Maximize Yield (the many vs. the few)

my room is roughly 2.5ft x 3.5ft x 5ft and i am currently on day 30 for 6 my gals - they are currently under T5s equaling roughly 16k-20k lumens growing in rockwool and being handwatered - my question is right now they are taking up approx. 2/3 the canopy area and i feel like i could go ahead and switch it over to 12/12 with a 600w HPS with all 6 inthere but i would like to know if it would be beneficial to cut back on the number of plants and let the fewer plants fill up the area or keep the 5 or 6 I have in there now and go ahead and flower - the goal is, of course, to maximize yield - below are pics of the grow this morning everything on the right is strawberry cough and the two on the far left are unknown bluberry strains - thanks for your time, i look fwd to hearing your thoughts

i'd say keep the 6, and go for a scrog...you'll be able to get a shitton of colas nice and fat under a 600watt hps since you are limited on height...top em, grow em out, lst em down, and weave them into a screen, then 12/12 to finish and you'll have a sea of colas to harvest

people usually go sog (many) for yield (maybe you wont get more yield Per harvest, but more runs per year)

thanks for the info though not interested in switching over to a sog for this particular grow - I guess my questions was more in regards to weather 6 plants vs. 2-4 plants in same 2.5 x 3.5 area, which would produce more bud? does a more mature plant produce more buds because it has more bud sites? or because it is able to put more into those buds having a larger stem, root system, etc? or does having a particular number of bus sites on 6 plants yield roughly the same as 2 plants with the same number of bud sites?

you´d have to veg the 2 much longer to get the same yield as from the 6.