I say go for it but dont over do it. Might want to be selective and choose wisely. You say heavy defoliation I dont know what that means to you. I myself just did a heavy defoliation on my stuff which imo was a heavy defoliation but I have done it before. I can say for a fact that if I didn't I wouldn't be getting the yield If I had not done that. With that said all strains react to this method differently as well as pant health will have an effect on your results.
This getting towards the end but I did this defoliation about the middle of week 3, op you can see that all of my large fan leaves are gone but fact is my yield went up, cuz the quality of the lower buds went up, cuz the light was actually hitting the bud sites.
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so to touch on the water on the leaf thing that isnt good cuz its trapping the moisture there and not allowing the air to be exchanged properly which could cause pm issues = more air flow maybe?