This is the bit I'm not quite on board with. Neo just said that defoliating has the plant go nuts throwing out leave with seemingly exponential vigor, ready fir a second defoliate days later? Maybe just varying results. Some plants enlarge existing foliage, some create new?
I know what you mean about not reducing light, and allowing light further down to be utilised. To me though, it doesn't seem illogical that by removing a percentage of foliage the plant is experiencing a net loss of light, so produces more folliage to compensate, and maybe in the interim period, as in the case of Plant Red (referenced in legendary post (or paper) #175) has a little stretch to reach the light better. Perhaps the little stretch is irrelevant, if the effect even occurs. Either way, the whole point of a veg cycle is to grow leaves. having said that, if I can reference '12/12 from seed' as a technique, maybe leaves ain't that big a deal?!?
That was a confusing jumbled post, what what?