There are gonna be times when we, as growers, have problems. The truth here is that the newer the grower the bigger the panic. I love this plant just as much as any grower (or smoker) but when ya have a problem ya gotta decide whether to try and fix it or cut your loses and start over?
In my current case it just so happens that a I just had a good harvest so the lower yields is not a problem. and I was invited to read a thread (over 100 pages) on another site about defoiliation technique for higher yields. It was a good thread, good info but somewhat misrepresented, our own Dave C was there and contributed some good post (as he does) with some good questions. Now if you take away the notion that this will give you higher yields and look at the technique as a management technique like LST'ing then I believe it has merit and will do it in the next round to see that for myself. Because I came away from reading the thread with the notion that it is the set up using this technique that gives the potential higher yield from a smaller plant, and note the smaller plant part because the reality of the OP's info was he does this to train the plants to his growspace. IMO I believe it could be very useful used on sativas to tighten internode spacing and reduce the stretch,,,which is the intent of the technique (note it adds a few weeks to your veg time) here is the thread,
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=174163 if anybody wants to read it.
When I put the tomato cages on my current plants I believe it introduced a bad bacteria to the root system (though it could have been caused by rust?) the reason I think bacteria is because adding H2O2 seemed to fix it, but after all the leaves had died. You'll be able to see that new growth is green and healthy and I plan on re-veggin em after harvest now that they are healthier. This disease only affected the NL Special (tilders) the #1's are completely healthy note I have 2 small tilders that did not get cages and they are healthy as well though small
it is quite obvious that the buds are much smaller on these recoverering plants with no leaves.
The intended actual experiment was done on the 3 #1's and I totally did this to prove the point. In that thread growers were talking about removing leaves on the 21st and 45th day of flowering and that is what I did. I have 3 #1's, all clones from DD (who was my highest yielder) on one I removed all but the sugar leaves, on the second I removed only the larger fan leaves and one I left alone. In the pics you can clearly see that the one I left alone has a 12 inch cola the other 2 are 6 and 7 inches. you can also clearly see that the one with no leaves is making light airy buds, which I found interesting as the posters of this technique claimed that it tightened up the lower popcorn buds, now to be fair these plants have 3 more weeks to go
IMO the myth is busted but I will watch em and report until they are done
I also included some bud porn for your viewing pleasure,,,,,,,Enjoy
hope you doing well and all is good for ya 