Major defoliation

[Raniformis]

Horses for courses I guess, in a tightly packed space you have to manage leaf somehow.

 

My take is simple, as long as there's enough green stuff to keep transpiration happening the older stuff can go. In soil it's a little different in that transpiration causes a pumping action which moves water through soil to the roots.

 

For the sake of conversation though... Chlorophyll (green pigment) captures red and blue light which starts the whole photosynthesis/transpiration process. If you remove one leaf with a large surface area are you removing pigment or allowing light to reach pigment in other areas?