Disclaimer:
This post is about medical/recreational cannabis.
I recommend you don't use it.
It could be illegal in your country.
Be careful!
CORRECTION
The following text is not up to date anymore.
I have changed my mind about the subject.
I wrote a piece to clarify.
Lollipopping
I can't say I like the word, but it's a common practice.
Lollipopping is a pruning technique that helps your cannabis plants focus their energy on their biggest bud sites, usually around their canopies.
While checking on my plants this morning, I noticed, how much better plant no.1 looks today.
Plant no.1 has more trichomes, larger buds, generally looks further developed.
Until a week ago, they seemed to be in the exact same stage of their lifecycle.
That was when I decided to prune no.1 heavily, while leaving no.2 untouched.
(I tried documenting that process, but the photos came out bad, so I did not blog abut the details)
Expectations
When I first heard about the practice, I thought it was silly;
The plant puts a lot of energy into producing leaves and branches.
More leaves, more surface, more photosynthesis - why would I cut something off?
Then I saw an interview with Dr. Bugbee. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Bugbee)
Sadly, I can not find that interview right now.
Bugbee's reasoning was initially the same as mine:
Don't cut anything off, that the plant has invested energy into.
He then did trials and came to the surprising conclusion, that it increases flower yield noticably.
Note:
I don't follow cannabis-influencers. They are usually trying to sell a product.
My grow above is proof, that you don't need any products.
I trust Dr Bugbee. He sells products: Instruments to measure light intensity.
He does not promote fertilizers, lamps... none of it.
He has little incentive to spread misinformation - Instead, it would just hurt his reputation, if he did.
Results
A week in, I can see a clear difference between the 2 plants.
Obviously: 2 plants are not a large enough sample to conclude much.
At the very least, trimming the plant did not seem to hurt it...
Also, the 2 pictures above do not display the difference well.
The lighting is different, shutter speed was different...
I can tell - with the naked eye - that the difference is huge.
Please just trust me here! 🙂
Thoughts
I can only speculate about what happens;
Maybe it's a response, which developed to counter an animal chewing on the leaves.
Maybe the lack of leaves forces the plant to direct its energy into the flower more.
Maybe it's both, or something different entirely.
I would also assume, that it works better under artificial lighting (this is what Bugbee does research on, only), because lamps always shine down on the plant, whereas outdoors, on my balcony, the sunlight comes in sideways, at an angle.
Under the circumstances I grow in, there is more light available to the lower canopy than it would be under a classic indoor setup.
Whatever the underlying dynamics are, it seems to have worked.
Conclusion
My sample size is minimal. This is no basis to come to definitive conclusions.
I also have little control over the environment my plants grow in.
Sun intensity, genetics, stress, insect pressure, differences in the soil (I had a huge mushroom pop up in one of the pots) may all factor in and are hard to control.
What I can say so far is that it did not affect the plant negatively.
With my little experiment here, it seems to work surprisingly well.
Note:
After I took off those leaves and 2 lower, tiny branches, with tiny flower buds, I made a tea from them. My tolerance is 0, as I have not consumed any cannabis for a while.
That tea did not taste well, but with sugar it wasn't too bad.
30 minutes in, I noticed a mild effect.
It was relaxing and pleasant.
But maybe that was all placebo...
TL;DR:
Lollipopping seems to have worked well.
I was sceptical at first, but now I am almost convinced.
I need to do further research and experiments, though, before I can recommend it.
those buds looks amazing i think that smell really good :D
Thank you!
The smell is almost too much :D
I forgot what Lollipopping was until you explained it to me again. I always try to trim off the bottom leaves usually during flowering. As they no longer get light and start yellowing anyways. I Lollipopped my outdoor cannabis plants too, but more to help with air flow and to decrease the chance of fungus.
The leaves (and branches) I took off were perfectly healthy and fine and green.
The way I lollipopped this plant was much more radical than regular defoliation.
But with these terms... it all depends on who you ask, I gues...
It wasn't for airflow or to remove potential risks, but really to boost the flowers.
I am a bit frustrated that the pictures I shot to document the process came out so bad.
I am still shocked that it had such a positive impact - I would have never tried that, if it wasn't for Bugbee. It felt so wrong. I even took off some healthy large fan leaves. Against all my intuition.
I think it is a good practice to have, maybe not as much outdoors as indoor. One for the energy to finish the flowers, and then what Solo said about airflow. I would also imagine the stress is also good for the plant to trigger a defense.
I used to love eating the leaves raw, it has so many benefits health wise. :)
Those raw leaves are rough and make me cough.
Yeah, I think that's what happened in my case.
I do something similar with my dragonfruit plants by trimming some of the newer branches to help the plant focus its energy on the fruit and flowers.
Cannabis is different in the sense that it is the only plant I ever grew to harvest the flower.
Unfertilized, female, matured flower is the desired product.
Seeds would be the 'fruit' or crop usually, but with medical cannabis you want to avoid seeds at all cost.
The desired cannabinoids are really a stress response of the female flower.
But too much stress can cause the female plant to express male flowers, which is also very undesirable...
I am trying to ride the edge here; stress is good, but too much can result in disaster...