Defoliation 

Curious if anyone has thoughts on the best way to defoliate a kratom tree for the purpose of gathering leaves and encouraging the tree to grow back more full. 

I’ve seen the videos of Indo harvesters hacking off branches with a machete. Not gonna do that lol. But I have seen one US grower advocating defoliation, at least in stages. They claim that it encourages higher Mit levels.

I want to start some clones and try some leaf so I’m thinking I’ll cut the lowest couple of branches back to the first node closest to the trunk. I’ll cure the leaves and use the branch tips for cloning. I guess the alternative is to clip just the tips for clones and pull the other leaves leaving the branch structure intact. 

And advice would be appreciated. 

That's a great question, and I'll be watching for the answers too. I use the terminal branches and both side branches for cloning, after the 'mother' clonelets get a little pot bound and ready to be up potted 

                 too pot bound....

after the last freeze I took my mitragyna javanica and I stripped off every leaf and cut every branch and now look at it.  The Speciosa would be no different. I'm at the point now when I have a branch that's long and skinny with a few leaves at the end that I will cut that closer to the tree and force it to Branch out

that looks awesome @roadkill 

I think I’ll cut one lower branch and see what happens.