Ianren

For me I would say it's purely down to the grower and how well they can read their plants, what other training has been involved etc. I've found in my first grow one of my plants would go limp if you looked at her, while that would normally be a compliment it was a pain to keep bud sights open to light. This time however on one that I'm running at the moment, she seems to strive from it. Timing wise I would agree around 2nd to 3rd and then I personally found that defoliating as required over weeks 4 to 6 was ideal, less stress to the plant over the flowering stage by taking a little here and there, rather than hitting the plant again with one big defoliation. If you target the bigger leaves at week 2/3 you will mostly just need to focus on the dead leaves over weeks 4 to 6. Hope that makes sense, and hopefully it helps, happy growing.

@Philindicus,Thank you, yes the big chop ! But still uncertain of best way to know it’s the right time to chop. I feel like my first grow with auto fem I jumped the gun. What’s running through my head is, I wish I had a plan set and knew how many weeks left and when is the right time to flush with autopot system. Advice and experience is key to a successful crop. Definitely not just running to the hydro store and away you go.

Looking really nice starting to bulk up a bit more getting closer to the big chop!

Let me start first by stating that I'm no fan of defoliating. Now, it should be done after the stretch, that is after the 3d week of flower, after that, you have 2 possibilities, a 2nd major defoliation around day 42 of flower (2 weeks later) or little by little over the whole 4th to 6th week.