I rest my case. 
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Yes very impressive. Looks exactly like my impressive plants without the bad attitude.
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You’re a bad boy ya know.
“Thou shalt not butcher thy faves”
So says,
Lordy Be Unkie Ben
What hubris.
Smite me.
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I would like to take this opportunity to celebrate the two-week anniversary of the beginning of the end for this thread. Two weeks ago, Ben posted here for the first time, and of course someone quickly disagreed with him; since then he’s posted 65 of the 180 replies to the thread, quickly outpacing the other three most-frequent posters. That kind of bull-headed, stubborn argumentativeness really should be celebrated, I believe. 
Sorry for the interruption. Please feel free to return to your regularly scheduled arguments and ad hominem attacks now.
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This thread smells of sulfur.
Sometimes I defoliate, sometimes I don’t. The buds still get me high either way.
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Congrats on being like two or three days of harassing members without a break.
Your reward? A break!
See you in the morning.
And now back to our regularly scheduled programming 
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Good stuff.
And thank you @toastyjakes ! 
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@OldUncleBen
I can back up all that I wrote but I won’t go to the length of backing each and every sentence up because that would require too much time. Most of it could also be easily found at Wikipedia. The 150umol compensation point for Cannabis was posted at the Koray Optoelectronics website, so I’m not so firm about that.
Now this here is a good opportunity to add something that may be also relevant:
Is this actually true? Well, these tasty avocados you’ve shown do have a indeed green peel. The stems and petioles are also green. That could be maybe due to existence of chlorophylls there…?
Another example would be apples - these can be green, yellow or redish. Which, strikingly, are the colors shown by leaves in various stages of (autumnal) senescence, or chlorosis. These colours have been established to be caused by a shift in the ratio of (green) chlorophylls to (yellow) flavonoids/carotenoids to (red) anthocyanins, which are photosynthetic, accessory or photoprotective molcules, with some of these even tight into the light-harvesting complexes of the photosytems.
Well, let’s find out:
“Chlorophylls, carotenoids and anthocyanin concentrations in the skin of ‘Gala’ apples during maturation and the influence of foliar applications of nitrogen and magnesium”
seems to confirm it, and explain some of the functions of these. These pigments even respond to fertilizer application, which seems logical given that chlorophyll contains 4 N + 1 Mg atom per molecule. There’s also the mentioning of absorbing harmful sunrays, to shield the potential offspring from mutational energy. There is one theory that states that this is similar with the Cannabis trichomes, which doesn’t completely block light just throttles its flux a bit down and also scatters it. Yes, plants do actually like diffuse light but what the midday sun blasts at them is usually too strong and harsh, so they developed a lot of strategies to cope with that.
And here I found a nice review:
“Pathways of Photosynthesis in Non-Leaf Tissues” (direct link to full pdf)
Quotes:
Plants have leaves that are specialized organs to capture light energy. This energy
is used to support photosynthesis, a process in which carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is
incorporated into organic compounds in the plant to allow the plant to grow. Other parts of the plant,
such as the stem, flowers, or seeds are also able to conduct photosynthesis to contribute to growth in many plant species. The main contribution of photosynthesis in these parts of the plant may be to use carbon dioxide produced by the plant in respiration rather than from the surrounding atmosphere.
Plants have leaves as specialised organs that capture light energy by photosynthesis. However, photosynthesis is also found in other plant organs. Photosynthesis may be found in the petiole, stems, flowers, fruits, and seeds. All photosynthesis can contribute to the capture of carbon and growth of the plant. The benefit to the plant of photosynthesis in these other tissues or organs may often be associated with the need to re-capture carbon especially in storage organs that have high respiration rates.
These pathways of non-leaf photosynthesis may be especially important in supporting plant growth under stress and may be a key contributor to plant growth and survival."
"The breeding of plants with increased capacity to conduct effective photosynthesis in non-leaf tissues might provide significant improvements in yields especially in environments where abiotic or biotic stresses limit yield.
In some plants, photosynthesis may be found throughout almost the whole plant. For example, tomatoes may conduct photosynthesis in the leaves, petioles, stems, and fruits [11]."
Aha, it’s interesting to note the colour change of tomatoes from yellow, green towards red when ripe, too. Maybe that has something to do with the plants still needs for carbon which are then terminated at some point?
It seems plants, at least some, have developed intricate methods to recycle lost carbon or do photosynthesis whereever they potentially can. This may offer an evolutionary survival advantage over species that can’t utilize that given the size area of these aforementioned tissues can be quite large. Plus, the bonus is there that the energy is already in these “sink”-places and doesn’t have to be redistributed.
Also, chloroplasts serve other functions and thus, it maybe warranted to have these, or their precursors, available throughout the whole plant structure.
“The stems of plants are photosynthetic in some species [3]. Even the trunks of some tree species
are photosynthetic [13, 14]. Stem photosynthesis (corticular or woody tissue photosynthesis) has been shown to contribute to bud growth on defoliation as reported in Prunus, Umbellularia, and Arctostaphylos species, and shading of the trunk and defoliation was reported to reduce growth in these species.”
This is remarkably, as it seems to indicate that there is a kind of alternative photosynthetic “emergency strategy” at large if these plant are faced with leafloss (maybe from herbivores naturally).
"The stem and leaf-sheath of wheat were reported to photosynthesize and contribute around
10% of the grain weight in wheat [21]. Combining it with spike photosynthesis, where the estimated
contribution to grain weight may be 40% [22], this suggests that nearly 50% of the grain weight in wheat cultivars maybe due to contributions through photosynthesis from non-leaf tissues (stem, leaf-sheath, and spikes). This underscores the importance of the photosynthetic contribution from non-leaf tissues, as potential targets of research in improving yield and productivity, especially in cereal crops."
"Flowers may have parts that are photosynthetic [27], including the petals and more often the
sepals. Photosynthesis in these flower organs in Encelia species (Asteraceae) was reported to be higher at the bud stage and to compensate for the loss of carbon in respiration associated with the production of the reproductive structures [4]
Giant ragweed (Ambrosia trifida) has been shown to produce around half of the carbon for reproductive structures in the flower [28]."
"The major part of seeds of grasses such as wheat is the endosperm. The endosperm (the major
seed storage tissue of cereals) is surrounded by the pericarp which is in turn enclosed in the glumes.
Both the glumes and the pericarp are green and photosynthetic in nature. Both the tube cell and cross cell layers in the outer seed are highly photosynthetic and have surrounding tissues that are transparent allowing high levels of light penetration. Studies of photosynthesis in the wheat seed have involved analysis of different components of this system possibly explaining the diversity of reports about “ear” photosynthesis [35]. The pericarp has very few stomata [36] suggesting that the photosynthesis in this tissue is more likely to be involved in the re-capture of respired carbon from the seed. The pericarp has two photosynthetic cell layers, the tube and cross cells and these have morphologically distinct chloroplasts that could support a C4 type photosynthesis [12]. The pericarp is a bright green color when observed by removing the glumes at mid seed development at the height of grain filling. The glumes surrounding the seed have many more stomata and have specialized Kranz cells around the vascular bundles suggestive of the potential for a type of C4 photosynthesis in these cells [36]. This role of seeds in photosynthesis may be important at specific points in time in the life cycle of the plant in seed development or germination [37]."
TLDR:
Many parts of plants have been shown to do photosynthesis, and occassionaly contribute a significant amount to harvest, or the reproductive organs.
This needs to be researched for Cannabis/hemp as well, I wouldn’t be surprised if certain bud tissue would have this ability as well.
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okay, after pondering the question of whether to defoliate or not, and reading all the associated information up to this point, i agree with what you are saying here. also, let me ask you one question: what are the small green things (usually, sometimes purple) around the buds called? sugar _______. so stripping all the unnecessary leaves still leaves enough of the actual leaves to do all the things you say, while also not taking up too much nutrition from the bud production and all the thc and other things we like the effects of. so with this observation i hereby declare both sides correct in the argument, officially ending it once and for all. you don’t have to agree with me, but the science is right there.
glad i didn’t read the rest of the comments before i made my own. turns out my intuition was right, according to @Rodent_Rampage’s book he left in the comment section…
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The way I see it, defoliation is one of the ways one can steer a cannabis plant towards its highest potential (especially indoors). Just like one can steer a car off a cliff or down a really slow bumpy road, there is a great degree of variance in the outcome of defoliating. Aka pruning for those that prefer agricultural terms (lol, sorry not really)
My current example is a Black Cherry Soda that I just put into flower. It’s in 15g of recycled soil and fresh off of early flower defoliation. Im entering stretch already maxed out in head room height, so not defoliating is not a realistic option right now. We’ll see in a couple months how badly I messed up my plant.
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I would love to see a side-by-side done outdoors. Plenty of people saying they’ve seen it done indoors to be convinced to keep doing it there, but I’d like to see how defol performs in an environment that isn’t already restricted in light or airflow (or co2 for that matter).
anecdotally, I felt like the buds on my cereal milk plant last season that saw less direct sunlight seemed frostier and more aromatic, though possibly slower to mature. I accounted it to evaporation, the light and heat can get intense around here, but take it for what you will.
also @OldUncleBen I really like the idea of harvesting the plant in stages, giving the lower budettes more time to mature after getting the big tops. Definitely going to try that this season to see how much they bulk up
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sounds like the contribution of non-leaf tissues is small, and mostly involved in re-capturing carbon lost to excess respiration. Still very interesting
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I believe cannabis can respond well to pruning both indoors and outdoors. From what I’ve seen even outdoors you can train a plant to be bigger and bushier than if you just let it do its thing naturally. But outdoor growth can be so vigorous on its own, that may seem redundant or unnecessary to some. Really there’s a lot of variables besides just the removal of a leaf that come into play. What are your goals? Are you going for high yield in quickest time frame, are you vegging for months to grow monsters, etc.
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Done with this thread.
Good luck to all you Mother Pluckers,
Uncle Ben 
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I once plucked a chicken and it definitely grew better.
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Tasted better, too I’ll bet 
I resemble that remark lol
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I thank you for the lead on Koray Optoelectronics (and i take it like it should be). Since µmol rates become more vulgarized in marketing with LED panels, i’m searching everything in relation (in the vein of the compensation point, specifically).
Thanks for your qualitative demonstration too, well appreciated.
Beside that, I’ve made the effort to extract from the hell the “making of” of plants only defoliated to be “photogenic”. Yes, i insist on the psychological biases of catalogs and the big impact it have. A lot.
Day 1
Day 33
Day 47
Day 70
In this case, and specifically for this plant … It was impossible to count on the defoliation to make it “bankable”, the natural shape and density of the buds are absolutely not compatible. The defoliation is just in this case a standard of presentation. The only way to do it was to apply a strategy to something that really matter to “increase volume” : the roots.
The other case involve a plant on which the trigger to make it “bankable” is totally different (but one more time, the roots are more involved than any type of defoliating strategy. She just have a very high level of tolerance on nutes, to the point to can’t be smoked at all at its maximum rate.
Day 1
Day 32
Day 47
Day 61
Day 66
Day 73
Day 113
I can understand the habits of everyone (with a context) when it belong to technics, RH strategies even preferences (trimming, hash production, dust in final product whatever…).
But when it’s presented like a drastic factor for yield, the only thing that come in my mind is the psychological bias. This plant is incredible, but to build a “naked plant” is absolutely not the way to produce monsters for catalogs. Catalogs that are never showing the strict reality of a qualitative weed in the vast majority of the cases. Most of the work to do for volume is on the roots density, ions exchanges and assimilation, it’s the real leverage. And like all “old farts” it’s very hard for me to ear everything else ^^
But i respect, and i can’t wait to discover new advanced technics to test that are not “too pushy extrapolations” of minor factors.
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It’s all about the roots, period.
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