Anyone tried the photoperiod manipulation?

[aussie1]

been reading the scarce info on this manipulation of light period

during week 5 and 6. Has anyone tried this out or have any info or links.

The overall procedure will supposedly give plants 80% more light overall

and 40% better yielding potential

any info appreciated

aussie1

[WantDaChronic]

i have read about people doing that kind of thing, but unless you have a timer that not only does the full 24 hours of every day, but also does every day of the week, it would be nearly impossible to do

[Al B. Fuct]

been reading the scarce info on this manipulation of light period

during week 5 and 6.

 

what information would that be?

[godonacid]

not heard of this one but read one years ago about running 16 hour days rather than 24, somthing like 12 on 4 off and 8 on 8 off, while the bloke was getting smaller yeilds he was able to do 2 or 3 extra grows a year which actually got him more over all yeild with no apparent difference in quality, the other plus to his system was you could grow in a smaller area as the plants didnt get as big. again though he had a mad timer that was turning on and off at all hours, he had the times worked out so they could be entered into a timer and would run over a 7 day week, the way he had it worked every 7 real days where worth 10.5 in his room.

any way getting off topic there, when you talk about light manipulation which way are you going, from what i know changing the light at weeks 5-6 (i take it you mean weeks 5-6 of flower) will potentially cause bad results, from what i know increasing the length of light at this stage can turn the plants back toward a vegative type of cycle and cause the buds to stretch and get some regrowth to happen on the tops of them and also potentially cause hermies, shortning the light period in the last few weeks can apparently help to pack on a bit of extra wieght and sugar at the end, but people i have heard of doing this are waiting untill week 7.5-8 of flower and dropping down to 10 hours for a week or 6 hours for 1-2 days right at the end, not sure if any of this is worth trying as changing the light period during flower can cause male flowers and regrowth to happen to nice female heads, but in syaing that i have not seen any thing on or about ligh adjustments in week 5-6, when you say week 5-6 are you talking about an 8 week flower or longer.

any how im getting way of topic again, but any chance in seeing a link to some info on this idea.

best if luck with it all the same.

[Al B. Fuct]

Come to think of it, I've seen a few very specialised lighting controllers from Harvest Master which will do this sort of funky fast flowering thing with photoperiods- and they are not cheap. We're talking 1000s!

 

Interesting concept, but I'd think that long days in flower would induce stretchy growth. I'd investigate this proposition closely before making it my main grow strategy.

[RobbieGanjaSeed]

With weight increases like that,I reckon to hell with the timers, do it manually. It's only a week or two.

 

But I haven't heard anyone talking about this fora couple years now mate, and even then it was very experimental.

 

good luck

rob

[Luke Skywalker]

You'd only need a 12 cycle, 7 day timer to do the 6on 12 off thing, but yeah, generally, it's not worth the effort. That said, the thread on the now defunct Advanced Nutrients Medical which did the grow on this cycle was fine, if a little lower in per crop (but not per year, which went the other way) yeild. This would imply that the photosynthetic "saturation" point hadn't been reached after 6 hours light. Perhaps 8? You'd have to do trial after trial to find out for sure. Some strains might not like it either. I can imagine equatorials being moderately upset with ya. Perhaps even the far northern european ones too.

 

Still, there is something to be investigated here. It's known that most plants have a photoperiodic clock as well as a 24hour rythym. Whether the interruption of the cycle into 16 or 36 hour cycles would be a stress or not is something I'm not sure on, but I doubt it would be enough to offset any potential gains/losses by too much in the negative direction.

 

I have to say that I hadn't heard of the 4-5week increase in total day/night cycle thing. Perhaps with good reason? It could be of benefit I suppose, but why not just do it all the way through? Why just week 4 and 5 of bloom? Surely a longer day and correspondingly longer night would be beneficial to yeilds all through the cycle if it worked at all? Or is it a bang for buck sorta thing, with best results coming from extending cycles in these particular weeks....

 

Could induce an excessive stretch, but the opposite could be just as likely al. The increase in total hours of illumination may serve to induce a more compact development....

 

I always look sideways at things like this. Every now and again someone claims to revolutionise the way we grow. It's rare they actually do. That said, I've got an open mind, so yeah, dish up the dirt aussie! Whaddya know?

[Al B. Fuct]

With weight increases like that,I reckon to hell with the timers, do it manually. It's only a week or two.

 

But I haven't heard anyone talking about this fora couple years now mate, and even then it was very experimental.

 

You'd think if that 40% increased yield figure was independently replicatable, it'd be common practise by now. I'm always happy to look at new methods, but very few innovations pass muster with my commonsense filter. There's all manner of supposedly revolutionary innovations that sit idly on the sidelines gathering dust.

 

I'd be very hesitant to expose my flowering plants to long days. The stuff I can find on ppl who have tried this seem to indicate that the per-plant yields and bud density fall off but you can get a few more crops in per year.

 

One thing I can tell you for sure is that everyone who smokes my buds would have a preference for bigger, denser buds over being able to get them more often.

[bufo marinus]

I recall reading a thread on Overgrow regarding 18 on 12 off. The extra hours of light did produce more yield, but the length of time it added to the grow did not improve the overall amount grown when averaged out over a year.

[aussie1]

Will post a link to what I have read- if I can find it again- when I get a chance.

My timer will do the job, and it is only $25 digital from Big W- bunnings also have

a digital timer for around the $30 mark. They do each day individually, and has

minutes and hours, that all you need, so I don't know why you would need one worth

$1000's.

Will post back soon with link.

aussie