I’ve been experimenting with pruning removing a leaf hear or there with my plants… But I’m concerned about removing the big single “fan leafs” to let in some light or will I hurt the plant in removing a few of its biggest leaves?
I tried uploading a pic but it said it was too big
I remove my bigger fan leaves. Tell you the truth i always give a good exfoliation. Need to let some of that light in.
OK… I’ll take our the huge leafs that are single… Well I have two plants to work with… So I’ll go harder on one than the other… OK so this is my first grow… I have 2 bag seeds growing under a Mars hydro 300 and a viparspectra 300 and one 23w? White CFL… The viparspectra has more white light and the Mars more red… Not sure how those spectrums compare with product gains? As soon as my ilgm ww autos come I’ll definitely need more light and even a grow tent to isolate the photos from the autos… The list just keeps in going… This is officially my new hobby… No more giant scale rc planes for me… I have enough in my hangar… I ought to sell one of my babies and I’ll have enough for an awesome setup … Lol I’ve had a few beers and a few puffs… sorry for the blah blah
I need to know how tall plant is and is in veg or bloom. And can give you a cool rout to start with. But if in bloom. Don’t attempt anything. I am an bender. Look up the art of bending.
@Soilgrowth as soon as I have a chance I’ll head up to my shop and take some pics…its still in veg… And am grateful that it turned out to be a female… Not sure yet about the smaller one… 10 days behind my first plant
You should look at fan leaves before you take them off. Sometimes a big fan leaf will gather light and feed another branch on the other side of the plant that has a big kola on it.
The more light the plant can absorb the better off and more healthy it will be.
Unless it’s a real impediment to an important kola I would just leave it.
Hope I helped, aloha
You really have to think of those big leaves as being big solar panels , so as soon as you start removing them , the energy that the plant can take in starts to be less and less and even though you think you’re adding more light deeper into the plant you’re actually lessoning how much light the plant can receive buy defoliating it that way , a healthy plant is a bushy plant with a bunch of leaves , I let them fall off naturally , i never cut off leaves… if for some reason you think you need to get light deeper into the canopy just start bending things over or tying things down and out of the way but you never really want to cut anything off the plant if you can avoid it
Advice taken… I’ll keep that in mind… I’ll just leave them as is till harvest day
There solar panels
Peach fuzz said it most correct
More leafs bigger yield
Removing leaves is never a good practice, especially in Flower.
Logically thinking, how would cutting the large very developed leaves, the one that can handle to most intense light, the ones the have the most chlorophyll, and the most “Source Cells”, and produce the most G3P and carbohydrate production, and instead give the under developed, small leaves, that produce the fewest carbohydrates, more light? You’d be stunting growth and development.
In Veg…
Defoliation does not increase yield.
Defoliation does not decrease yield.
Defoliation simply slows growth…
It’s commonly used to train your plants in different ways. I use Scrog.
In Flower…
Defoliation does not increase yield.
Defoliation will most definitely decrease yield.
Removal of just bud sites and not leaves, may be a redistribution of carbohydrates for larger growth of the remaining buds.
Hope this helps…
Good luck, and happy growing 
Thanks Dunne…so from now on I’ll keep pruning to a minimum… I found this article about pruning it pretty much goes along with what you said
The only leaves i prune are the inner leaves and tiny bud sites on the lowest 3 sets of branches, as they usually only produce popcorn buds. This is growing outdoors where the plants will reach about 7ft+, so pruning the lower levels doesn’t give any ill effects to the overall plant.
Really good advice all around. I trim my bottom fan leaves but only those that are at least 4 nodes down and are being blocked by my scrog. Most of them simply fall off from lack of light.
I saved that one in my “Favorites” ILGM files