I think you do more harm than good by removing fan leaves and here's why I think so...
- Healthy fan leaves are not suckers. They don't steal energy from the bud. They give it and it's not the same as stripping the bottom 1/3 of the plant and it's definitely not the same as topping or lsting. When you top the plant, you're redirecting hormones and "energy" to the shoots below the topped or pinched location. If you strip the bottom 1/3 of the plant, the hormones and "energy" that would go to the bottom shoots, will now be redirected to upper growth. Removing fan leaves doesn't redirect anything because there's nothing to redirect. All that happens, is you handicap it because you have removed the source of food and "energy"
- The salts you feed the plant are processed by the leaf not the bud. The bud can't photosynthesize and the light that's showering the flower, really isn't doing anything. The reason that it continues to grow, is because the small leaves are doing what the fan leaf would have done. Not as efficiently but still.
- The CO2 that you pump into your room can only be used by your leaves. The leaves are what breath in the CO2 and exhale oxygen. The flowers can't do this. By removing leaves and pumping CO2, you're basically defeating the purpose of adding CO2.
- More than 80% of the light that shines on a leaf, passes through it. Just because you can't see it doesn't mean the next leaf down isn't getting light. This again is why you remove the bottom 1/3rd of the plant because it's so far down that in a top lighting set up it's not worth growing out.
- If the reason for removing leaves is that the grow area is so stuffed that there is no air movement and that the light isn't even making it half way through the plant, then you might consider doing less plants.
This isn't an argument against anyone's position it's just my thoughts on the subject.