Some growers say cannabis defoliation in the vegetative stage can only hurt your plant. They believe removing leaves only prevents the plant from growing. In our experience, we believe defoliation gives growers better control over plant structure, while also stressing the plant in just the right way to cause it to explode in growth... but only in the places you want!
Now I would never recommend that someone take defoliation to an extreme unless they were a very advanced grower who can understand their plant...but I do believe the following extreme example shows that defoliation doesn't necessarily hurt or stop your well-established, hardy indoor cannabis plant.
In the following example, the left plant was only defoliated slightly while the right plant was heavily defoliated! Defoliating this much is NOT recommended for most growers and could seriously hurt your plants in the wrong conditions!
The right plant was heavily defoliated - don't do this if you have never defoliated before! If you do decide to "skin" your plant this way, I highly recommend leaving all the bud sites and only removing leaves. I've found having more bud sites (without leaves) doesn't seem to take away from your top buds, but taking too many buds sites WILL hurt your yields. As a result, growers usually get better yields if they leaves all their bud sites alone, and stick purely to removing leaves.
Here's a closeup of that defoliated plant. The grower wanted 8 main colas, with no other larfy bud from below. So they removed all growth except the growth at the end of the desired colas. However, in my experience, this grower would have produced even higher yields if they'd left all the bud sites and only removed leaves. The top buds would have been the same side, but you'd still get a few chunky buds from the bottom, too, getting more out of your grow space.
Now here's those two plants 12 days later. The defoliated plant has completely overtaken the other plant, but with a better plant structure to take advantage of indoor grow lights.This grower did this in a very controlled environment, but you can start to see how it works. Like I said, that plant got good yields, but I think it would have gotten more with more lower bud sites.
The defoliated plant does not have growth tips from underneath trying to make bud (which would never amount to anything anyway). The only growth tips left are the ones that the grower wants to become main colas. This type of structure sets the perfect stage for flowering, where the main colas stretch up and become a row of buds in your canopy.
How can taking away leaves help your plants in the flowering stage? Don't they need as much energy as possible to make buds?
Yes and no.
Yes, your plant does want to make the most energy for its buds in the flowering. But, making sure all the bud sites are exposed to direct light (and air) is actually one of the best ways to do that. For whatever reason, just like several other types of plant, partial (and thoughtful) defoliation increases the final size and mass of flowers.