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Has anyone tried that Schwazzing method on here? (...

Experimentgreen
Experimentgreenstarted grow question 5 years ago
Has anyone tried that Schwazzing method on here? (Extreme defoliation right at flower). Successfully or unsuccessfully. Any tips if so?
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Week 6
Techniques. Defoliation
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Scribs
Scribsanswered grow question 5 years ago
Hey dude - I grow a Sativa and although she's way less bushy than yours, I still defoliate/prune to ensure all leaves get equal exposure to light. As said in another answer, leaves are like solar panels, and those getting minimal lighting or living under the shade of other leaves are basically draining more energy than they produce, whereas fully exposed leaves can produce energy at optimal levels thus offsetting the energy cost. A solar panel in the shade is useless. Also, more leaves = more energy consumed, energy that's not going into growing buds. For example, when you clone, the reason you cut half of each leaf's fingers is to reduce the cost in energy consumption from the leaves, slow down the pace at which the plant processes the remaining nutrients in the stem, and focus the remaining energy instead on root growth vs upward growth. When I prune & defoliate, I basically reduce the plant's maintenance cost from leaves, so that the saved energy goes into buds, and I only get rid of buds or leaves that receive minimal light. In flowering, I've pruned dwarf budsites that would never grow more because completely underexposed. Hope this helps.
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MovingOn
MovingOnanswered grow question 5 years ago
Just remember that buds do not benefit from light - the leaves do. Leaves are like solar panels and batteries for a plant. They receive energy and store energy. If you remove leaves, you remove both of these factors, and cause stress. Most people defoliate though, and they feel like they get better results, the reasons being that they don't really do side by side tests with clones to see the difference, and/or they provide enough nutrients to a plant to make up for the loss of the plants natural leaf energy source. It has been proven that defoliation can increase the amount of buds, but also that those buds are less dense and more whispy. When we see leaves fade due to nutrient deficiencies, the reason for this is because the plant is pulling the stored energy from those leaves. If you removed those leaves, the plant suffers more when it runs into deficiencies, because its battery backup is gone. But don't take my word for it, because my word could just be hearsay and survivorship bias or confirmation bias or group think. Take a botanist's word instead: https://www.cocoforcannabis.com/community/photons_corner/to-defoliate-or-not-to-defoliate/
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Fitzwell
Fitzwellanswered grow question 5 years ago
I say defoliate as much as you can. Your not growing leaves you trying to grow bud is what I always say. I have a plant that I removed almost ever leave on it and the buds are nice and fat.
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Cheeba_Inu
Cheeba_Inuanswered grow question 5 years ago
While I think there are good reasons to defoliate/prune a plant (airflow and environmental control) and I usually defoliate to a degree, schwazzing takes it a bit too far in my personal opinion. Buds grow from light feeding leaves, not light hitting the buds themselves. Growers who have the most success with schwazzing are usually running such high powered lights that the plant can recover with stored energy/the few leaves left. Removing too many leaves for one's light setup can hurt yields. But it's always fun to experiment, so a side by side comparison would be fun! 🙂
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ElegantBuds
ElegantBudsanswered grow question 5 years ago
Hello today I almost do this everytime. I deleaf everything so the flower gets the most light. I dont let anny fanleafs on the plant. I trim them all away. I do see that some plants dont respond good to this kind of stress... Check with the breeder before applying this kind of stress. Goodluck
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Cannibalgardens
Cannibalgardensanswered grow question 5 years ago
I did this outdoors with a gorilla glue for my friend and it was mixed results .. I lolipopped her and then a few days later we picked her pretty clean .. all it did was opened up exposed more bud sites to the sunlight .. The humidity in our area called for it to keep mold at bay..The indoor plants would benefit from this with light penetration and increased Bud production ... I tried do like a half trimmed plant to compare the buds .The buds formed up the same maby a little bigger but not really ..so mixed emotions for me I guess if done well it should increase yeild...
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