Ive never seen any benefit from going to extended darkness to begin flowering, either way the plant seems to stretch like crazy and begins flowering within the week. Now at the end of harvesting Ive seen some differing reports (never tried it/heard about it til I read it on here, so Im trying it with this grow)

As far as lolipopping, I dont remove anything until stuff starts dying basically. If i make it pretty well into flowering without removing leaves Im actually doing better than normal, lol. The idea behind removing leaves though is to increase airflow and thin out vegetation to get light to lower buds. Ive never understood why you would do it as a matter of course, especially early in flowering, as it seems it would cause way to much stress for little real benefit. (Sorry Purplethumb, I just cant wrap my head around removing sun leaves for fun ) Most growers tho that take clones from the bottom branches do it before flowering, maybe a week before, so the plant has time to recover before the push to flower.