Can you go into a bit more detail there please skunnymonster and with the best time to do it? I have a very similar-sized grow to Doozy, but around three weeks behind and would appreciate a bit of help or advice with defoliation?
I have a much different understanding of defoliation applied at the proper time line to enhance vegetative growth and flowering. You can see examples of how I defoliate and train my plants in my Grow Journals and Reviews. I would defoliate in vegetative growth 10-14 days before flowering to remove excess fan leaves and open more light to branches and nodes that become bud sites and colas. I defoliate in vegetative growth by removing any fan leaves that are excessively shading the branches and nodes to encourage the nodes to grow larger and produce more colas. I use Low Stress Training to tie the branches of my plants to the outer edge of the rim of the pots and each branch becomes its own bud site and cola. When I defoliate in preparation for flower I leave no more then 4 fan leaves at each growing top and remove the majority of the fan leaves, any fan leaf that shades a top and lower growth, this is a perfect time to select cuttings to root as clones from the plants you are about to place into flower. I defoliate in flower at days 21-25 of flower when the stretch phase has ended by removing lower growth that will not produce anything except for popcorn bud and any fan leaf that shades a bud site and again if required at day 45.
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There is a good example of how I defoliate in this Grow Journal and Review
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