I’d like some advise on my 4x5 SOG set up

This is the first post like this that I have ever made in my entire life. Growing has always been so intriguing to me and especially understanding how the plant grows and what compound does what to maximize your plants potential. And training techniques to get the absolute best results we want from our plants.
This is my second grow. The first grow was a single plant in my closet. I love reading about growing and all of the different techniques used to maximize yields.. and I guess that’s kind of how I got myself in this pickle. I’m growing BlackBerry Kush and Pacific Northwest Oregon Diesel x 9 Pound Hammer. I’ve fimmed and topped the plants twice. Once around a couple weeks old and then again a couple weeks before I went into flower. I germinated six seeds with two different strains and I expected to get some males but they all turned out to be females and at that time I didn’t even have a grow tent yet and was still growing in my closet. Long story short I have 5 plants in a 4x5 under SOG. 4 of them were in veg for just over 8 weeks and those are the BlackBerry Kush. The 2 Pacific Northwestern Oregon diesel times 9 pound hammer were in veg for about a month. One of the BlackBerry Kush plants was growing slow so I ordered a 2 x 4 tent and have it separate in there as I was trying to make as much space as possible in the 4 x 5 tent. I put up the net a week before flower and let it grow through enough to bend everything under it the following week which was the week I went in the flower. I know that there are better time frames to do these things and I also know that my plans are way too big and that I did this way too late but I just want to see what happens.

So my issue is that I’ve been continuing to push everything under the net which I also put up a secondary net 4 inches above it and was doing so under that one as well but there is so much growth going on from the bottom that up and so many fan leaves that I want there to be enough airflow and light penetration so that there is some decent weight below. But not that far below because I’ve pruned everything a decent amount of the way up. I quit talking everything about a week ago and I took the secondary net off to try and open up everything to get better light penetration and I have been lightly defoliating all the bigger fan leaves up higher covering bad sides. But I understand that you’re not supposed to take off the top fan leaves and my question is what is considered the top? Me personally I’ve always left the 2 to 3 biggest fan leaves on the top. And usually I’ve taken a couple off a little below that if they’re covering bud sites or just taking up too much space and can’t be tucked. I know that there is a fine line between taking too much but also taking a decent amount to direct The plants energy into more beneficial areas of the plant that will produce a bigger and better yield. One of my questions is which fan leaves are the preferred ones to take off after you’ve entered the flowering phase between week one and three before your supposed to let them do their thing. How long are the fan leaves below that don’t receive any light still able to produce the plant with everything that it has stored? Is it better to just cut them off? I’ve seen and read so many things where people have completely defoliated their plants and got some pretty awesome results and then were people did light defoliation and also got good results. So I’ve tried to do a decent amount of defoliating but things are getting out of control. Should I put the secondary net back up at week three of flower and tuck everything under the net and then let it grow from that point on and try and raise my light up? I would appreciate any advice thank you.
 

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volcanoOFhistory

Well-Known Member
What week of flower are you in. I'll generally take off any large fan leaves with good sized stems below the first set of top fan leaves right before switch so that I can do a lighter defoliation around week 3 and not slow down growth too much.
 
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