Good evening grow community.First thing I'm look for advice on I have some gigundore fan leaves is it ok to defoliate them in particular or are they needed im not saying take all of them but just a few in particular areas.........Next I'm just looking for a general consensus I'm hoping many will weigh in......How many weeks do you generally veg before flipping. Thanks everyone for all of your input
top of page
.png)
bottom of page
How many weeks do you guys generally veg for before flipping to flower
Hi,
Those girls look fine as is. Like @TnA Homegrown says, I would only defoliate if there are air flow issues and those girls look nice and breezy. And it looks like they still have some room to grow (if you want) before they go into flower.
What I usually do (unless they are super bushy!) is wait until about a week before I plan to flip them to 12/12 and then remove all the leaves on the bottom third of the plant (Called lollipopping).
Once they are in flower, I wait until middle/end of week 3 and then remove any leaves that are blocking bud sites. I start at the top and work my way down into the plant uncovering bud sites as I go. This is when I would remove some but not all fan leaves. If a fan leaf is on the outside of the plant or not blocking any bud sites I leave it be. I try not to remove more than 30% of the leaves, I feel taking more would stress the plant too much. After that, I may take the odd leaf here and there as things grow.
There is a lot of personal preference here. Some people strip almost all the leaves off in flower, others only prune where needed. I'm in the middle and will strip a lot off but there will still be plenty of leaves and a few fan leaves left when I am finished.
I would not take any leaves off of those plants yet…you should definitely look into LST and topping to make those plants more bushy… I veg my run I have going now for 5 1/2 weeks and they have filled my 5x5
i am one week into my flower cycle.
Oh and pics help. We be liking pics to ogle 😎
The adult fan leaves can be removed but don’t have to be unless they are restricting air flow. it is personal preference but can have consequences. I used to defoliate early and often but I noticed it stunted their growth. It didn’t make them unhealthy but it did slow them slightly. Now I only remove leaves in veg if they are hindering air. Once it goes to the flowering light cycle I give them a light deleafing before the flip. At about day 20 I strip all the fans except the top nodes. This is my preference and, unless a strain doesn’t like training, it is how I do all of the plants now.