Defoliation means strategically removing fan leaves from your cannabis plant so more light and air reach the buds and lower branches. Done right, usually once in veg and twice in early flower, it can mean bigger, more even buds and fewer mold and pest problems; overdo it and you stress the plant and cut your yield. Every gardener prunes to keep plants shaped and tidy, but with cannabis there's more to it, and growers who nail this technique can level up their harvest.

What is defoliation in cannabis?

Defoliation literally means removing leaves from the plant. Pulling leaves in the right spots lets more light and air reach other parts of the plant, including the buds and lower growth. If you're working with limited space or growing indoors, it's especially worth learning, because it lets you get the most out of a small number of plants.

It's not random. It's about carefully and deliberately choosing the right leaves to remove. The goals of defoliation:

• Fix light penetration problems
• Boost yield without adding more plants
• Cut spending on gear and electricity
• Control the plant's growth, height and shape
• Get more uniform buds
• Prevent pests and humidity-related problems
• Clean up and strengthen your plants

What to know before you defoliate your cannabis plants

• Be careful, especially if you're a beginner. Defoliating cannabis leaves takes careful planning. It's also key to go slow so you don't hurt your plants.

• Growers have several pruning techniques to choose from. The so-called high-stress ones can easily injure the plant and stress it out. These "high-stress training" techniques include FIMming and topping, for example, which mean pinching off or cutting the growing tips in half to push the plant into producing more new tops.

• Defoliation, on the other hand, counts as a "low-risk" pruning technique, but to keep the plant from getting stressed or damaged, you need to know when to stop.

• Leaves dying off is a totally natural part of the cannabis life cycle. By removing leaves that are about to drop anyway, you keep the plant from wasting nutrients and energy on them. That cuts down the effort the plant has to put into growing, which leaves more energy to keep healthy leaves going and push out new ones. That's why defoliation can boost growth and the production of new branches, and with them, new buds.

How to defoliate cannabis in the vegetative stage

Here's the big question everyone asks at this stage: how do you prune a cannabis plant? In veg, we recommend doing just one defoliation. Make sure the plant is healthy and big enough (around 25 cm / 10 in tall).

Cut only the biggest fan leaves, leaving enough foliage for the plant to keep photosynthesizing, keep feeding itself and grow back healthier and stronger.

Why defoliate during veg?

• Some growers only strip leaves in flower, since young plants are more vulnerable. But if you start in veg, you're training the plant and getting it ready for later defoliations.
• Defoliating also helps cut down on pests and humidity problems. And by removing extra foliage, you make the most of your light, which can reach the lower parts of the plant and improve airflow.
• Defoliating in veg slows down root growth, which can throw a plant seriously out of balance. To keep the plant working, it's important to keep its nutrients properly balanced.
• A plant defoliated in veg will always grow more slowly than one left to grow "naturally." If you did it right, you'll have thick, strong foliage again in a few days.

When should you defoliate in flower?

In flower, you'll defoliate twice:

After the first week of flower:

• Wait for the first pistils to appear (not one or two, but a good handful). Cut all the big fan leaves with scissors and leave the smaller ones. In about 3 days you'll see new growth popping, and after 7 to 10 days you'll have thick foliage again.

In the third week of flower:

• First, make sure your plants have recovered, grown back and filled out. Then you can repeat the process. You'll notice the buds have grown and a lot of them are hidden under leaves. Your job is to expose them, especially the lower ones, and get rid of shaded spots on the plant.

• Cutting leaves during flower is thought to trigger the production of auxin, a plant hormone involved in the growth and ripening of the flowers. So when the plant bounces back, the idea is that your buds bulk up fast and swell. Plenty of growers swear this is one of the best tricks for fattening up buds.

• The goal of defoliating in flower is to steer the plant into focusing its energy on one thing: big, resinous buds. Defoliating in flower helps keep the plant from forming tiny larf buds (the ones that end up getting tossed).

So if you want to know how to get bigger buds, pruning leaves in flower is the way to go.

Is defoliation good or bad for cannabis plants?

It all sounds great, but is defoliating your cannabis plants actually a good idea?

The tricky part is that there's no exact playbook, since it relies more on observation and intuition. If you're a beginner, it's probably best to run a few grows first so you get to know your plants and watch how they develop all the way through.

Once you really understand the cycles, the stages and how the plant behaves as a whole, you can experiment with almost no risk. The danger with this technique is going overboard on leaves, nicking a stem, or injuring the plant in a way it can't fully recover from.

If you liked this post, you might also like... 

 

[embed]https://www.cosechalibre.com/viajar-en-avion-con-cannabis-por-argentina/[/embed]

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]