Forbidden Fruit

You can defoliate anytime just make sure the leafs you remove are completely unecessary to the plant and essential for improvement, unless the benefit is greater than thr loss, like remove 1 leaf to allow light to penetrate into a area of 4x of the leaf thst wad removed.

You can remove anytime but try not to make it a routine thing. If your gonna pull leaves then commit to it and try get it in one run. Just reduces stress to 1 hit rather than a constant cycle.