best way to deal with very healthy plant during Scrog flip

I'm super happy with how my plants have responded to some love and attention, greatly aided by the community here--thanks!

I flipped them about a week ago. There are on a double layer scrog. Underneath 2 200W LED's. I was using a 400W HPS but was gonna run out of room.
In any case, I did my best LST with the scrog. Right as I flipped, as to be expected, there was a lot of growth. My one GSC really went crazy, growing twice as fast as the other 2 plants. I've tucked what i could to even the canopy, but a number of branches along the wall are growing like crazy.

Should i try to weigh them down a little? Washers and string? Let them be? I don't want to top anything. Either way I'm pretty psyched with how happy they are.

Give the girls a good defoliation now, before you get too far into flower. With all the happy plant growth, you will get many larfy undergrowth buds that can't reach the light. Defoliating will free up some space to maintain the better branches.

Trich-o-matic said:

Give the girls a good defoliation now, before you get too far into flower. With all the happy plant growth, you will get many larfy undergrowth buds that can't reach the light. Defoliating will free up some space to maintain the better branches.

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I have read quite a bit about different techniques from nothing to almost compltely stripping. Do you mostly remove lower fan leaves? I did a light under trimming, took some clones, etc, but didn't do too much

I always leave the top 3 fan leaves. They kinda act like a "pump" imo. Help to bring up the nutes and water.
I defoliate heavy up till week 4 to maximize my space and keep the bottoms nice and lighted.
Im looking to pull 3lbs outta my 5x5 so you can imagine how crowded that would.be without defoliation. When you stop at week 4 the plant still has leaves that will develop but itll be much less than a plant thats just left to bush. I like to grow flowers not leaves
I never was into it before i thought fan leaves are necessary for proper growth but its really not true (to a point). People will disagree thats fine but theyve never tried it im pos of that
Mind you some strains love it some strains not so much

It's a little scary the first few times you defoliate, but you'll pick it up quick. Pretty much anything that isn't touching the net could be removed. Those branches will only produce larfy lesser quality buds. You've got enough plants in there. So, you could turn this into another learning experience. Take 3 plants and give one a light defoliation, another a medium defoliation, and the third a heavy defoliation. Once you see how the plants bounce back, you'll be more comfortable and once you see the end results of the different levels of defoliation, you'll develop your preference.

I did some more clipping. Still I'm sure could do more, but want to learn a bit more and find my way. Thanks for the tips

Nwtexan said:

I have read quite a bit about different techniques from nothing to almost compltely stripping. Do you mostly remove lower fan leaves? I did a light under trimming, took some clones, etc, but didn't do too much

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Lollipop it. Take everything off that hasn't reached the canopy.

Allow the plant to focus energy on the top colas instead of it wasting energy making larfy buds below.

Also makes watering much easier.