Should I defoliate? If so, when/how?

NO, NO NO, do not do it! Your plant NEEDS every leaf it has to be able to produce the energy she needs to grow her biggest and fastest. Removing healthy green leaves will just reduce your plants capacity to make energy, slowing growth and leading to potentially smaller plants/flowers too. If your plant did not NEED those leaves, it would not have grown them in the first place! Try only removing yellow leaves, for by the time they are yellow, they have served their purpose. Besides, those older leaves will become storage sites for vital growth elements that your plant will draw upon during flowering, as it is more efficient to do so rather than grow flowers AND make those growth elements (carbs, sugars, amino acids etc) from new at the same time as growing flowers. So, not only does defoliation reduce your plants capacity to produce energy, it also robs her of an important source of carefully assembled vital growth elements for use during flowering. My opinion - never remove healthy green leaves!! Hope this helps,........... Organoman. (and strident anti-defoliation advocate!)