Objective is not to have dark areas or no light reaching the inside of the plant. Trim only what you need to take off to expose the buds. Do not go overboard!
This is where LST comes in handy earlier during the veg stage as this helps to eliminate these spots and opens up the plant to spread.
Fan leaves (as I understand) feeds the branch. the smaller leaves feed the buds in conjunction with the fan leaves. Since fan leaves die off, the leaves on the branch continue feeding the bud. make sense?
That is why they dry up and die from the bottom up (this is excluding plant issues) and the upper 3rd of plant blossoms. I trim the bottom 3rd of all my plants before flowering to drive plant energy to tops where the light is.
Look at my past posts and you can see how I did my plants this will help you understand what I'm talking about. Please understand, I do not use a tent or grow auto flowers (I grow from seed) but still plant basics would apply. I am into my 17th grow right now, 7 weeks into veg, topped and LST applied.
It's your call but be aware this is a toss-up issue among growers, apply what you think is best for your plants and go from there is all I can recommend.
Fox Farms Ocean Forest.
Fox Farms Trio plus Open Sesame, Beastie Bloomz, Cha Ching.
Regular 3- or 5-gallon plastic pots.
4x t8 shop lights, 4 tubes each. kept at 3 inches from tops of plants.
1 small bedroom with ceiling fan.
