12 hour flowering

[WantDaChronic]

just wondering if anyone here, instead of leaving the lights on for 12 hours constantly, has put the light on for 6 hours on, 6 hours off, 6 hours on then 6 hours off???

 

may sound stupid but i had a dream about it last night and dont think i'll be able to get it outter my head unless i try it or find out from a fellow grower :smoke

 

im not too sure what would happen, probably make ya plants go hermi or something but never know, the gap in the grow cycle might make the buds bigger and better, who knows :scratchin if u do, leave a reply

[F420]

I had to do this once because I had to finish a grow as fast as I could. As we were moving house.

 

It makes the plant finish faster at the cost of yeild.

[WantDaChronic]

well in that case i dont think i will bother trying it...

 

thanks ferengi :smoke

[Spurious]

About ten years ago, I read in High Times, when it still had anything to do with getting high, about experimental photoperiod timings.

 

Now, the plant is triggered into flowering, not by there being 12 hours of light, but there being 12 hours of darkness.

 

It suggested experimental trials showed that offsetting the normal cycle of 24 hours, to something like 28 hours, giving 16 hours of light, whilst maintaining the 12 hour dark period, had noticeable benefits to yield, and quality.

 

I was once going to try this for myself, but never found a timer that would allow anything but 24 hours.

[Luke Skywalker]

Yeah, you need specialised timers, usually computer linked, to do this kind of thing. But yeah, the theory is sound, it just has to be practiced often enough for it to be proven...

 

The idea is that as the plants are responsive, as Spurious has said, to the dark period, not the light. It is the length and "intensity" of the dark period which allows the accumulation of flowering hormones in the plants, which are destroyed in the presence of light. Once they reach critical point, the plant switches from growth to flowering. If you were to increase the daylength to 28, maintaining a 12 hour dark period and adding another 4 hours to the light, (12:16) you should see a greater yeild comparitively to 12:12. This kind of photoperiod maintenance gives a full 24 hours of extra lighting per 6 days compared to 12:12, which ends up being around 5 days, or 120 hours per month of light energy the plant is able to uptake above and beyond the normal cycle.

 

Course, this is mitigated by the strain, as some plants will react adversely to photoperiods other than those in their native zones, (particularly equatorial cultivars, but certainly there is the occasional sub-tropical and temperate cultivars which are sensitive to unusual photoperiods) and you may end up with problems of hermaphroditism or other stress disorders. And the use of a 16:12 photoperiod ends up moving the "day" across a month to various times of a real "day". So if you're growing plants in summer, or in a particularly hot area, and you run lights at night, you'll progressively end up cycling up to the lights being on during the day, and then back to the night again. So perhaps such methods would be best employed in milder climates, and in milder ambient temps than during the aussie summer. You could end up with cooked plants!...

 

Hope that helps. Interesting subject though, might have a look around for one of those controllers at work....

[WantDaChronic]

yeah i heard something like that way back in the day......

 

i thought the same as u luke, it would end up messing with the normal 24 hour day and it would be all over the place

 

never really had a second thought about it till just then so thanks for stimulating my mind

[F420]

the testing I done with this wasnt right also mate, I increased the dark period to get faster harvest.

But I didnt increase the light period. eg- I went like 12/12 11/13 10/14 etc.

[precision]

just wondering if anyone here, instead of leaving the lights on for 12 hours constantly, has put the light on for 6 hours on, 6 hours off, 6 hours on then 6  hours off???

 

may sound stupid but i had a dream about it last night and dont think i'll be able to get it outter my head unless i try it or find out from a fellow grower  :smoke

 

im not too sure what would happen, probably make ya plants go hermi or something but never know, the gap in the grow cycle might make the buds bigger and better, who knows  :scratchin  if u do, leave a reply 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

6 hours on and 6 hours off will do nothing but fuck up your plants. however 6 hours on and 18 hours off, or basically any on off cycle which increases the dark period above 12 hours will speed up finishing time but for a reduced yield. the technique is mostly used when you want to sex plants quicker, not for flowering.

 

As for increasing light times in between 12 hour dark periods to increase yield as Spurious was talking about, all you need is a 24/7 programmable timer. Cost a bit more than the standard 24 hour ones but are fairly common.

[Tom]

6 hours on and 6 hours off will do nothing but fuck up your plants. however 6 hours on and 18 hours off, or basically any on off cycle which increases the dark period above 12 hours will speed up finishing time but for a reduced yield. the technique is mostly used when you want to sex plants quicker, not for flowering.

Err, sorry pipeman 18/6 is a normal setting for vegging the plants, not a way to sex them or speed up their finishing time.

 

[pipeman]

Err, sorry pipeman 18/6 is a normal setting for vegging the plants, not a way to sex them or speed up their finishing time.

 

6/18 tom, not 18/6