I'm looking to get some opinions on the below questions if there are any cannabis enthusiasts that know a little bit about this plant's biology.

1. So, from what I understand regenerating a marijuana plant goes something like this: you chop the top 2/3 or 3/4 of the plant and leave the rest untouched, flip the lights and the nutrients back to veg cycle, and from the few buds you leave on the lower 1/3 of the plant will regrow new leafs and such. You reveg it and then flower again.

But, let's say you have some plants from which you remove all the buds without cutting the branches, stems and leafs. You just trim the buds off the plant, leaving the rest of the plant intact. And leave the lights on a 12/12 cycle. What happens? Will the plant continue to produce new flowers? Is it really necessary to chop everything from the top 2/3 of the plant?

Or does it need to go in the vegetative stage again to grow new calyxes?

So, I guess what I'm asking is, can you have a perpetual flowering without chopping the plant, but only trimming the buds off?

2. If you can have a perpetual flowering without chopping any part of the plant besides the buds: how many leafs can you cut off the plant (to make butter for edibles) so the plant does not die and continue to produce flowers? What would you say is the minimum percentage of leafs that you need to leave on for the plant to survive? 10%? 20%? 30%? Do the remaining leafs have to be equally distributed along the plant or they can be left only on the bottom third of the plant?

3. How fast will you know that a plant will die if you cut to many leafs off it?