did you top your plants or just leave them to their single cola dominance? N i know what you mean about it getting crowded. Thats when you need to either bust out the shears and thin out the canopy a little bit, or manipulate the branches so all the budsites are exposed. Dont get me wrong, your big fan leaves are sugar factories, and vital to the growth of your buds, but if its a toss up between keeping certain leaves, and making sure that light gets to every single budsite on the canopy, then trim the leaves that are blocking the buds. The buds themselves will develop leaves of their own eventually anyway, so your merely giving them room to breathe. I had to thin out my canopy probably once every 2 weeks, as the buds got bigger, there were more fan leaves that got in the way. I tried to move them out of the way at first, but the next day they would be right back in the way. So pruning for me ended up being the only option in the long run. N i dont know if it deminished my yield or not, but the yield i came off with was something to be proud of (for me n the experience that i have).ill end up with close to an lb after all is said n done from 7 plants, so even if it did deminish my yield, it wasnt significant enough for me to say ill never repeat the process, lol. Next time crowding is a problem, i wont even hesitate to prune. Just do it as sparingly as possible, n your ladies will forgive you for it