Lighting Cycles

[greenleaf]

I currently have my plants on 14 hrs of light and 10 of dark. Is this the optimum for veg growth. Couldit do harm or cause bad growth in the plants? what is good light cylce?

 

cheers ::

[everest]

i veg for 24 hours a day , bugger that on off lark also run extra exhaust fan to suck out any extra heat . works great

[jackfrost]

Hey GreenLeaf,

 

Use 18 hours of light and 6 dark for vegie growth. You can use 24 hours of light but you will not get any benefit over 18, other then wasting power.

 

Jack

[TopNotch]

Use 18 hours on 6 hours off for veg & 12 on 12 off for flowering.

[Luke Skywalker]

It is debateable as to whether growers have better results using 24/0 over 18/6, some find it does little than cost more money and may be detrimental to their plants, others find the only difference is that they grow longer and quicker than under the 18/6.

 

But generally, have an 18/6, long day short night cycle for vegetative growth, and then reduce it, either immediately or over time, to 12/12 for the reproductive or flowering cycle.

 

Individual strains have individual cut off points for the dark cycle before they vegetate again, and some are independent of it, appearing to flower regardless of long day cycles. You can be pretty sure that they'll continue to veg with less than 6 hours darkness, and pretty certain they'll flower if you increase the dark cycle to 12 hours.

[zooturkey]

Hey greenleaf,

the difference between 18/6 and 24 lighting cycle imo is about 25% difference in yield at the end of the day. As long as a crop/plant is growen under one lighting regime it will adhere to the relative exposure of light energy being used. Other lighting rigimes i've heard of range from 24/12 to 10/14 but as long as the 12 or more hours of darkness are adhere to then you can grow in a lot of different variants. The tried and true formula however thats seems to works is of course 12/12 in flower and 20/4 or 24 straight in light, again this is of course relative to the strain that you are growing.