Alright i tried it and almost all of my cuts that i defoliated died. So mission failed.
Defoliation can only be applied to plants that have developed enough roots, but then it can really help to control pests. If you don’t get them all, you still get all of them that were on the leafs, like 99%.
This grow was contaminated in the first or second week of flower. Then i defoliated nearly every leaf and look.
They read it! I use water culture on my clones, it must help the survival rate.
I just defolled all leaves because my friend had an apes in space cut he grows outdoors every years and it’s fire. It had powdery mildew and aphids, cut all the leaves back and used neem oil twice. Haven’t seen any things since.
Edit: will continue spray until flower
Yes that could be the case. But a little more matured plants survive here too!
But no need to refer to me as they/them as i am a ‘cis’ fella lol! 
Yes. In past cases where I was given mites, I have defoliated clones in order to decrease the amount if surface area that needs to be treated. I dipped the trimmed clones in water containing some dawn dishwashing soap and rinsed them under warm tap water every 3rd day for 6 days… 3 times 3 days apart. This has always worked for me, no chemicals other than soap involved.
Do you remove all the leafs? I did it and only three survived of the whole batch.
Interesting they died on you, what conditions were they in? Yes I had removed all of the extended leaves. I leave the growing tip and auxiliary shoots. I do this to clones that I just want to slow down too, they don’t usually die if they are rooted: As long as there is living meristematic tissue, a cutting should be able to root and once rooted the living tissue should be able to grow. If all the tips containing the meristematic tissue die, leaving only roots and a stem, the clone would die… the key is dialing in the environment so that the tissues within the growing tips can thrive… they need to be able to respire and be maintained in an environment conducive to growth.
They were in the same circumstance as before the defoliation, just under 8 watts of cool white led tl. Before i removed all the leafs they were infected but other than that fine. But when they have more roots i’m sure they will survive since i defoliated the plants of my current grow in the first or second week of flowering without any issues. Besides that, defoliating a little later also gives potential new mites less time to reproduce.
Because no matter how clean the plants are today, it’s by no means a guarantee for tomorrow.
