Rawtton By Ethos

It’s the middle of week 7 of Veg. On Thursday the girls were given a heavy defoliation. This will give them a few days to recover right before the flip to 12/12. I’m posting for the final week of Veg a few days early. Tomorrow is our big turkey day and I probably won’t have time to post for the rest of the week. I put together some before and after photos to showcase the importance of heavy defoliation in scrog style grows. Fan leaves are a important part of growth but also a hindrance for anything trying to grow beneath them. Removing all the fan leaves before flowering will expose every possible bud site to light for maximum yield and little to no popcorn buds. It also improves airflow to decrease the chance of mold. In Pic 1, Pic 2, and Pic 3 you can see your average vegetative growth. It’s healthy and bushy and won’t hurt anything to leave it alone. I choose to do heavy leaf removal to increase yields. You will see the dramatic difference it makes. I will usually do 2 of these defoliations during vegetation, one of these during the last week of Veg growth. I will do it a third time in the third week of flower as well. In Pic 4 - Pic 11 you can see before and after pics of each plant. In the before pics you can really only see a few different flower sites. In the after pics you can see how many bud sites were hiding under the leaves. They would have still flowered, but the flowers growing under shadow would be stunted and small. Now that they are exposed to full light, they will develop into full fat buds. The [EXAMPLE A] pic shows exactly what kind of growth happens when there is no light. These will grow into large bud sites now that the fan leaves have been removed. Pic 12 and Pic 13 show the entire tent as before and after. For those who don’t do heavy leaf removal like I do, it can be shocking to see. It’s true there are some strains that don’t respond well to this kind of stress. That’s something every grower must gauge on the first fan leaf removal. In my case with this strain, the responded very well showed no sign of slowed growth. It looks like I’ve done something horrible because it looks so bare. In 3 days they should be healed and ready for 12/12, and after 3 weeks there will be so much more growth that I will have to do this all over again so that the flowers can keep receiving the light they need. This takes some time and careful effort, as you can see in the last pic. A grocery bag stuffed full of leaves. These will go into the compost pile and used later. I hope I did a good job of showing my style of defoliation and explaining why it’s done. If you follow the grow you’ll see why too. I’ve been growing like this for a long time and I enjoy seeing the fruits of my labor.