Trimming Fan Leaves and Plants in General

How do you guys and gals feel about trimming fan leaves? Mine seem to be getting really big and covering up the growth shoots. I'm an inexperienced grower, so I would like to get some input from some of you. I grow indoor, CFL's and tubes, organic soil with fox farms nutes.

My instinct is just to let it grow and let them chips fall where they may, but if I could do something to increase yield and get more light to those growth shoots I am willing to experiment. I've already topped one plant and it is looking NICE. Thanks in advance!

i dont like to trim the fans leaves..u need them to deliver nutes to u buds..but u can bend them under,to get more light to ur shoots!ppl also jus trim a few blades off the leaves..hope that helps!

Typically what I've started to do is that if the leaf (I get huge leaves, especially during budding) is covering a good section of bud spots then I will cut it off or remove some parts of the leaf at least. I mainly do this because one or two out of the hundreds of leaves on my plants aren't going to hurt anything, especially if it's opening light to a good portion of the plant in doing so.

I clipped a fan leaf off one of mine that are flowering now and lit up a whole side of the plant, the ground underneath, and some part of this bookshelf, just from removing 1 leaf.

Buds barely photosynthesize; the leaves grow the buds. Just because a leaf looks like it is shading something doesn't mean what is beneath it isn't getting any light. And even if it was, why remove it? Why not A. position the leaf differently or B. re-configure your lighting?

Purely situational for me, but I prefer not trimming the fan leaves or any leaves for that matter. However, trimming them can be helpful at times. For instance the male I have currently is in a 5gal needs water every day now and towards the end of the day "warm days" the leaves were droopy. By trimming the bottom branch and fan leaves, I've reduced the amount of water/nutrients it needs, with minor draw backs because the area was heavily shaded and unlikely to produce significant yields. Granted even thinking of trimming the top fan leaves for me would be an extremely rare event. I would prefer to bend them out of the way, but I can't rule out the possibility in some circumstances trimming upper fan leaves could be beneficial.

Thanks everybody. I am going to take your suggestion to just move a few of them and see what happens. I start flowering Thursday and I'm incredibly excited. I have another question for you guys:

When I switch to my big bloom nutes on thursday, should I build up to 100% strength like I did when I first started nutes, or is it ok to go full 100% from the get-go? Thanks for your help!

I would build up, if they look like they need more then escalate the build up.

No reason at all to trim if you can tuck. I LST my plants along a single straight line and so sometimes the fan leaves grow out and end up point down (because they pop out on the side of the node pointing down to the ground instead of out the side or up to the light) because they can't turn enough and lift a fan leaf. Those are the only ones I ever cut if I can tuck

I mean, maybe if you flower right after you take your cutting of something and you don't have many fan leaves it could effect your plant. My plants have like.. 2 1/2 months of vegging behind them so I don't mind taking 1 or 2 leaves off.

Thanks for the advice everyone, I appreciate it.