How soon is to soon to remove leaves autoflower?

[whitlow]

Hello everyone,
So I'm growing autoflower fastbuds strawberry banana and it day 17. The bottom leaves are touching the soil. Will this be ok or should I cut them off? I always heard not to have any leaves touching the soil.
Thanks

 

[DCLXVI]

The very bottom inside ones you could clip off without issue. The rest, if just the tips are touching I would leave them. I don't think you need to take off any of the big 5 fingered fan leaves that I can see.

 

[HAWKMAN]

one weel know breeder (Ethos) say they don't defoliate till there are at least 4-5 nodes - looks like you can take the LOWER leaves (1 set) generally feed or do what ever - just like photo plants --here is the only thing that is different than regs/photo :
auto plant growing stages:
weeks 1 - 3 is the germination / seedling stages
weeks 3 - 12 is the flowering stage

 

[whitlow]

So I cut off the bottom 2 leaves and it's still really close to the soil.

 

[DCLXVI]

I think they look fine. I would leave them for now unless you start seeing wet spots on the leaves themselves or if they are overlapping each other significantly. Once they get a little taller you could certainly clean up around the base if you wanted to.

I marked a couple leaves you could snip if you feel like you need to. The small inner ones are probably not getting much light so they won't matter and the arrow on the right, it looks like there is a leaf hiding behind the other large fan. Totally up to you.

It if was my plant it would leave it alone for a couple more weeks unless they start lying on the soil.

 

[whitlow]

I think they look fine. I would leave them for now unless you start seeing wet spots on the leaves themselves or if they are overlapping each other significantly. Once they get a little taller you could certainly clean up around the base if you wanted to.

I marked a couple leaves you could snip if you feel like you need to. The small inner ones are probably not getting much light so they won't matter and the arrow on the right, it looks like there is a leaf hiding behind the other large fan. Totally up to you.

It if was my plant it would leave it alone for a couple more weeks unless they start lying on the soil.

View attachment 1623734

Thanks for your help/advice I really appreciate it!

 

[whitlow]

The picture you see I already took the 2 leaves below the branches you are pointing to I didn't take the 2 round ones.

 

[Hog_M@Gundy]

You could try lowering the light intensity and/or raising the light higher to encourage the plant to stretch upwards.

 

[whitlow]

I have my DLI at 40 right now on 18/6 schedule with light 20" above them.

 

[Hog_M@Gundy]

I have my DLI at 40 right now on 18/6 schedule with light 20" above them.

Yeah, that DLI might be a little intense for their size/age. Id try dialing the DLI back to 25-30 for a couple days and see how they respond. Hopefully that will encourage them to grow upwards to find their ideal ppfd/dli.