Well, I’ve made it this far. These are starting week 4 of flowering. They seem to be well but I’m wondering on how I should go about defoliating them. I did a fairly heavy trimming of fan leaves two weeks ago and they are getting a little out of control again. I’m just wondering if I should be taking more fan leaves off at this point, it seems like most pictures I see of peoples plants in flowering they have almost no fan leaves. Any advice on how much to take off, or to leave, would be appreciated!
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@FunkyGrower That may be a touchy one… Everyone has their way.
My way…
I only take leaves to help with air flow. Buds don’t help with photosynthesis… Leaves do.
At the 12/12 flip on regular Photoperiod plants… I drastically lollipop it… Usually.
Leaving the only top few nodes on each branch…removing very low branches.
After the stretch is done in about three weeks… I do one more inspection for low larfe budsites and unnecessary leaves below the canopy.
I do my best to retain large leaves throughout the grow.
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As @Growmoredank said, you will get people on both sides of the fence. Some are totally against it and some strip every plant and everything in-between 
Google “Schwazze” or “the ultimate guide to Schwazze”.
I myself typically do a good bit of defoliation throughout the grow with most my plants.
Basically by the time they are 5-6 weeks into flower there is not many fan leaves leftt at all.
I was actually just about to give this plant a good strip in just a few minutes.
But I will basically pluck any leaf that is atached with a stem.
Any part of the plant that is green has chloroplast and photosynthesizes.
The Schwazzeing articles will help alot i believe.
I’ll post pictures of the trimmed plant in a few
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Just checked on the Schwazzing… Seems I was inadvertently doing it… Kind of.
At day 1 of 12/12 and day 21…I’ll adjust to day 20 jic.
My harvest this time… A natural grow… Was off by 3/4 lb… I usually get 1.25-1.5 lbs per 4x4 for harvest
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I do the day 0 and day 21 defoliation. I have had great luck. I get just under 30 oz. from my 4 x 4 when I grow indicas. The one time I grew Sativas and some Gold Leaf I got 42 oz using this method. Good Luck
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Gold leaf was one of my biggest producers if not the biggest now that i think about it 
I got nearly 4lb out of my 4x6 under a Growers Choice Roi-e720.
I been chasing that number ever since in this tent
Maybe i need to drop one
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I’ve got some Indicas going now, I’ll be doing the day 21 defoliation on Saturday
4 lbs is some serious yield…I agree the Gold Leafs are beasts.
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