Real Gorill4 5th Node Topping

I had initially wanted to defoliate around week 3 but as I was watching the buds develop and I evaluated the bushiness and leaf coverage of a lot of buds, I decided to go ahead and do the final defoliation at the beginning of week 2. I have read that it is better to wait so that it does not take away from that early bud growth due to the stress. But my thought was, how will many of the buds get growth anyway without getting proper light. So I went ahead with the defoliation. Only way for me to know is to diary this experience and try a week 3 defoliation next grow for compare. A few grows ago I had an issue due to over defoliation so this is something I am still honing in on with my craft. Watered with Tiger Bloom (2 tsp/gal), Big Bloom (3 tsp/gal) and Grow Big (2 tsp/gal) on 1/29/20 and again on 2/1/20 with plain water both times pH'd to 6.4. You can see the significant color difference after the feed. She is clearly just more hungry than the other girls. She is stretching like crazy and gained 2.5 inches over the last week. However, she is becoming a little bit leggy which I fear will effect her bud structure. Previous experience was either very small buds with some compression or very airy non compressed buds. I am finding it hard to find a sweet spot with this or discover what her bud composition should be looking like. Very light LST done but in retrospect, I wish I had been a bit more aggressive with her LST to avoid the legginess. Her stalk structure looks as though it could have been manipulated even more horizontally but I was intentionally light handed due to her sensitivity. Her buds are just as significant as her FastBuds garden mates and she is coming along nicely. I saw no stress from defoliation which is great because she has been the most finicky and picky in past grows. The only sign that she ever showed as stress is some slight red in her stalk. Other than that, she has not had any obvious recovery time from any of the topping, LST and defoliation so I may have found a sweet spot for her. Speaking of pH, I had to go invest in a $40 pen from a grow store (probably half that on Amazon) because I was having to re-calibrate the old one around every 20 min and I could not take it anymore. The new one seems to stabilize on the numbers better so I am hoping I am now getting true readings.