The massive leaves are blocking alot of light to t...

do the LST equipment. you have autoflowering - you should not remove leaves.

I grew this strain naturally, with minimal stress very successfully, have a look on my diary, i used a technique called leaf tucking, just pushed the leafs under the pre flowers, eventually they grew to a under level but above the main leafs and in to the light, i still uncertain of defoliation, specially for autos as it decreases growth. Good luck happy growing.

Yes , it’s better to let the light hit the shoots, you just need to be gentle, defoliating 2 fan leaves per week won’t stunt her. She’s just gonna put energy in the shoots instead only sending this energy to the top head, ending like a lil bush instead of lil Xmas tree.

No need to do it this early unless the plant has an ungodly amount of foliage. If you want cut the leafs in half, then remove the leaves in a week to avoid stress.

I see you're at 27 days, possibly check the average time for this auto, 8wks? 10wks? If you've got several weeks for your plant to continue then I think removing minimal leaves to expose the new growth sites may help, but dont get carried away. You'll need strong leaves to fatten up your bud sites and absorb all that light. The plant seems strong and healthy, and I expect cutting just a couple leaves to improve the light penetration would do more good than harm. I also have some leaves blocking the light to some crucial places on my plant and I'm planning to remove at least the 2 causing the most shade. Best of luck and I hope she gets growing big and tall here very soon for you.

Now would be the perfect time to defoliate as your autos will soon flip to flower if they haven’t already. You can do it now and at the end of the flower stretch in around 3 weeks time. The idea is to remove fan leaves blocking the budsites. Possibly even LST to assist with exposing them to light. Check my auto grow for a better idea and see how it can pay off. Good luck

I defoliate my autos when fan leaves block the bud sites. I carefully remove only the fan blocking bud sites and do not remove any leaves that are not blocking bud sites. Usually need to do this twice, once around the time of stretching and again around mid flower. Good luck! 👍

If you've never done it before, I would not start experimenting on an autoflower. Only do it on an auto if you are confident on your defoliating abilities. That been said, when defoliating, the idea is to remove fan leaves that are blocking light reaching other leaves.