Non-standard Light Cycles

[LemonadeJoe]

I know at least about three techniques that use unusual light cycle modification to reach better results. I’d like to know your opinions about using “non-standard” light cycles as we all know that they don’t follow nature and can introduce stress into plant’s life and the results are arguable.

• Using 24/0 instead of 18/6 for vegging. It is believed that plants grow faster. Sometimes used for rooting clones.

• Using complete darkness when switching from 18/6 to 12/12 for day or two. It is believed to force faster switch to flowering phase.

• Using complete darkness few days before harvest. It is believed to stress plant to produce more THC resin.

I have tried all of them through the years but haven’t got any meaningful results to back up their usability, so I’m using standard 18/6 and 12/12 and try to avoid any light stress. Also when I need to move time schedule I’m trying to do it in reasonable daily steps.

What is your take on this? Do you know any other techniques or “myths” you’d like to bust?

[anon_3450348]

16/8 for mothers and cuts are ok in most cases ( not the semiauto or early danish or some xtreme early landrace or indica genes where is recommend 20/4) …

[Kalgrae]

Heard of all three. There is a fourth that requires mimicking of the natural daylight hours. Match the hours of artificial light to the exact same amount of Actual Real Sunlight per day. Slowly make the hours of light longer, then at the imaginary “equinox” you start making he hours of light shorter. Need to find the PDF.

Dedication!

In past vegging is left at 24/7. Currently same. My reasoning is that at any given time I can check up on them easily. Also never tried to root a clone on 18/6 always 24/7 and had great success.

[ryasco]

I have been using 17/7 for almost a year now to save electricity. I haven’t had any problems. When i crack some Malawi i will go back to 18/6. This is to save a little money not improve anything.

[ReikoX]

I’ve done almost all of those too. I run my auto flowers on a 20/4 schedule. They indeed grow fast with that light schedule.

I run my veg lights 18/6, but I have a small LED above my clones that runs 24/0. It’s kind of like a night light for veg

I’ve tried both the darkness before 12/12 and slowly increasing the day length with no discernable difference. I do like to do the 24 hours of darkness before harvest, and have seen some additional ripening on certain cultivars.

[GrowerGoneWild]

@LemonadeJoe

• Using 24/0 instead of 18/6 for vegging. It is believed that plants grow faster. Sometimes used for rooting clones.

• Using complete darkness when switching from 18/6 to 12/12 for day or two. It is believed to force faster switch to flowering phase.

• Using complete darkness few days before harvest. It is believed to stress plant to produce more THC resin.

I know 24/0 stirs up alot of debate, Especially with those that understand dark cycles, Krebs cycles… etc.

One thing I’d like to mention is that keeping veg stock or clones in 24/0 it has almost no chance of flowering… Sure the cost is more to run a light that long but there is no chance of flowering for photoperiod plants.

The abstract I read for the tissue culture was to keep cultures in 24/0 light until they are unflasked. The experiments used 24/0 to propagate, and Im simply duplicating what was done for tissue culture.

I run 24/0 in my propagation rack, I like the consistent temps, is the same day in and day out. very little variation. Consistent warm environment, with little differences and I get better results.

[Dee.S73]

24/0 for clones,/seedlings as it helps keeping height under control too, 18/6 for 1 week of veg under the hps, then 12/12 ; for moms usually 20/4 works best for me…
DS

[Scissor-Hanz]

I’ll flower under 11/13 with some cultivars. Especially if I accidentally veg a few days too long.

[Egzoset]

Salutations,

My comment is this: why a total of 24 hours always?

Why not days which DON’T actually last 24 hours? Why not non-standard days?..

After all if the plant needs, say 13 ~ 14 h of sunlight and maybe 3 ~ 4 h of total darkness with perhaps 1 ~ 2 h transition margins then that’s still 17 ~ 20 h for a single “daily” cycle… So why not benefit from the lost window in order to gain, say, 4 hours a day, euh… Which means in the end a 72 days cycle would be shortened by a dozen days! That’s no gain in terms of electric consumption though certainly in terms of exposure, because logging meters might fail attracting attention to such unexpected signatures, etc.

My 2 cents.

Good day, have fun!!

[Scissor-Hanz]

@Egzoset
I hear of people running some Martian time cycles. But there isn’t a more efficient time cycle than 12/12 or 11/13 (on/off) for flowering. If you were to run 13/3, you would be spending your whole paycheque on power bills and have a Jungle with no buds.
You need enough lamp-time to get plants sized-up, and enough dark time to induce flowering. Cannabis has evolved over a LONG time to thrive on a planet with 24 hours/day.

Unless you have some space-weed that you are not sharing?!
…Also, all the timers at my growshop have 24 hours. None with 16,

[Egzoset]

Salutations Scissor-Hanz,

@Scissor-Hanz

But there isn’t a more efficient time cycle than 12/12 or 11/13 (on/off) for flowering.

The thing is it just makes no sense to challenge that idea, actually, because of the intrinsic (incompatible) nature of non-auto genetics anyway… Consequently only those who wouldn’t mind cultivating an Auto-Flowering can consider some non-standard day duration; otherwise it’s all too clear inadequate schedules expose to disaster indeed (e.g. “no buds”), obviously.

@Scissor-Hanz

If you were to run 13/3, you would be spending your whole paycheque on power bills…

Personally i find that 13 h of light is somewhat too restrictive even for an “auto”. How about 15/5, just to play a bit safer?..

Lets assume the plant would have some brief lifecycle lasting only 72 days, for example; that 15/5 schedule should translate as 20 h days and hence that’s a 4 h gain EVERY non-standard day, e.g. 72 x {24 - 4} = 72 x 20 = 1440 hours, instead of 1728. In my hypothetical cultivation space it translates as a dozen less earth days not venting/pumping, etc. Also please keep in mind there’s simply no place on earth where natural daylight happens to lasts this long at full power!..

Does that imply auto-flowering plants came from outer space should it work at all??

@Scissor-Hanz

Also, all the timers at my growshop have 24 hours. None with 16

Which i find quite coherent with my own previous argumentation exactly. Electric power (logging) meters render it all too easy to detect crystal-precision timers switching enough current to send a typical electro-magnetic signature into space; now imagine this, the bigot anti-cannabic prohibitionists don’t even require a flying saucer to follow the signal and trace it to its source: today power providers already know the address where to send a bill!

Good day, have fun!!

[Scissor-Hanz]

@Egzoset

Does that imply auto-flowering plants came from outer space should it work at all??

I think it only implies that cannabis would adapt to many different photoperiod cycles over time through the process of natural selection.

You as a human can survive on a 13/3 light cycle, just as your auto-flowering cannabis will. But I wouldn’t call it ideal, and your internal clock would likely be going haywire causing all-kinds of internal stresses. In any example I’ve seen, Stress on body = stunted growth and immune system deficiencies.

Also, Auto flowering cannabis is meant for outdoor growing where you don’t control photoperiod. Otherwise you are wasting valuable lamp hours for leafy ruderalis hybrids. IMO

[Egzoset]

Hi again Scissor-Hanz,

But we already got cannabis plants which don’t seem to depend much on a photoperiod at all…

@Scissor-Hanz

Stress… … …Auto flowering cannabis is meant for outdoor growing…

IMO there’s too many unverified variables. The same way there’s been THC-only selections performed throughout decades of careful breeding i suppose it won’t be surprizing if/when auto strains also come with features like Systemic Acquired Resistance (SAR) maybe, for compensative measures…

So i’d still need to get convinced with comparative observations, etc. On another hand i must admit it’s only for the fun of discussion as i’m no longer in a position to put any such theories to test myself. Sorry.

Good day, have fun!!

[legalcanada]

there’s the 12-1 lighting schedule for veg which is 12 hours on, 5.5 hours off, 1 hour on, 5.5 hours off so you’re only using 13 hours electricity during a 24 hour period. flower you use 10-14.

this guy states he’s even run veg doing 15min on, 45min off every hour for 12 hours, 5.5 dark, 1 hour on, 5.5 off for a total of only 4 hours of light a day… and he tries to claim it will actually increase vegetative growth

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb812sNGhok

[Dee.S73]

As cannabis physically grows on dark hours, a similar time schedule will actually increase stretching in veg… thats surely not a good thing in my book…
During veg, the goal is getting plants to synthesize and store as much nutes as possible (light hours) and to strengthen up without stretching…
Less “sleep” as possible is better during the seedlings/veg phase…
All, as always IMHO.
DS

[Fuel]

@LemonadeJoe

I have tried all of them through the years but haven’t got any meaningful results to back up their usability, so I’m using standard 18/6 and 12/2 and try to avoid any light stress.

My own conclusion, with a fews tests that aren’t in your list, is the same.

[Organeeque]

Shortening days through the progression of flowering or simply cutting an hour/hours off in the last few weeks is said to ripen flowers faster… I have actually tried this in an attempt to save a pollinated crop from developing seeds and found it successfull. Nothing dramatic and yield loss of course, but it might help in a tight situation…

[Uncle_Al]

Non standard time cycles need non standard time you guys are exactly right
To accomplish non standard time you need either a programmable logic controller known as a PLC or you could use a timer such as the Omron H3CA programmable timer and I just happen to have them both

this is an Allen Bradley micrologic 1000 PLC , it has 10 ac power inputs and 6 A/C or D/C relay relay outputs it can fully automate your grow. It does not care about 24 HR time it will go 27/2 if you want or whatever alien time you can concoct it programs using proprietary software on a Windows computer

[Uncle_Al]

The Omron timer relay has 8 programmable cycles, I have left it out in the car and it is raining out pretty heavily so I. Not going out to get it you will have to do with a pic of the instruction page

zs

it will set time periods from .001s all the way to 999h
Now I’m not saying that you want to do a wierd cycle but I am saying there is more than one way to go around a tree

[Uncle_Al]

You will not find these at the local Walmart or the local hydro store. The PLC is prohibitively expensive, so is the software to run it however I source stuff like this at industrial machinery recycle/scrapyards