LST or leave them be?

Bro it all depends on what the characteristics of the strain are all about. Wish I could attach a pic but there is a plant in my garden that is an auto and takes it's good sweet time getting there. It's approaching 6ft tall and JUST started flowering. That's one that can be mainlined for sure. I've played with others that are very fast to finish where mainlining wouldn't work at all. If you aren't familiar with that technique yet, ask. I'll give you step by step instructions. It's easy and worth every second. Basically it gives you 8 rock solid colas instead of 1 and a bunch of popcorn. It'll take a plant that typically yeilds 2oz and crank it up to 6oz+. I always grow out new strains naturally. Like zero done to it until flower. At that point when it just starts to bud, I'll remove 3 to 6 nodes (again depends on the strain) to force the growth to the rest of the plant that will produce good stuff. Then just finish it. Nutes are a BIG DEAL. Do NOT count on the soil to bring you through it. The 3 part General Hydroponics line is good for beginners and easy to manage. I'm a grow bag and soil guy too under LEDs and outside for the big ones. What I use is Earth Juice Seablast. Its a four part, one for each stage of growth: Grow, Transition, Bloom, Bloom Master. The first buy is expensive but its dry, comes in 3 or 5lb bags. And the max you'll feed per gallon is 1 tsp lol. It lasts a long time unless you have a farm going. It contains all of the micros you need for each stage. So you dont have to have 12 bottles of shit and charts to worry about. I also add 2 tsp of food grade epsom salts to each gallon for extra cal/mag. Ph to 6.3. And if you get that far message me and I'll give you a good PPM schedule. It's more than the bag recommends for "strong", but its a gradual increase so you dont nuke your plants into nute lockout. I think that's about it. I'd let your first round go natural. If it starts getting too tall then I can show you how to bend them out of the way.

LST is asoft Techinc for more Light Penetration. Start with ainitial Topping and then afew days later with bending mainstem back,,,, you can perform it until end of week 2 of bloom And your " defoilation"... is absolute unnecessary here. In thsi stage too If she will grow one day to many leaves thet block the lIight, take single leaves awy..... Defoiliating take her fanleaves awa,,, thoise feed them. If you take away she tries to reproduce and you slow her down/ stunt her keep on growing