If not 13 close to it. All my buds didn’t dense and only grew foxtails up. I over plucked at flower and I ended up making the colas grow a foxtail and sugar leave between each layer all the way to the tips. You can see how many sugar leaves are on em.
Poor calyx to leaf ratio can be genetic or caused by grower error and foxtailing can be genetic too, however, if you have good genetics, proper defoliation will not make them foxtail. Proper defoliation only removes fan leaves that are blocking light to the nodes. If you can look down at your canopy and see the floor/soil/hydroton/whatever, you have removed too much foliage and are now wasting light. PGRs will also cause foxtailing as well as compost teas, if you have weaker genetincs or if you feed them any PGR past week 6. Too much phosphorous will also make them foxtail, but again, if you have good genetics, its unlikely (unless the foxtailing IS genetic). I have stripped almost every fan leaf off of a plant before doing an experiment and with almost no fan leaves, 18 inches under 1KW HPS, no foxtailing. The buds were definitely suffering for it but no foxtailing. So, especially since there are multiple causes for foxtailing, defoliation being the least likely, please stop spreading misinformation about defoliation. Defoliation, like most other things, is good in moderation. If you think you are right then prove it by getting good genetics, proving they are good genetics (like breeder packaging) and grow them without using a PGR or anything with triacantanol in it and defoliate them properly. Grow to clones from the same mom side by side and defoliate one properly and leave the other alone. If you are right then only the one you defoliate should foxtail, right? If you are so sure of what you know that you are advising others on the subject, you'll have no problem proving that people should listen to you instead of science and decades of experience. Sorry if i sound like an asshat but i hate it when people spread misinformation. If you had bad results from doing something that everyone else has great results with, then you did it wrong. THAT is why your harvest was apparently 13 oz under. By the way, im curious, with a space that size and you claim you lost over 3/4 of a pound, are you saying that because you have grown that exact strain in that exact setup last cycle and 13oz less OR did you just get 13oz less than what you were expecting? Im sorry if this post seems harsh but proper defoliation is a huge boost to node growth, air circulation, and helps keep humidity lower in bloom. If you had a bad experience with something, call it a bad experience until you test it again, properly and get the same results.. what nutrients and additives were you using, what was your TDS throughout flower? What type of lighting were you using? How close were the lights? What strain were you growing? Where were the genetics from? Have you tried to repeat exactly what you did with a different strain?