northern lights auto first grow

She is looking pretty good to me.The plant is trying to build it roots so make sure you have a good watering schedule so they can grow the best and fast they can. Plus a lot of it has to do with genetics as well it may just grow with minimal spacing between the nodes sometimes not much you can do. Hope this helps Happy Growing!!

Defoliating this early into flowering can definitely force energy into the budsites and if you're getting limited hours of direct sunlight each day I'd want to open those spots up. Personally I'd cut away those 4-6 largest fan leaves that are sticking out off of the main stem on their own, that would open a bit off space but still leave the leaves that are attached to a branch untouched. I also firmly believe in cleaning up the bottoms of any foliage that is in the shadows, the few times i didn't do this i ended up with a lot more tiny popcorn buds than big solid buds up top. ✌️