Afghan auto growers choice

Usually during the last half of flowering, but is largely strain dependant. Some will fatten up gradually, others will grow, stop, grow, stop, grow, others will be slow at first then hit over drive at the end and others will get fat right away then ripen slowly and others a combination of everything. However, by defoliating you may have shot yourself in the foot, as your plant needed those leaves to produce the energy she needs to grow her biggest and best flowers. For best results, autos really don't like to be defoliated, actually, all cannabis plants don't like it. A bit of well considered, light lollipopping is ok, but heavy defoliation is detrimental. Removing healthy leaves and forcing your plant to grow new leaves is somewhat ridiculous and a complete waste of time and energy! Just remember - Maximum amount of leaves = maximum amount of energy produced = maximum amount of growth. It really is that simple and basic plant biology. Beside, if your plant did not need those leaves, she would not have grown them in the first place! At this stage there is little you can do other than be patient and continue with your current care routine, but for your plants sake, please do not remove any more leaves! Those small bud leaves can in no way produce as much energy as a single large fan leaf and at this stage, your plant must share its energy between growing new leaves and growing floewers. Had you left all the leaves, all of the energy could have gone into growing flowers only. The older leaves also provide a ready made source of carbs, amino acids, proteins, sugars etc that your plant could have used during flowering, as cannabis will "recycle" those elements from the older leaves into use for growing flowers, but now without those leaves, she must further share energy to make new carbs, amino acids, proteins, sugars etc from new, further slowing growth and maturation. We live and we learn I guess! I would also consider changing to 18/6, at 12/12 your autos will struggle for ages to finish. Hope this bleak news helps in some way, Organoman.