hey there Beangineer , see that cannabis plants are "apex dominant" meaning one main cola and lots of side colas. Most of the yield improvements you can make is by promoting lateral growth, meaning the side colas. If you pluck "branches" off , then you're removing the side colas one by one... you'll get a stick shaped plant in the end... basically you're hurting your yield by quite a lot for every branch you prune. I wouldnt remove them just because they're in the shade. Anyway when you close the grow box there's hardly any shade, which is the point of the grow box in the first place. What you can do is use a plant tie to gently arrange the branches in a way where they're more in the light, that's LST and that promotes latteral growth meaning you'll increase your yield. Hope this helps ! 🚀