I’m a first time grower, growing 3 autos: Euforia seeds. This is day 63 from germination. I’m growing inside in a closet.
I’m wondering for specific advice on how much and where to defoliate. I don’t want to stress my plants, and when I read about it I end up avoiding trying it. Any advice is welcome!
Welcome to the community!
What is better to understand is that every plant will tolerate stress a little differently. Some strains can be severely stunted from defoliation or training techniques. I’ve been reading this kind of stuff for a long time. I’ve been growing for a decade now and I haven’t yet come across a strain that was stressed from defoliation. Just make sure they are already healthy before you do. If it makes things easier, start by removing a handful of fan leaves, then wait a couple days and look for any negative responses from the plant. If they seem to respond well then more leaves can be taken off. It is important to understand if doing a major defoliation then it is better to let the plant recover for a few days before doing anything else to it to be safe. Although “stress” is a concern, they do spend a lot of energy healing in the recovery.
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Welcome to the community @Sunvey406, nice looking gals you got! I agree with @SommerV here as stress factors with autos can be quite different from photo period strains but as long as they are healthy and don’t have any deficiencies have at it! I always start with the largest fan leaves from the top and work my way down, once those are removed I start working on the canopy to get better light down the center and uncover and good bud sites that are blocked. I do 2 mass defoliations first one just before flipping to flower (for autos just before expected time of flower or first sign) and the second at day 21 of flower and after that I only remove the ones needed that are blocking heads here and there until harvest. Also I wouldn’t recommend lollipoping autoflowers because autos mainly produce all good and solid buds across the whole plant, unlike photo period strains that have a bunch of fluffies at the bottom
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Thanks 209Mike! That is really helpful! I’m well into 3 weeks past the first sign of flower- is that still okay? I appreciate your advice so much. First time growing so I’ve had a lot to learn.
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Yeah you can do more good defol at the point your at right now for sure, it’s week 3 that I do the final mass defoliation. Biggest fans leaves and get everything blocking any tops for now and then pick off what’s needed every other day or so @Sunvey406
Welcome to the community @Sunvey406 , I’m kinda late to the post, I agree with everything written in this post.