This will not cause stress and slow growth of buds, no?
Any large defoliation will stress and cause the plant to recover for about a week. There are two schools of thought on this and folks have done side by side tests. I prefer to leave my girls alone as much as possible. I do take leaves here and there that are blocking or are wet due to the proximity to another leaf. I have done both (no side by side tests) I find that though there may be less of it, may be, the buds when I don't defoliate are "better" ... no I can't back that with reams of data just a