Defoliation - A Controversial Subject
Over a winter I had read a number of articles about defoliation with plenty of pictures of before and after and also control plants that were not defoliated. All articles were for indoor gardens. I grow outdoors but figured the principles were the same.
I decided to give it a try. For better or worse, we'll never know, but here is my experience with defoliation.
Defoliated Jack Herer - Was also first experience with 'lollipopping' so was very cautious and not a lot was done. Just enough fan leaves were left on to power the buds. Would I have had a better plant if I did not defoliate it? We will never know. What I do know is it was the best plant I've grown so far. Many growers would be very happy with a few plants like this!
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Defoliated Master Kush - would I have had better plants if I had not defoliated? Again, we will never know. I do know that some(not all) buds from these plants will knock you on you arse! Enough leaves were kept on to power the buds.
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NON-Defoliated Super Skunk Beautiful plant. Nice yield. Hard to see anything about the buds. The potency was nowhere near the defoliated plants. However, this was not a scientific experiment and there are just too many variables to consider to be able to say that defoliated plants are better than non-defoliated plants. I am simply reporting what happened to me the one time I tried it. I can say for certain that I had a whole lot more trimming to do!!!
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****KEEP IN MIND
This was in no way a controlled scientific experiment. This is just a report of the village idiot trying something new. I can offer up no provable facts to support defoliating or not defoliating plants. I can only show what happened when I did and did not defoliate.
Longball