Alot of good points and information to be considered here, ill offer my anecdotal evidence on the subject and a different thought. I don't remember the source but somewhere out there I have read that leaves recieving low light levels under 200ppfd can become energy sinks actually dragging on the plants performance. Not sure if this is true and I don't have any papers on this but would like to hear what you guys think about it.
Last when I had 2 plants of the same age and strain i did my regular thing of medium to heavier defoliation and the other with a minimal amount of defoliation . At the end there was want we would call no statistical difference. I think it was less than 10 grams.
In this grow I also was experimenting with side lighting and that could have influenced my totally non scientific experiment. Lol
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