Contrary to the site I referred you to check, I do not agree with their defoliation during veg periods. The reason for this primarily is because in theory stripping your plants of their "solar panels" and main sources of gathering light for photosynthesis and respiration process is counter productive. I found in my research and studies on defoliation that although stripping and removing fan leaves during veg does increase nodes and extra foliage, but the same thing occurs when topping or FIM'ng your plants without the added stress and extended period of time it takes a plant to regrow all that additional foliage and off shoots. I find a few good toppings in veg followed by a final FIM'ng of your main sites or growth shoots usually 7-10 days before switching to bloom is much more productive than defoliating your entire plants throughout veg and really delays veg times exponentially.
Its also adviseable to be very familiar with the strain you are running and how they respond to defoliation/topping and such methods for increasing yields,because at the end of the day that's what we are all trying to achieve. With that said, some strains and phenos don't like to be topped or FIM'ed , let alone defoliated. Not having experience with your strains especially in bloom can be catastrophic in the end result from over defoliating your plants or causing stress related issues which can lead to problems such as hermaphroditing.
Like I stated before removing fan leaves around the middle to end of the 2nd week after most of the stretching is done gives you an idea for what fan leaves should be removed. Defoliating at this time should be done in moderation as its never a good idea to strip too much of your plants primary production resources which will cause your plants to stress and take a long time to recover especially during such a critical period like the early flowering phase. This period of time is very important in developing the last main surge for root growth which is going to drive and carry your plants ability to produce large colas in bloom. So focusing on that is more important than defoliating fan leaves which will take away from growing roots and developing bud sites because your plant will be trying to heal broken limbs instead of focusing on your main goal or developing large flowers and maintaining a healthy root zone for blooming phases.
Then after roughly 2 weeks I finish my last bit of fan leaf removal (end of week 4) and only on the interior canopy fan leaves in which the light source can reach the inner shoots and bud sites to help plant grow more dense flowers. Doing this helps promote nice dense flowers throughout the plant, instead of the popcorn pieces we all hate to harvest and trim (at least I do anyways). I find that doing everything during stages 1 & 2 in this manner doesnt interfere with bud or site development by doing it at these times, and giving your plants plenty of time to recouperate between plucking and removal. On sativas if you absolutely need to defoliate i would only do it at the end of week 3 as most strains stretch for longer periods of time and be very careful in selection and amount in which you strip off plants.
Then finally about a week or 10 days before harvest when i begin flushing my plants, I remove all of the main fan leaves that are not inside colas. At this time the fan leaves are not needed as your plants ripen I find that focusing all of your light and energy source onto your main colas and the interior and lower pieces really bulks them up while stressing the plant out which also serves a resin enhancer. As we know when plants are stressed their natural response and defense mechanism cannabis plants have is to coat the buds with resin glands to protect them from invasion. I find doing this really increases resin production roughly between 5-8%. Its sort of like mimicking an animal attack by a deer or any animal which cannabis plants may be affected and as a result sends a natural hormonal response throughout the plant with great benefit and results. Try it out on a few for yourself and see what you think, I promise you wont be disappointed.
I actually have a few buddies who take extreme measures and take a sharp non seraded blade and push it through the center stalk of their plants as harvest approaches. They then take a thin popsicle type stick or shim and make it sharp at one end like an triangle point and place it in the sliced stalk for support. This causes the same response in your plant triggerring the "attack" resulting in excessive resin production. These guys swear buy it, idk Im not into trying some crazy shit like that. But they also got peimo shit so Im assuming it works lol.. Too each his own. Thats not up my alley but whatever maybe you know someone or have heard of it before let me know, always interested in hearing new tips and tricks for results!! happy harvesting, cheers
