What about poneytailing leaves for better sun penetration instead of trimming them ? (kinky post)

Bad idea my friend. There are a few reasons for defol, and not just to allow more light penetration but also to allow more air flow in and around the plants. this air flow is needed to avoid mold issues. So what you have done here is create the ideal living conditions for mold to live in-all you need to do is add a lil moisture like when the leaves sweat/perspire and you will eventually get mold in there. Plus by closing up the leaves like that your effectively blocking most of the photoreceptors in the leaves anyways so they are not going to be doing their job. How do you expect a leaf to catch the light when its tied up in a bunch? Undo it and just do a very very light defol. Only do the leaves near the middle of the plant and you be fine. look at my diary- its week 5 of flower and aside from a few odd leaves here and there i have left 95% of my leaves on so far- that will change very soon but for now im leaving them to fatten up the buds- and yesterday I snipped off a bud I thought was moldy- it looked too white to me- it was fine, just so frosty i thought it was mold. lols.