When to Start Defoliation?

[electricbuddha]

Hi -

This is my first grow - I have two 5 week old clones in fox farm ocean forest in 3gal pots. I started feeding them the fox farm nutrients in week 4. They seem to be growing well - but I'm a little concerned with how bushy / dense they're both getting. I think this is mostly by design (LST and super cropping) but when will they start growing more vertical? Are you supposed to loosen / release the tie-downs at some point?

It seems like it would be useful to go in and clean up some of the lower fan leaves, etc. that aren't getting much light. You can see them drooping in the pics - they never really perk up. I've heard some people say that de-foliation is more advanced and shouldn't be done the first couple grows - but would it be useful here? When is too early to start de-foliation?

Thanks!

[Wolfe0420]

Week 4 of veg ?

[Wolfe0420]

I personally don’t worry about pruning or cleaning up until after I flip. I will pull the diseased or dying leaves off whenever I see them start to show. I run a Scrog set up, I usually have 3 weeks of stretch, after going to 12/12 cycle. The reason I don’t clean up my bottoms until flip is because I want to see how much of the bottom will start to come up.