Defoliating auto's

I read a lot of forums and chats etc. I'm getting mixed reviews on whether I should or not defoliate. 2 of the girls I got right now are very bushy. They are in flower 42 days from sprout starting to stretch. Seems like so much energy is going to the leaves. There's millions of em. Any help would be appreciated. I'm in dwc 5 gal buckets 1st hydro grow. If I knew these girls were going to grow like this I would of just grew one maybe 2. Trained better I could have had the whole tent covered. 4x4 tent mephisto alien triangle. Should I trim some or not. Believe it or not I already trimmed many many leaves and little shoots 1/3 up from bottom. Or is it too late.

This is my mephisto wedding doing good in same tent. With a toof fairy which I had nothing but problems with but keeps snapping back. Now I know exactly what every one talks about different strains being totally different. Also I hear alot about different phenos of the same strain being totally different sometimes in many ways. That is how my last indoor grow was in soil. Which was my 1st indoor grow.Had 3 of one strain and 2 of 2 different strains everyone was different. So this time I said I'm going to try hydro and I want some good genetics so I got some different mephisto strains. As you can tell those 2 alien triangles are pretty much identical to one another. I guess that's why it's worth getting great genetics.

just give 'em a little haircut if you feel like they get too dense.
maybe feeding is off too they look a little bright.

The color is off I should have waited for lights out to take pic. Is it too late or can I do a little trim? I thought they would have stretched a little more by now but it's starting to shoot up a little. Thanks for any info. Appreciate it 420. Hear is a pic from the 9th.

Any leaf that covers a budsite is gone for me, I get more extreme with it towards the end of flower. Light = denser buds

Any over lapping leaves go too. No point in having 3 leaves deep when the light source is directly above.

Remember any light reaching the floor of the tent is wasted so don’t go mental with defoliation but deffo has its place!

Old Newbee said:

I read a lot of forums and chats etc. I'm getting mixed reviews on whether I should or not defoliate. 2 of the girls I got right now are very bushy. They are in flower 42 days from sprout starting to stretch. Seems like so much energy is going to the leaves. There's millions of em. Any help would be appreciated. I'm in dwc 5 gal buckets 1st hydro grow. If I knew these girls were going to grow like this I would of just grew one maybe 2. Trained better I could have had the whole tent covered. 4x4 tent mephisto alien triangle. Should I trim some or not. Believe it or not I already trimmed many many leaves and little shoots 1/3 up from bottom. Or is it too late. View attachment 5450288

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Never to late, i remove as little as possible but will take a few here and there all throughout the grow. if airflow and humidity are on point you should be fine. Here is a 3x3 with 4 pinneapple express very minimal defoliation and a full tent. You could definately open them up a bit

Thank you both for the input. Very much appreciated. Catshit them are awesome looking plants.

I take them only when needed - blocking sites or growing on top of another leaf. I’d say your plants look a little hungry though. What are you feeding them?

Gh trio,calmag,hydrogard. This feeding for 3 of em I dropped the grow and added liquid Kool bloom. I raised the gh bloom. My ppm's 1000-1100 2.0 ec. Don't know if you looked at both pics. One is lights on and other lights out. You think I need to up my nutes. Using tap that's Starting about 220 ppm.

The reason you get so many ideas and strategies is like driving to New York, there are a lot of roads that will get you there.

Best article I read was about canopy depth. At 2 weeks into stretch they cleaned up sites down 24 inches of canopy depth. At 4 weeks again cleaned up to expose but then defol below 24 inches. It was explained that 4 weeks in all the side branches that will give buds have hardened up and no new growth of substance was going to change. Setting my lights at say 33K lumens at canopy top I drop down 12 inches it's 25k which is still a good energy level. At 24 inches I am down to 17k which would mean very slow growth but way weak for flowers.
But
Flowering means lots of lights up to 60k or more lumens. Now 24 inches down you will pick up some buds stacking but not like a major top.

Screens kinda got it made. Only worry about colas over the net.