Should I remove yellow fan leaves during flowering? (2023)

Should I remove yellow fan leaves during flowering?

Yes you should – but with the correct technique. A proper thinning will remove 20-40% of the mid to upper foliage every 5-7 days. Removing these fan leaves opens up light and produces better air exchange to the lower canopy.

It's perfectly okay and quite effective to remove any leaves that are yellow from your plants. Typically, as plants mature, the lower leaves will start to yellow as they are no longer being used to convert light into cellular growth.

Usually, growers trim the fan leaves weeks before harvest, which is a period that leads to senescence, a phase in the plant cycle when the larger leaves start fading away. It is safe to start removing these dying leaves and continue until harvest. However, the main trimming processes commence after harvest.

Yes, you should remove fan leaves during the flowering stage using the correct technique. Removing fan leaves will open up light and produce a better air exchange to the lower canopy. It will also ensure that more energy can go to your plant's valuable parts and make for a bigger harvest.

Removing the leaves can improve light penetration, allowing lower buds to develop properly and resulting in better yields. Cutting off the foliage on the lower branches will improve airflow, helping prevent mold and bugs. Removing fan leaves can redirect a plant's energy to the buds, resulting in better quality buds.

Senescence is when plants will naturally yellow off and die. During the final weeks of flowering do not be alarmed. Leaf drop and yellowing always increases. Flushing plants with pure water or a flushing solution at the end of bloom will also rid the medium of residual nutrients and often causes leaves to yellow.

The longer you keep your plants in the vegetative stage, the bigger your plant will be, resulting in bigger yields from plants that were vegetated longer.

This advanced defoliation technique needs to be performed roughly halfway through the flowering process, around 3-5 weeks in. The idea behind it is to redistribute the plant's natural growth hormones to the power areas of the cola.

Chlorophyll gives a leaf its green color. When the leaf loses its chlorophyll, the plant abandons it and begins to absorb leftover nutrients from the leaf. That's why once the leaf turns yellow, you generally can't make it turn back green again.

How long do you have to be in the dark before harvest?

Experiment With Days of Darkness – Some growers report enhanced resin production when they give their crops 1-3 days of complete darkness before harvest. This is thought to work because it's another way of slightly stressing your plants.

Bigger pots does not mean bigger plants. The recommended pot size for transplanting is between 2 to 4 inches larger in diameter from the pot that the plant was planted in. This gives the roots enough space to spread and absorb more water and nutrients.

Most cultivators vegetate their plants for 4–8 weeks. After this time, a switch to 12 hours of light per day is required to initiate flowering. In contrast, autoflowering plants flower on their own. Provide them with 18–24 hours of light per day throughout veg and flowering, and watch the magic happen.

One possible reason your buds may have stopped maturing is the plant is “re-vegging.” “Re-vegging” means the plant is returning to the vegetative stage in which the plant only grows stems and leaves. Re-vegging happens most often when plants are somehow getting light during their 12-hour dark period.

We typically do a heavy defoliation in either Week 2 or Week 3, it just depends on how the plants look, as well as fitting into our schedule of weekly tasks at the farm.

How to Defoliate in Week 4. The best practice is to completely remove everything beneath the first layer of trellis. Even if it is a bud site that is flowering, get rid of it. These puny tiny branches will never yield anything worth actually trimming, drying and curing.

Topping to increase the number of colas

Topping is a form of pruning and involves pruning off the branch tip of the main cola. When you top the main cola, the energy goes to the side branches. The next two lateral branches will become the main branches. Topping will increase the overall yield of your grow.

Fan leaves that are growing inward toward the plant should be removed. Bud sites that are lower down on the plant may be removed so that the plant can focus on the bud sites closer to the top. Dead or dying leaves should be pruned.

Fan leaves will get larger, however, they will not regenerate. Any leaf that is cut off during the flower stage will not come back, so always keep that in mind. Once it's gone, it's gone.

Weeks 4-6: Buds Fatten Up

At this stage of cannabis flowering, your buds are getting bigger. They'll still have all the white pistils sticking out, but you'll be able to see the buds getting bigger every day.

Why are my fan leaves turning yellow?

Most commonly, the yellowing of leaves on the lower fan leaves is due to a lack of nitrogen. However, this does not always mean the grower is not supplying the garden with adequate nitrogen. In some cases, the deficiency is caused by the pH value of the medium or nutrient solution.