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here: Issue #307 - Sunday, March 4, 2018
Dear Fellow Grower,
In today's issue... - This week, we're breaking down the specifics of a new take on the controversial technique of
defoliation: Schwazzing!
- Have you ever germinated a seed only to have two plants grow out of it? If you haven't, stick around after the article to see some cool pics of twin seedlings! If you have...I'd advise taking a look
anyway!
- In a rare twist, a (brave) grower sent in a picture of how not to manifold a cannabis plant. Take a look and learn a quick-but-valuable lesson from a charitable grower!
Nebula Haze & Sirius Fourside (founders of
GrowWeedEasy.com) "The more you adapt,
the more interesting you are."
~Martha Stewart
What is "Schwazzing" & How Does it Increase Cannabis Yields? by Nebula Haze |
I recently was asked about the "schwazzing" technique for growing cannabis found in a $500 (yikes!) hardcover book called Three a Light by Joshua Haupt.
"Schwazzing" is a term found in a book called Three a Light by Joshua Haupt. It refers to a specific time sequence of defoliating your plants to increase yields. Here's a time-lapse video showing the technique in action:
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First defoliation at 0:30 (right before the switch to flowering) Second defoliation at 0:38 (3 weeks after the switch to flowering)
This isn't a review of
Three a Light as I've never read the book (again, it's $500!) and from what I understand there are more parts to the book besides just schwazzing, but the author of the book does talk about using the schwazzing plant training technique to increase yields indoors. In fact, the author claims this technique can be used to help yield up to 3 lbs. of bud from one light,
hence the term "Three a Light." So what is schwazzing? What does it mean to "schwazze" your cannabis plant?
At its core, schwazzing is a variation of defoliation, a curiously effective technique for increasing cannabis yields indoors. The idea behind
defoliation is to remove fan leaves from your plant at specific times. As a result, the plant ends up producing bigger and fatter buds. Why does defoliation work to increase yields? No one knows for sure why cannabis plants react this way, but I have a few theories.
Plants that have been defoliated early in the flowering stage make bigger, denser buds than leafy
cannabis plants
Nebula's Theories on Why Defoliation (in the Early Flowering Stage) Increases Yields
- Cannabis is a wind-pollinated plant, which means the only buds that would get pollinated are the ones exposed to the wind. If you think about that, it kind of makes sense that buds would only develop if exposed to fresh air and a breeze. In the wild, it's only those buds that would get access to pollen!
- Cannabis spends energy lengthening colas/bud sites instead of maintaining leaves during the
"flowering stretch." When you first switch your cannabis plant over to the flowering stage by changing the light schedule to 12/12, it responds with a dramatic increase in growth known as the "flowering stretch." Basically, most cannabis strains grow like crazy for the first 2-4 weeks after the switch to 12/12. In fact, plants can double or even triple in height during this growth spurt. So perhaps if the plant doesn't have any leaves to focus on, it just puts all that extra "energy"
towards bud development.
- Reaction to stress during the flowering stage - Is it possible that intense defoliation causes some sort of defensive reaction during the flowering stage? If a flowering plant gets completely defoliated by bugs in the wild, it could die before it has time to make seeds. Perhaps the plant is responding to this emergency by going into "overdrive" as far as bud production. Just a
guess!
Did you know? Cannabis Isn't the Only Plant!
You may be surprised to learn that cannabis isn't the only species of plant that rewards growers with increased yields as a result of defoliation. Some commercial crops (including cotton) need to be defoliated at specific times during the growing process in order to produce the best quality and yields. For various plant species including cannabis, defoliation takes advantage of natural plant processes to "hack" the plant into growing more bud than it would naturally grow in the wild. Even if we don't fully understand exactly why the plant reacts
the way it does, we can still use this information to our advantage! How to Schwazze Your Cannabis! (Nebula's Version)
Step 1.) Defoliate heavily right before initiating
flowering
Right before the switch to 12/12, remove most of the fan leaves on your plant, especially the biggest ones.
Before - Notice how leafy these plants are; no light can get down past the top canopy and the floor is in shadow. Way-too-bushy plants like this are prime candidates for defoliation
After - Notice how all the bud sites are now exposed, and the light can get to bud sites deeper down into the plant. Quick video: immediately after defoliation Here's the resulting pile of leaves and stems. Step 1B: On each cola, remove everything below top 2-3 growth tips (Optional) Only do this if you've trained your plant to grow flat and wide with
many colas via plant training! When I defoliate my plants at this stage I also remove all growth tips below the top 2-3 on all my main colas. This way the plant only focuses on those colas and doesn't try to make any larfy buds to compete with the ones you've nurtured. I'm not certain that this is taught in
Three a Light as part of the schwazzing technique as this is more geared towards smaller indoor grows, but it will reward you with bigger and denser buds if you've trained your plants to grow the right shape. Removing Unnecessary Growth Tips
Forces the Plant to Focus on Only the Best Bud Sites
When a cannabis plant starts making buds, it makes them all over the plant - everywhere there's a growth tip! (A growth tip is any new stem coming out of the side of another stem - these are always located at the base of fan leaves, and it is where all bud sites are located)!
Remove all the growth
tips except the top 2-3 on each main stem, otherwise they may develop into smaller bud sites that compete with your main colas
Bud sites that don't get direct light will never fatten up, but they keep stealing resources from the plant. By removing them before the plant starts making buds, you're letting the plant focus only on the buds that have a good position
under the light instead of developing larfy buds lower down on the plant that will end up in your trim pile at harvest.
Top View - Before & After
Side View - Before & After Here's another example of schwazzing cannabis right before the switch to 12/12 (the one on the left was only lightly defoliated, while the one on the right was heavily defoliated) That is some pretty extreme defoliation...shouldn't it hurt the plant? I wouldn't necessarily recommend removing this much from your plant at once especially during your first grow because it could stunt your plant... but I can tell you
that the plant on the right ended up yielding 12.6 ounces compared to 10.5 ounces for the plant on the left. It could be genetics or a million other reasons causing the difference in yields, but I think it shows how well a plant can recover from defoliation if it happens towards the end of veg or at the beginning of the flowering stage. If your plant is a nice size and growing fast and healthy, it can take quite a bit of defoliation.
Check
out how those two plants developed in the pictures below in the next step. Step 2.) Defoliate again about 3 weeks later
By the time it's 3 weeks after the switch to 12/12, plenty of new buds should be forming.
3 weeks after switch to
12/12
If the plant is getting bushy, defoliate the plant again around week 3 by removing the bigger fan leaves, and all the lower stuff that's in major shadow. In general, I recommend defoliating lightly during the flowering stage after buds
have already formed since you can always take more away but you can't put leaves back. If your plant seems bushy around 3 weeks after the switch to 12/12, you may want to do another defoliation session by removing most of the biggest fan leaves. This exposes the newly forming buds to plenty of
light/air and reduces the number of shadowy areas.
These next pictures show the progression of the two plants from above; notice how there is light going all the way down into the defoliated plant, while the left plant is mostly in shadow. All those hidden buds on the left won't fatten up properly without being exposed to direct light and fresh air. After exposing all buds around week 3 they will start
growing faster immediately (you will be able to see the difference).
Week 3 of Flowering: Left plant needs defoliation while the right plant was just defoliated.
No more major defoliation after 3 weeks of 12/12! As the flowering stage progresses, you may still prune away any small growth underneath that doesn't get light, as well as big fan leaves that block bud sites and can't be tucked away.
Although defoliation (removing leaves) helps with better light penetration on bushy plants in the flowering stage, it's important to remember that
your plant won't be making any new leaves after the first 3-4 weeks of 12/12. So you need to make sure to leave enough healthy leaves to last until harvest time!
Buds should be exposed, but it's important to keep enough leaves to power growth until harvest Why Week 1 & 3? These aren't magic numbers; they are just general timelines that are known to work well for growing cannabis plants. Cannabis can "re-leaf" itself during the first few weeks of flowering, but not
later. If you defoliate later in the flowering stage or take too many leaves earlier on, the plant will not be able to make new leaves to replace the ones you've taken. By only taking leaves in Week 1 and Week 3, you get the benefits of defoliation while still giving the plant time to grow enough leaves to make it to the end of the flowering stage.
With your well-maintained plant under a nice grow light, you will be rewarded with long,
dense, thick colas with huge nuggets of buds! Here are those plants just before harvest: That's it!
This was just a mini-tutorial based on what we've learned from our grows to show the results we've gotten. Although I only have a very general
understanding of what's inside Mr. Haupt's book about schwazzing cannabis plants, it seems so similar to what we do at GWE that I wanted to share our pics and experiences.
To get the original schwazzing tutorial straight from the horse's mouth (and to see what else he talks about in his book), check out Three a Light by Joshua Haupt (available on Amazon).
"Twin" Cannabis Seedlings? |
Did You Know? Twin tap roots can sometimes emerge from one cannabis seed. This is sort of like your seed having twins, because each new root has the potential to form into a separate plant! It's not incredibly rare to get twins, but it is pretty neat to see it
happen in person!
When this seedling sprouted, it had two taproots coming from the same seed
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When the leaves appeared, there were two distinct seedlings - you can see another tiny set of leaves behind the main sprout! In this case, I decided to get rid of the smaller sprout, but you can also gently and carefully separate the two seedlings and transplant one into a new home.
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"I have found growweedeasy.com to be one of the best and most informative beginner/hobby sites for information. I have read almost all the articles and feel very confident about starting my own little hydroponic grow operation. Thanks so much for taking time to make and update this website it's great."
-Matt
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Trophy Picture of the Week! |
"I am a huge fan of your site. I've learned 10 time more from you all than from all other forums and sites combined. Thank you!!! Seriously, huge fan!
I did my first grow with super soil, graduated to DWC with top feed with two autos for second grow, started a single photoperiod blue dream for my third but
made a real mistake.
Attached is a picture of my mistake while trying the manifolding tutorial for the first time. As you can see, I didn't read the directions close enough and I cut off all the growth tips. I am submitting this as an idea of what not to do. I went back and read the directions and they are good. This is totally my own poor
reading comprehension. If there is anyone else out there with similarly bad reading comprehension, this picture and submittal is an idea of what not do."
-JoeyJoeJoeJr
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Ouch! For those who aren't familiar, this plant won't grow much more than this. There aren't any growth tips left, so the two remaining fan leaves are all this plant will be ever
really produce. The fact that Joey understood this right after making the mistake shows he gets how the plant functions.
In case you're wondering, the only thing that he needed to do differently was to leave on the two top growth tips pointed out in the picture below.
Joey, thanks for having the confidence to share this with the community; I promise you're not the only one to have done this. Good luck with the next ones!
-Sirius
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Who Runs This
Newsletter? |
Nebula Haze:
I'll be honest with you, when I first started growing, I struggled. Now, it is my mission to
make it easier for new growers to get started as well as help advanced growers get bigger, better yields with less time and money. We are updating and adding articles every single week and our goal is to eventually build a comprehensive growing resource so anyone and everyone can grow if they want to! If we all share the knowledge there's more buds in the world for everyone :)
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Learn which seed sources are personally recommended by Nebula Haze |
Sirius Fourside:
Sirius Fourside is a hobbyist grower who has gained the bulk of his experience growing in water as a medium (deep water culture, bubbleponics).
"Growing cannabis can be a relaxing hobby in and of itself, but it also saves you money and keeps you from having to deal with shady characters. Cannabis is much easier to grow than people give it credit for, and growing in water
doesn't increase the difficulty much, if any. But whether you want to grow in water, coco, or a different medium, we'll show you how easy it can be!"
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