If you're talking about a dark period before flip, I can say that I haven't experienced any beneficials from doing this. If you mean leave it on 18/6 for 24hrs then flip, it's not really necessary.
I usually don't trim leaves in veg other than if I'm topping or whatever other training technique but a full defol? Not really. I do a full defol the same day I flip the light schedule. This shortens the recovery window and helps in reducing stretch. If you feel that you may have stayed in the veg window too long you can try and keep your lights off temps within a degree or two of your lights on temps. This is a technique I use to keep stretch from getting too crazy when I don't know how much stretch the plant will have if I'm growing it for the first time.
Sorry. I didn't read a post where you named the brand of nutrient but it sounds like
Advanced Nutrients? What I would do is continue running just grow for a couple weeks after flip. In week three of flip do a 50/50 blend of grow and bloom along with your cal/mag supplementation. This should raise the N you're feeding along with more P and K. The rise in P should also help in getting the plant to flower a little faster. You're in coco so mag supplementation is important as coco doesn't hold onto mag or calcium like soil does so whenever I grow in coco cal/mag gets used almost immediately. Do this blend into week 4 - 5 then remove the grow from your recipe and go with straight bloom.
As far as a nute increase in PPM/EC I would stay where you are at right now and slowly start to raise the amounts each feed until you start to see signs of leaf tip burn. Back off your PPM/EC and use that as your PPM/EC limit. Keep in mind that in flower you don't need as much volume of fertilizer as you do in veg. In flower a little goes a long way so you can run a slightly lower PPM/EC than you did in veg.
I don't use boosters but when I have I like to use them going into week 4 - 5 of flower. Young flower development is going to want a good level of N as it builds the physical structure of the flower along with a high demand for N when the plant doubles in size. Once the flower hits around week 4 or 5 it starts to slow down the physical building of flower and increases all the chemical processes it does making cannabanoids and THC along with putting on more girth rather than length. You want to time the shot of booster to when the plant can really use it which, IMO, is after week 4 - 5.
BTW what booster are you using?
This is a quick reference chart for soil that shows the plants nutritional needs at every stage of its growth. Note the high demand areas. As you can see, for N, the highest demand happens not in veg but the first few weeks after flip which is the stretch portion. Also note that after week 4 - 5 N demand drops steadily. This is where you will remove the grow portion of your blend which should reduce the ratio of N in your feeds.
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Sorry if I got in the "weeds" with the chemistry but it's important for you to understand the needs of the plant and the times when those needs need to be increased to maximize plant performance or decreased to alleviate lockouts.
am I doing these ladies proud?
