Defoliation in flower

All those leaves are making the energy your plant needs to grow the flowers. It is the energy made by the leaves that grows the flowers, the flowers do not necessarily need direct light on them to grow. The tiny bud leaves can in no way make as much energy as even just one fan leaf. Just remember - Maximum amount of healthy green leaves = maximum energy production = maximum growth. Besides, if your plant did not need those leaves, it would not have grown them in the first place! Otherwise, everything Grey Wolf said is pretty good too.

I did a slight defoliation in my 2-3 week of flower. And my plants seemed to like and responded well. The plant will use the stored nutrients in the leafs later in flower, and the leafs act as solar panels for energy. That’s my reasoning for not taking all the leafs

@kaiabel I personally avoid removing any healthy leaves as they are what is providing the energy to make your plant grow , not the buds of coarse removing a few that are not getting light or blocking air can be beneficial but not defoliating for the sake of it

I wouldn’t.. I’d let stretch play out so you know what it’s gonna be like the last half of flower and take off anything then.. (21 days in or so is when I do any defoliation) By then it should basically be done stretching

Shwazzing is not a hype as it used to be. Despite it is a little extreme and not my cup of tea, I think the concept is valuable. Doing a final defo and lolipop job, just when you see firsts pre flowers is, I think appropriate.

Leaves will regrow, almost in every my grow week 3 of flower you will see huge strip, after 10 days like nothing happened. Even in current auto run I have jungles !!! Idea is not about leave quantity is more about putting your plants efforts at right spot to right direction. I never wrote basic idea behind it, but you are first and last. When you trim those leaves bud gets more light, but plant still needs photosynthesis to happen , so all efforts and energy goes to bud site AND leaves are next to him, so we get bigger buds. Those even 10 days of exposing to light DOES make a difference. Now it's very important when you do it and here I think all failure lays even for best growers, some go too early, so too late. You should trim only when you see actual bud forming everywhere, not top level of plant only. You should do it before watering. You should leave all leaves from top till first set of FULLY MATURED fan leaves, everything lower and have stem of leave - must go. I use it very often, but sometimes structure or size of plant doesn't require such actions ... I repeate it on days 40-45 , when buds are formed and only bulking left. All the best !

You can still do it in early flower but this would be about the last time you would want to do it. Only remove the largest fan leaves blocking airflow and light to the bud sites. If you can bend some of them vs removing that would be a bonus as well. I see you've all ready done some lollipoping as well. None of the plats are autos and all photoperiods, Go ahead and remove some of the leaves to suit your needs in this grow. Good Luck and Happy Growing!