Here's one of my plants, before defoliation and after. I only defoliated to expose my final manifolded/mainlined plant's tops to the light and for better air flow. I'll probably veg for another week or so; I don't usually suggest anyone defoliate if their only reason is to "take some of the load off their plant" because this actually is more likely to hamstring the plant than increase growth by removing what you believe is using up resources, since your fan leaves are your solar-powered engines.
Anywho, my point is, I have over 50 tops and this plant is likely to bush out even more than I really want it to. I am only using a total of 274w between 3 COBs, exposing this plant to about 1.5 of the emitters, and growing two plants, but they're receiving 900-1000 PPFD, so they're growing faster than even my plants I had under two ViparSpectra V450s (which are actually 206w each). The point is, you don't need 1000w per plant to bush out your plant or max out your PPFD requirement, especially when you are overshooting it like you are.
7 weeks of veg so far.
HSO Lemon Garlic OG
Before Defoliation:
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After (You can see the tops better):
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