Hello all,
I am attaching some pictures of my short stocky and bushy plant. Should I clip the leaves off to expose more bud sites or leave it alone to collect more energy?
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Let it grow. If take anything just the very bottom inside stuff. She needs her fans to grow and produce energy. She is not in flower so no sites to hide. I am in the less is more camp but I believe most will agree she is perfect as she is.
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Ditto @Storm , im a snipper but they dont need to come off just yet. Wait till you really need more airflow through there and bud sites have begun forming
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Also the little junk around base and main stalk can clean off. I have good stretch results keeping the bottom under the second node clean. Any that look like gonna hug main stem and not form a branch go. Just me.
I just added some fish bone meal because little white pistols are forming. Should I clip a few once I see actual buds or just leave it alone throughout the entire grow?
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Great advice so far and I concur. Depending on how you want to grow once she gets 3-4 nodes high I like to top the main chute and in my understanding of the theory, that forces that plant to send more growth hormone all throughout the plant, making her have multiple main cola sites. I also had a heavy hand with low stress training throughout the plants full life cycle to help expose shaded parts of the plant and shape her into what I wanted. I had very small area to work with and grew seeds that tended to want to grow 6+ feet tall so it was vital with my grow space. I was also very quick to prune or move foliage that was blocking bud sites. They look great otherwise GG and good luck
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Mine is an auto flower and I believe I shouldn’t top it.
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My opinion is that there’s too much controversy about topping autoflowers. A common way to top that I do is to clip off the foliage above the 4th node/at the 5th node, even if the plant is beginning to show some pre-flower pistils.
I also cut off the 1st node set of branches, fairly early on when there’s enough space to chop them.
For any cutting like this, I sanitize my sharp, thin scissors in isopropyl alcohol first and let them dry.
For sure, don’t top or train if you aren’t comfortable with it. It took me several plants before I was comfortable enough to start topping training. It’s all good. 
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Fo now, I’m tucking the larger leaves under the new growth which appears to be potential flowering sites. Good idea?
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Yep. 
Tucking was going to be my advice. Uncover all bud sites you can at this stage.