Scrog Defoliation during flowering - how hard to go?

Lollipop the lower section below the canopy if you don't want to deal with small trashy buds (but it is not essential to do so), but leave as many big fan leaves as possible, they are making the energy your plant needs to grow her biggest and best flowers. Less leaves = less energy = less growth. It really is that simple! Those "bud sites" are relying on those leaves to make the energy they need to grow. If you look, each "bud site" will have its own fan leaf. This is the "power station" that provides the energy for that "bud site" to grow. Remove that "power station" and the "bud site" will have to rely on its own tiny leaves to make energy, which will be nowhere near as much as even just one large fan leaf. The buds will grow out from underneath the fan leaf soon enough, making defoliation pointless. Canabis has evolved to be it most productive and most efficient. Getting rid of perfectly healthy, green leaves, for no reason, is not part of that process. Your plant will grow its fastest and grow its biggest flowers, with as many leaves left in place as possible to make the most energy as possible. Just remember - Maximum amount of healthy green leaves = maximum energy production = maximum growth! Try and only ever remove yellow leaves. By the time they are yellow, they have served their purpose. Besides, the older leaves are "store houses" of pre-made sugars, carbs, amino acids etc, that your plant will draw upon during flowering, as it is more efficient to re-use these elements from the older leaves, than it is to grow flowers AND make these elements from new at the same time, and is also the reason for the so-called "fade". So, by defoliating, you not only reduce your plants capacity to make energy, you also rob it of this vital resource of pre-made growth elements she has so cleverly stored in those older leaves for use at precisely this moment. With less energy and the need to spend some of it on making new carbs, sugars, amino acids etc, the only result can be slower growth and smaller flowers. Defoliation is highly unnecessary and hugely misunderstood by the majority of growers. Most seem to do it "just because" without ever thinking about how a plant functions. If your plant would not NEED those leaves, it would not waste its time and energy growing them in the first place! Nature knows best! It is only egotistical man who thinks he knows better than a plant that has been evolving for Millenia to become its most efficient and most productive. Leave the leaves, your plant NEEDS them! Here endeth my sermon! Hope this helps in some way, Organoman.