Nebula's defol/swazz articles have me confused! Remove buds or don't remove buds?

[Spanky]

First, Nebula rules and has a place in my heart for all the help she has given. I trust her completely so this isn't critical of her, it is about me not understanding something.

I reread the tutorial about defoliating before going intot flower. Take the big fan leaves lower down on the stem. Be careful not to take the buds. Got it.

In the shawzzing article, she doesn't seem to be really talking about that technique. Lower down, she seems to be going over defoliating, only this time it says to take the buds lower down the stem as they steal energy and won't get big. She even uses the same photos from the defoliating tutorial to demonstrate the bud removal along the main stems.

Thru topping and LST, I got my plants into nice flat canopies. They are so happy they grew lots of stems off of the main stems so more but sites and loads of leaves. I have been tying down these secondary stems so they would get good light. There are lots of them in my canopy still not tied down but I am ready to flower.

Surely I shouldn't remove all these secondary stems that I spent time training and growing out?! Can anyone help me out? Thanks!

[Camk]

I’m thinking nebula means the thin wirey buds that come up from the bottom branches if the ones you have are thick and grew out to the outside of the canopy I wouldn’t remove them they are healthy and found a way to the light
as long as the plant isn’t congested and good air and light flow your golden let it be

[Spanky]

Thanks! That makes sense. I took off the ones from way under that were blocked and kind of curly. I tried to leave many of the top ones that didn't have really thick stems, but they were in the light. Taking many of the bigger leaves helped me see what was what. I am just praying I didn't take too much!

[Chefbjy]

These techniques are for more experienced growers,so you may want to take the steps slower and maybe less then the tutorial. You can always take more off later but you can't put leaves back on. If you've already started training and have a nice even canopy just forget about those techniques and try them when you understand more. Keep your plants happy. @ DANGERDAN has some real informative stuff on defoliating.

[D.A.A.S.69]

Hey spanky, that's how you learn, doing things by yourself, I would much better have experience, than reading about stuff. But that's just me.
So you keep right on with your doing what ,you think, just take the small ones.

[Chefbjy]

Trial and error.

[D.A.A.S.69]

Yeah chef, we didn't have books, when I started,

[gbauto]

What I've found on defoliation is that as the plant flowers it may produce 'sucker' stems down low and in the interior of the canopy. I've let them go before on grows inside and they just produce larf-not worth keeping. I now remove all of the 'sucker' flowers and small branches that are severely light blocked. This seems to allow the plant to focus on the main colas up top. Follow D.A.S.S. advice-just see what happens.