What is 'defoliation' and when to use it?

Have you ever heard of defoliation?

This is part of an increasing number of terms that modern growers use to get more out of every plant and streamline hydroponics projects.

Is it important to know about? Well, it might be, depending on what you're growing, and how you want to produce yields. Lots of growers chase higher yields to get more money out of a small commercial project, or to optimize the time that they put into a hydroponic garden.

The Context of Defoliation

These days, there's a whole cookbook of procedures and techniques to help create higher-yield plants, especially in the field of marijuana cultivation, something that's becoming more mainstream as legalization efforts continue.

There are, for example, canopy techniques such as sea of green and screen of green that apply light to plants in particular ways, to help encourage denser growth.

Within this context, growers also use defoliation along with techniques like topping and super cropping to try to achieve more abundant harvests.

Doing Defoliation

Defoliation simply refers to a procedure where gardeners manually remove leaves or strip the stems of the plant. This can also involve taking off some lower branches where a similar technique called lollipopping works in a similar way. The idea is that defoliation leads to more branching, which creates denser harvests. It encourages plants to grow in more compact ways.

Why Try It?

With small grow boxes and other similar setups, the name of the game is to produce more in a smaller space. That's why growers may use techniques like defoliation to try to maximize growth in small areas.

However, there's a greater context here. Before fine-tuning techniques to try to manipulate growth, plants have to be well served by an environment with proper temperature, humidity and pH value. They need to have well-circulated air and nutrient-rich water, as well as sufficient light. All of this needs to be planned for to achieve proper results with any type of plant.

For more, check out Dealzer’s website and all of the resources we offer to growers. We stand behind our products, to help our customers succeed and get a lot out of their investment in hydroponic equipment and gear.