Defoliation

Why do you want to defoliate? looks like there's decent air flow and you'd only create holes in your canopy becaues no leaves would replace the ones you removed at this point. bud site development is correlated to position on plant, not if a leaf is covering it. buds at the same level and similar vascular tissue leading to it, will develop in similar ways. I regularlly have 2nd / 3rd level of buds shielded and they turn out just like the 2nd/3rd level of buds with less shielding. Very little photosynthesis occurs in the flower, so why would you maximize light on that instead of your leaves. Leaves also take in CO2 - the limiting fact in most cases... hamprering co2 intake will definitely impact yield in a negative way. In addition to reducing photosynthetic potential which is the single most important factor for nearly all facets of outcome that can be measured. Leaves are lungs. Leavs are energy production.Leaves store buidling blocks for cellular growth... pruning off leaves is not a benefit except in very specific cases. Don't let anyone tell you differently. have a reason to remove a leaf.. maybe it's resting on another one and causing constant condensation on top of that leaf -- this would be a disease vector and a perfectly good reason to remove a leaf. My dehum couldn't keep up with the foilage at times, and to avoid a dangerous RH for the entire room i have removed 10-20% of leaves before.. but that was for the good of the entire grow and i never lied to myself that it somehow increased my yield or made the plant "focus" on buds... it did not. read "to defoliate or not" in dr photon's corner of cocoforcannabis.com. it will give you a proper perspective of cause and effect and debunk a bunch of retarded myths that people do just because they are prone to confirmation bias (especially if it is their behaviour being assessed) and following a herd.