Hey guys questions for you. Im in week 5 of flowering and i always read about snd hear different opinions when it comes to defoliating during flower. Some say to remove fan leaves that are covering bud sites and others say dont remove fan leaves. Also people say not to do it past week 2 of flower. So what yall think? Do we remove some fan leaves to expose more bud sites all throughout flower, only do it up to a certain week or not at all? Thanks for your info. Im attaching a pic just so yall can see what im talking about. Thanks again.
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@luda. Usually by 3rd week flowering an under canopy clean up is done to allow air flow and get rid of any smalls that aren’t going to develop into anything substantial.
Helps the plants to direct their energy to filling out the upper colas /nuggets.
A clean up of bigger leaves on top will let more light into the lower buds.
Just don’t overdo it the first time to prevent stress. They will slow a bit when first thinned but should recover fairly quickly in a week or so. 
Also a good idea to continue taking light blocking leaves till harvest. Again allowing light to all bud sites.
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Ye i cleaned out under growth or stuff that wouldnt make it to the canopy during week 2 of flower. So yiu suggest i continue to remove some fan leaves that are covering lower bud sites all throughout flowering? Thanks for your input.
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If you do It will help with air flow and bud size at the end.
I continue to take them from the 2-3 rd week flowering on till the end.
A few at a time so as not to stress or shock the plants.
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I personally clean up the bottom 1/3 when I flip and I also take my clones at that time as well. I have always removed the first fan leaf of each branch when I feel the branch is big enough (3 inches or so with multiple nodes). I haven’t been able to tell the difference. I’ve done a test on a critical purple auto and didn’t defoliate that during flower. I only defoliated just before flip. Idk if it was from it being an auto (I’ve only ran 1 auto) or if it was from not defoliating but the buds just came out super fluffy and I wasn’t impressed at all all by it. So now I run mainly seeds but have a couple mothers of the best ones. I am a believer in defoliating to allow the bottom bud sites to photosynthesis. As for in the middle of flower I’ll pull some here and there if they are big and covering a lot but only pull the ones pointing in ward if possible. I’ll start to pull more the closer to the end and have 90% gone by the middle of the last week. Try to get more tricomes developed more deep down. That’s just my opinion.
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Awesome thanks. You and oldguy both agree with small defoliation throught the flowwr process to expose more bud sites. Thats what ill do tomorrow morning before feeding them. Thanks again.
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