HELP! 3 weeks of life, never trained or pruned in any way, should i defoliate before 12-12?

[Pupaz]

Hi guys, this is my very first grow, so try to be inclusive. These are my 4 babies, cream caramel from sweets seeds, tall about 40cm and 3 weeks of life. I use BioBizz products and a powerfull led lights as light source.
I’ve never trained them, never topped them in anyway, just left them be the girls they want to be. There isn’t a real motivation: simply when I started I ignored things like LST, Topping, Defoliation etc…
Anyway, going on this adventure, watching the girls growing up, I started to study about them and I realize that maybe I could choose a different path in order to have something better, but now it's gone. My question in about defoliation (being the other training methods not applicable at this timeline) beingn my plants too bushy for light penetration.
Should I trim always the lower branch where I have the bifurcation? Should I trim also the little branches that start from the main one? If yes, can I proceed for all the length of the plant or should I leave these bifurcation on the top?

I read the nebula’s guide to defoliation and it tells to defoliate right before the switch to 12-12 (in my case Tuesday) is it ok for me even if I’ve never trained my plants or I will stress too much the plants?
The only thing I understand, and please tell me if I’m wrong, is to don’t touch any of the bud sites.

Thanks for helping me.

[Farmall]

Read this first: https://www.growweedeasy.com/cannabi...ng#defoliation

[Buds4949]

What about autos my northern lights auto is just starting to to flower and was thinking to get some of the bigger fans

[homegrown]

hey Buds4949, if the big fan leaves aren't blocking any buds and you arent having an air circulation problem..i would just let them do their job. ive only done 5 autos but only had to defoliate one just because she's super thick thru the center.

[Pupaz]

Read this first: https://www.growweedeasy.com/cannabi...ng#defoliation

For sure i read all the defoliation topics around growweedeasy. Maybe i asked not the proper way my question. My dubts come out because i wasn't able to find any examples of growing similar to mine where any type of training hasn't been done.
So i have to cut off all the big fan leaves under the read line draw by nebula in his example? And up it just the ones which shade what's below? Should i privilege the upper branch if i have decided to trim off the 50% of the bifurcation as i saw in some videos of defoliation?
Seeing many example of manifold plants i get confused: my flowers will be born just from the stem having, in my case, the intact apical structure? Because i'm scared to trim out future bud sites on the branch.
thanks for your patience.

[Mr.furley]

Go a head and cut the top 4 biggest fan leafs off the plants, yes the top the second and third branch down. Open up the plants so light can get inside and leave the bottoms for now.

your red line is to close, cut a little bit away from the other branch.

good luck.