How to Defoliate and Lollipop Cannabis Plants

Welcome everyone to this new article on the Defoliation and Lollipop technique applied to Cannabis plants! After looking at various growing techniques, including Sea of Green, Screen of Green, Main-Lining and Topping, today we are going to analyze an equally important and equally effective growing technique for inflating the buds of your Marijuana plants, offering XXL yields. to impressive record levels!

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What is the Cannabis defoliation technique?

The defoliation technique, which can be of different types, is a cultivation technique suitable for being applied to countless varieties of flowering and fruit plants, used especially for Marijuana plants.

This cultivation technique consists in removing the largest and most bulky leaves, which are normally the main sundeck leaves (those connected directly to the main stem of the plant, capable of reaching large sizes), in order to allow more light to penetrate the buds in the flowering phase, developing more quantity and weight, and improving the coverage of trichomes.

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Pros and cons of cannabis defoliation: the pros

The various positive effects of this technique consist of:

• Increase the amount of buds in the plant, especially in the lower parts that are usually less exposed to light
• Increase the weight of the buds by increasing the development of the trichomes themselves
• If used correctly in the vegetative period, accelerate the cell growth of plants, thanks to a more productive process of chlorophyll photosynthesis
• By exposing marijuana buds to greater light intensity, drastically decreasing the possibility of developing mold through excessive humidity, improving plant transpiration and air circulation
• If done correctly, there will be less waste material at harvest time

Pros and cons of cannabis defoliation: the cons

The cons of incorrect or excessive defoliation of Marijuana plants are:

• Slowed or blocked growth of the Marijuana plant, followed by a few days / week to return to the initial vigor
• In the case of imprecise operations in unclean environments, there is the possibility that the plant will become infected, slowing its growth, or blocking it completely, causing the rest of the plant to rot
• Scarce resource of reserve nutrients, located above all in the main leaves of the plant, precisely, the famous sundecks

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How to apply the Defoliation technique to grass plants?

As anticipated, there are different degrees of defoliation, depending on the growth period of the plant and the purpose for which it is to be applied. In fact, it is common to defoliate Marijuana plants both in the vegetative phase and in the first and last weeks of flowering.

Depending on the genetics that are being grown, the environmental parameters and the nourishment administered, plants can react more or less well to the defoliation technique, especially when this practice is applied without a programmed reason.

For example, if you want to grow mother plants, it is good to defoliate the mother plants from time to time, removing only the sundeck leaves that filter more light on the branches, avoiding massive defoliation. Or again, if you want to give a longer vegetative period, the defoliation technique becomes more and more necessary, while in the opposite case the defoliation of the grass plants is to be avoided.

The important thing to know when you want to defoliate in a clean and surgical way is that the leaves must be cut with a clean blade, which can be that of a knife rather than a practical sharp scissors.

You can also use the nails, with the only rule that the hands must be clean to operate. However, we strongly advise against pulling the leaves off, detaching them from the end (internode) by force and using this technique in the first days of plant life or with clones, Marijuana plants in an extremely sensitive and fragile life stage: a neat and precise cut in the middle of the leaf stem is the best solution!

What is the Lollipop technique, and how to apply it to Hemp plants?

As you can easily deduce from the name, the cultivation technique of “Lollipop” (or “Lollipopping”) is a practice that transforms the shape of Marijuana plants into large and tasty lollipops. It is used to concentrate the energies of the Cannabis plant on the only important buds, the highest ones and those with the most exposure to light, avoiding the formation of boring Popcorn buds, of poor quality and weight.

The application of the Lollipop technique is very simple: it will be enough to physically remove all the branches and the lower leaves with less light exposure with your own hands, so that the plant concentrates all its energy and nourishment in the formation of thick and dense buds such as a golf ball!

Given the poor penetration of light on the lower parts of the plants, which are usually the most covered by foliage, the Lollipop technique is often used in intensive Screen of Green and Sea Of Green crops, where light struggles to reach the most covered parts. .

As you may have guessed, the defoliation technique and the Lollipop technique cannot be complementary techniques, as in defoliation a greater influx of light is allowed in the lower parts of the plants, while in the Lollipop the lower part of the plant is completely eliminated from branches. and useless leaves, allowing the highest part and favorably exposed to the light to magnify its buds.

Is the defoliation and Lollipop technique really convenient for cannabis plants?

There are many theories and adverse opinions on the validity of these techniques within various marijuana cultivation forums, such as the famous international forum ICMag. From experience, we believe that defoliation or Lollipping are techniques that do not only modify the aesthetic structure of the plant, depending on the purpose for which the leaves or branches are removed.

In fact, we think that these Marijuana cultivation techniques have a profound effect on the resistance of the plant, the production of buds and the ability to resist stress of this type in the future generation, through the transmission of genes to the offspring.

It is therefore essential to use these practices when you want to produce seeds with high resistance to this type of stress.

It is always advisable to use, little by little, new types of techniques with Hemp, in order to understand firsthand how the delicate biological balances of Cannabis plants work, and to choose with greater awareness if and when to use techniques such as defoliation and Lollipop.

Defoliation vs Lollipop technique in cannabis cultivation

It is always advisable to use the defoliation technique when there is too much leaf mass inside the cultivation space, which can cause various problems, from excess humidity and lack of stale air recirculation to the poor penetration of light inside the undergrowth.

This usually occurs in SOG crops, a particular and unique case in which a light Lollipopping can be applied on the first 2-3 internodes.

On the other hand, the lollipop technique is used above all in SCRoG crops, where it becomes counterproductive to keep all the branches that do not reach the Screen of Green, thus remaining in less bright areas.

Personally, we always advise novice or less experienced growers to start cultivation with these two techniques, especially defoliation, to understand what are the main reactions of Marijuana plants to the use of practices that “slightly” modify the hormonal balances of the plants. plants, affecting the stress resistance of plants.

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For this article on the Defoliation and Lollipop Technique in Cannabis Cultivation that’s all, keep following us in our next article!

Greetings from the Annibale Seedshop Team!

Davide, CEO, Founder and Geneticist