Defoliate or not? (Autoflower)

Not really. Any healthy green leaves you remove will just diminish your plants ability to make energy, therefore limiting her potential to grow. Removing leaves to uncover "potential bud sites" is pointless, the "potential bud sites" are relying on those very leaves to produce the energy they need to grow! Removing the leaves will mean slower growth due to less energy being made. Besides, light we humans can not see, will actually penetrate upper leaves and strike lower leaves and stimulate photosynthesis, thereby making the energy your plant needs to grow her biggest and best flowers. Older leaves are also "storage sites" of vital growth elements your plant will draw upon during flowering, as it is far more efficient to recycle these stored vital growth elements (carbs, sugars, amino acids etc) during flowering than it is to try and grow flowers AND make these vital growth elements from new during flowering. There is only so much energy available and if she has to use some of it to make the vital growth elements, that means there is less energy available for flower growth. This is basic plant biology that the defoliation advocates fail to understand. So, less leaves = less energy = less stored vital growth elements = less growth. Or to put it another way, - Maximum leaves = maximum energy produced = maximum stored elements = maximum growth. Some light, well considered "lollipopping" is nowhere near as harmful as de-leafing and should be finalised before flowering commences and can benefit you and your plant, by not having to deal with small inner growths that will never amount to anything half reasonable. Personally, I never remove a leaf unless it is yellow. Cannabis has evolved to grow her biggest and best flowers by design. Getting rid of healthy green leaves that produce the energy she needs to grow her best and biggest flowers, does not play a part in that process. Hope this helps,.... Organoman.