Removing Fan Leaves on Final Few Weeks of Flowering

[Chi13]

Maybe you should re read what you posted and you might work out why I reacted as I did. Talk about passive/aggressive. I am not saying you are clueless, but I do react when I make a post in good faith when I get a response like this. This is what you wrote:
please refrain from continued posting on shit neither 1 of you obviously have experience at

No need to leave the thread. I'm out.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/defoliation-bro-science-myth-just-wont-die-glen-johnson/

 

[f-e]

It's more complex than yes or no.
Choose a leaf. Any leaf on your plant. Now ask, will pulling it off illuminate the floor? If so, then you should probably leave it on. If pulling it will illuminate other leaves below it, then it's not as vital as the leaf that would let light miss the plant. Now this leaf that casts a shadow, Is it causing any issues for your lighting. Water usage and the need to extract it can be reduced, if it's a problem. This leaf.. will pulling it lower the canopy where a head is rising out of it? We can guide production here where a longer bud is better trimming option. Buds actually in the light will always try. If I have an arm with a light to the side, then generally the big leaves on that side are worth looking at. All the time I'm thinking that I can't take more than 20% of the good stuff though. Our plants seem to accept such losses and if cut to early they will replace them rapidly. If you go over 20% then the plant notices. The link about other plants measured response to various levels of trimming shows they have found the same regarding this tipping point.

There is more going on to. I'm just trying to reach out from the core yes or no explanation to show reasons for defoliation beyond stopping the little puddles.

Like most things, it's done with moderation, where necessary. Like uncovering great leads that somehow got shaded in. Keeping your coliseum umbrella free. Stopping tent fires. Ensuring air movement. I complicate this further having lighting below. Where the tipping point from defoliation is much less of an issue. Peoples measurements over the years have led to opinions such as 'shock goes down a plant' and anything not well lit really doesn't seem to count. It's not really a contributor to plant health perhaps. More a leech. With that view I seems to get along.

 

[Dropped Cat]

Me, I take the lower fans first, maybe a couple weeks after flip.

After the plant tops out, I take fans a couple every few days,
as well as the lesser branches.

If a fan turns yellow on a budding plant, the nitrogen goes somewhere.

By the flush, no fans at at all, as the leaves in the buds are
all the plant gets for the finish.

When you harvest a plant that has a bunch of green fans,
what exactly do you end up with anyway, I wonder.