To defoliate/prune autoflower on day 42?

You can once the pre flower stage is over. Typically you don't go off days with autos. As all phebos are different. So stages. Once upwards growth stops and you see buds starting to swell. Then you can start taking away big fan leaves covering bud sites. As the bud takes in the energy now as mainly the leaves have pushed them through veg. For flowering it's key for the bud to get the light. Leave smaller sugar leaves alone. Remove main fan leaves in 10-15% stages. Let it recover a few days or give something for stress such as silica.

I wouldn't worry too much about where the light hits. The plant distributes resources from phloem based on apical dominance and not where the light hits the plant. It is far more important to ensure full absorption of what light you provide than to get light to hit budsites where chlorophyl levels are 1/100th of the leaf surface, i.e. far less photosynthesis taking place per sq inch and add to that fact how quickly light spreads out over an incremental distance from the light (inverse square law applies), and it's not even a hypothesis worth testing given existing knowledge. Avoid disease vectors. There's really not much other reason to remove leaves. CO2 is your limiting factor. Removing leaves reduces CO2 intake. Just one more reason why that bro-science is easily de-bunked. they also store nutrients and build necessary building blocks for growth. Leaves are paramount and not to be discarded whimsically or due to bro-science. Even if intense light is not directly hitting lower leaves, they are value-added to the plant. Plants 'want' to have a certain amount of leave relative to their health/environment. they know better than use when to shed leaves in most contexts... a re-vege warrants our input but regular growth does not.

Bushy Babe! I'd just do the lower growth not getting direct light and in pure shade.

Hey Growmie, since youre growing an autoflower i recommend not pruning anything "unproblematic" yet. You cant extend the vegetative period and cutting means taking energy away from the plant - you may lower your yield and quality. You already did some lollipopping, which I recommend for every plant due to other reasons (Pest and disease control, easier watering for example) Your plant is looking nicely shaped and uniform already and it should be going into flower soon / start stretching. I would suggest you wait until that happens, and then when you notice the stretch is stopping you can still go and defoliate some lowers / lollipop some more. Dont prune anything off in the top section, unless its leaves stacking over each other causing water drops, which could be a breeding pool for disease. If needed to, do more LST. Hope this helps, good luck!

I’ve had way better success in defoliation with every grow. It looks like you could use some pruning here. I take any fan leaf off that is coving up a bud site. I think this really helps with yields. I make sure there is enough airflow through the whole plant. This helps keep any mold issues at bay. I make sure I get a decent light penetration throughout the plant. This helps with uniform development. I would clean up your plant for sure but knowing you didn’t want to do much defoliation this grow then you don’t have to go crazy on it if you don’t want to. Hope this helps.

im sort of in the same situation, remove as little as possible

High Hydronaut, There are only 3 reasons to defoliate. 1. When a large leaf on the top of the plant blocks a lot of light for the rest of the plant below. 2. When leaves are stacked on eachother blocking airflow. The moist can not escape from in between the leaves and this will cause mold. 3. Small buds and leaves at the bottom of the plant that do not recieve enough light. These buds will never grow big enough and will only use energy that can better be used for thos juicy, sticky and fat buds on top of the plant! You want to study your plant with the 3 rules mentioned . Make a plan for your plant and defoliate only the necessary. Otherwise it will only decrease yield. Happy Growing Buddy! 💚

I personally would not clean, defoliate or trim anything , till final flower stretch is over. Tuck leaves under side branches, expose side shoots to light as much as you can for now. At the end of week 3 of flower, you will know real size of plant, how tall it will be and so on Then you can clear bottoms, start plucking most shaded leaves from inside of canopy and do other needed manipulations. If do it know you risk to stress plant. Most of lights penetrate 50 cm deep max ( even through thick canopy) so thats you distance for bottom clearing. Nice girl ! Just maybe a bit pale, big plants need loads of food.

If you see very very weak stems that won’t produce any big colas or even a smokable buds. They can be removed. But be careful with the good stems! And just remove all the little weird buds that’s pupping up in the lower section because the buds won’t be smokable. They will just steal energy from the top colas If you don’t want to remove branches just go for the big leaves that’s blocking the lower bud sights and maybe some leaves in the lower section just to open up the plant so you get better airflow and better light penetration. It’s always a good idea to cut some leaves. You don’t want her to rot if the environment isn’t perfect it can be pretty easy in late flower. Don’t over do it and you will be just fine 😃 Good luck my friend.