I was reading a few posts about defoliation and want to get better about leaf stripping to maximize my yields. However, I’m curious about how much you can push your plants. For ex. I am growing some Peyote Wifi from seedsman and am in week two of transition. I stripped some leaves prior to the flip and the plant got so bushy that I came and stripped a bit more last week. Week 2 now and she can still use a bit of opening as the leaves are exploding in growth but I’m afraid to stress her into hermies. What’s your experiences with this? Do you take off all you need in one swoop? I appreciate yall.
If ten people answer your question, you’ll most likely have ten different answers. I’ve gone to both extremes, and everywhere in between. Neither extreme worked very well for me, but I finally got comfortable with using a few simple rules. I take off some the fan leaves that are growing in towards the center of the plant first. Then if it looks like I need to remove more, I try to take ones that aren’t getting much light, or some that are blocking light to bud sites. After week 2 of flower I try to disturb them as little as possible, until about week 7. If I get a really bushy plant that needs a clipping after week 2, I try to add fans and make sure the humidity is low enough to avoid any issues instead of taking off leaves. Also, I never take too many leaves off of any one node.
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Truth…
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Thanks for your insight @Cap_Ron. I think a few grows ago I hermed a plant by removing too many leaves and it needed it for sure but I simply stressed it no doubt about it. I see a lot of comments about week 3 stripping and I keep feeling on edge about that. I do typically remove many center leaves that are blocking sites but the way shes sprouting leaves I’m wondering if I could pluck like 5 a day for a few days. My humidity is also borderline so I def need to tighten that up.
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Yeah, I hear you. If I thought I was risking White Powdery Mildew I would definitely remove leaves. Even if it bothered her a bit, it’s still way better off than a mildew issue. And not for nothing, but even when I’ve removed too much, it hasn’t destroyed my yields. They just weren’t quite as good as others. Another thing to consider is a dose or two of an anti stress formula. I don’t know what nutes you’re using, but Advanced Nutrients has a product called “Revive” and Fox Farm has “Boomerang Comeback Formula”. I use Revive before and after transplants, training, and defoliation. It seems to help.
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Running coco with the GH 3 part after some autos n supersoil. I also have some Wedding Cake I’m running in soil and only feeding it DTE to see what kinds of results I get. I’ll look into Revive too thanks for that.