fan leaves just prior to bloom, your remaining leaves are going ‘pedal to the metal’ to satisfy the bud demand and are most unlikely to have the excess energy to invest it in fan leaves !
Because we are treating with BBP, we are increasing the nutrient demand with additional budsites…so that again would seem to eliminate most luxury consumption !
Well my observation as far as defoliation on indoor plants is that all the light comes from above. On outdoor plants get sun or light from 180° more or less. This allows light penetration from the lower sides And through the top. When you’re growing indoor all your light is coming from the top. So leaving all the leaves inside and on the lower part of the plant are just excess baggage. A lot of times they’re very light green from lack of light sometimes they turn brown and wilt up. When that happens and it’s left unattended it leaves a place for undesirable things to grow bugs/disease. Also the fact that all of the flower inside the plant that doesn’t get any sun is fluffy less desirable flower. I am also very interested to see how Ravenchiefs grow turns out.
I’ve tried a lot of different ways of defoliation. I’ve come to the conclusion from my experimentation that the only bad way to defoliate, is to not do it. Although I have not tried this indoor I have outdoor. And on my outdoor that I tried it on I wound up with almost half my weight being fluffy hard to trim flower. And a whole lot more work cleaning up and trimming at harvest. This wasn’t a very pleasant experience.
Last grow I had done the week of introduction with light change and it did amazing each day an hr less till 12/12. Darkness I did a 36hr darkness before harvest will have to try the less light for sure this time around.
Damn man getting quite the haul of flower. Looks delicious my friend great job! I getting ready to pull down 15 strains. Just in time for my new trimmer to arrive! To do a test run of wet trimmed buds using a way over priced table lawnmower.
I am interested in your trimmer and your impressions of it after you get and use it. I looks like a pain to clean and I read that you have to clean it every hour of use. However the trimmed buds coming out of it look great!
I haven’t seen any real negative reviews on it, but I heard a few comment about having to clean it every hour when using it. But they were talking about running 10 or more pounds a day through it!
i hope i dont cut myself!
