For me I would say it's purely down to the grower and how well they can read their plants, what other training has been involved etc. I've found in my first grow one of my plants would go limp if you looked at her, while that would normally be a compliment it was a pain to keep bud sights open to light. This time however on one that I'm running at the moment, she seems to strive from it. Timing wise I would agree around 2nd to 3rd and then I personally found that defoliating as required over weeks 4 to 6 was ideal, less stress to the plant over the flowering stage by taking a little here and there, rather than hitting the plant again with one big defoliation. If you target the bigger leaves at week 2/3 you will mostly just need to focus on the dead leaves over weeks 4 to 6. Hope that makes sense, and hopefully it helps, happy growing.
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