To Defoliate or not to defoliate??

I noticed there is a lot of debate on this subject, so i thought i would stir the pot a little as I am at a debate with myself about it.

Whats your opinion??? Prove your case

All I know is that when I take some of the fan leaves off.. the branches and buds that are underneath start to grow rapidly, reach for the light and get dense... When I defoliate I take them off in a pattern... I dont strip a branch of all their leaves.... I take one or 2 per branch... and if they look as if they are yellowing and the nutes in them used up, they are the first to go....

removing is my last option, ill bend, twist,or cut leaf in half but almost never have to cut off....peace

like brimck325 said ... never liked stressing them by cutting ...

happy growin

Plants grow leaves for a reason; they are "solar collectors". The more leaves a plant has, the more bud it produces; simple as that. Name me one type of farmer that does their plants like this. It's just not sound science to remove healthy leaves.

I remove most of my fans usually around day 20 flowering and again around day 40 flowering.... I take any large fans off that are 4 fans down from the cola or more... Yes leaves do act as solar panels however so do buds, and other parts of the flowering cannabis plant. As long as you don't go overboard with it, you will be fine, as well have thicker secondary buds...

In nature (outdoors) plants naturually loose leaves due to harsh weather, insects and other acts of god. Removing a few carefully selected leaves from your near perfect enviorment indoor plants will not hurt them. Two weeks into flowering i remove a few big fan leaves here and there only to allow light to penetrate deeper into the canopy but i strictly follow a few rules when doing so.

1. Only remove leaves from the top 1/3 of your plants. I look for the biggest/oldest leaves that are directly shadowing a promising lower bud sites to remove.

2. Remove no more than 1 leaf per square foot of your garden, maximum. For example, if you have a 5x5 room you should not exceed removing 25 leaves total. At that rate you are removing plenty of previously shaded bud sites, i do not believe in any form of extreme defoliation techniques!

3. Always use a sterilized razor to trim leaves, never pull them off by hand which can damage the main plant stems and expose them to infection. You should make your cut leaving roughly a half inch of leaf stem remaining on the main stalk of your plant, this lessen the risk of causing infection or disease to the plant's main stem, the remaining leaf stem will dry up and fall off naturally.