I was too at first but honestly they don’t seem to mind. I put my screens about 10” from the top soil and I trimmed EVERYTHING below that point that wasn’t an established top. I picked at a few leaves before flower on two of my girls and never made much difference. Then about two weeks before flower I defoliated the back one pretty hard to see a comparison and the back one exploded. My advice on defoliation is leave whatever’s sticking out the top that has reached the canopy alone and trim any under growth that hasn’t or won’t. And you should only defoliate if your environment is in check. As long as that’s in check then the only stress you’re putting on it is the trim and they bounce back pretty quick from that so long as temps and humidity are in optimal ranges. Usually in a couple days you’ll notice the difference. Then every couple weeks I peek under and pinch off any new growth. I will also reach down in the canopy and trim out any smaller shoots that only come up a few inches or have really far node spacing and only have one or two nodes. I like my tops to have at least 4 nodes catching light.
The point is to remove small growth since it’s stealing food and energy from the rest of the plant. By trimming the plant we focus the energy and food into the areas we want.
Before trim
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After trim
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Couple hours after
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Sounds like some pretty solid advice man, thanks!!
I wish I would have done the majority of it before I flowered, cause now that I'm a week into flower that's what worries me the most. I keep reading so many posts saying not to mess with too much during flowering. The plant on the right has sooo many tops that haven't and womt make it through the canopy, and there definitely no way to remove them all without stressing it horribly. I'm talking probably 20-30 branches haha.
Today i went through and removed some more foliage under the canopy.
I keep checking everyday hoping that the tops down below will have popped up 5 inches to the surface lmao. I guess I'll have to chip at them a couple a day and try to clear most before any real buds start to develope