HELP! defoliation

[abadtrip]

hi i am new to growing i am 4 weeks into my first grow. i feel things are going well. Plants are looking healthy, short tho. They are getting fat but 1 is staying short. i am growing 2 plants 1 is blueberry. she is growing like i expected them to, looking like all the pics i have seen, i am trying to use LST and i topped her she responded just fine to that so i am happy with that plant.
the other plant is a strawberry kush and she has not gotten out of the bucket i was expecting to have to put in more clay pebbles as it grew out of the rapid rooter but it just started producing nodes as soon as it got light and is now kinda stuck in the pot and i cannot do anything with it. i am thinking i need to trim it out to let light into the middle.i am about a week from going to flower i think. but i have no idea. so should i trim it up or leave it or wait till i am about to go to flower what do i take off? this is an area i am not sure about. i don't want to hurt my plants.
thanks

[Newf]

Congratulations on your first grow and welcome! Your plants look great. Defoliating is a debated topic so you may get a few different answers. Personally I think your plants may be a bit early to start defol. I wait until they stretch a bit early in flower and that will show you where the flowers are. Then I defoliate just where buds are in the shade. As they get bigger I remove the leaves that are too far from the light to be of much use. Some folks are aggressive defoliators and remove a lot of fan leaves others do not remove any. Just remember that whatever you take off cannot be put back. Once in flowering stage the plant will not be growing new fan leaves. Best of luck to you.

[abadtrip]

Thanks Newf i didn't know they didn't grow fan leaves in flower.

[D.A.A.S.69]

Hang in there Abadtrip, your at the right place, some of these pros will be on here in a minute to help you. I grow in soil so I ain't much help, are your plants Autos or Photos?

[abadtrip]

photos.

[D.A.A.S.69]

Bro. your plants look fine an I don't think your gonna hurt a thing by taking some leaves. Just open them up a little ,my pictures aren't that good,but you still got some time before flowering. If you get time read Nebulas article on defoliating. Good Luck looks like your doing a good job.PEACE

[abadtrip]

thanks mate.

[Minoo96]

Hi Abadtrip.
Since they are photos, you could let them sit another month in veg. The strawberry should grow taller eventually, and then even more when flowering.
In this particular case you could defoliate to allow more airflow and more light, you could also let it grow and LST as it comes.
Personally, being short like that is not a bad thing, I "feel" the plant actually build up a strong base before launching upward. They are both healthy, only 4 weeks in veg. I advise you to take pictures every 2 day to see the actual changes, at one point it'll start stretching very fast (within 2 days you should see clear differences).