I recently had a power outage that lasted 72 hours. I have three plants in soil going 20/4 since March 1. The seeds are bulk north Atlantic seeds feminized photoperiod.
I opened my grow tent to let some light in from the sun but unfortunately most of it was indirect in the basement.
The lights turned on at some point in the middle of the night and now I am just returning to the normal schedule.
Should I be worried about anything? I can’t tell yet if they switched to flower but I’m hoping I stopped them and worse case re veg. Just don’t want any hermies!
I think the biggest issue would be going 3 days in the dark without light energy as it relates to plant health and less as it relates to their state of flowering.
How do they look?
I don’t think the extended darkness will cause my much concern for hermaphrodite or intersex tendencies to show and I don’t think it’ll have them go into a rapid flowering if you’re able to get them back onto your current veg cycle on/off timing. How much longer are you planning to veg for before flowering? How many hours of day length do you have set for your current veg time?
Thanks everyone for the feedback! They seem ok but will keep an eye out. I gave them some water and closed them in with some light.
I plan to keep them in the 20/4 cycle until Sunday than go back to my planned process of transplanting then switching to flower. Hopefully a few days of routine helps them adjust back!
If they actually flipped it’ll take a couple of weeks to revert back to normal. That being said I’d be surprised if they did start to flower from my experience.
Likewise… and I had no issues. They just kept chugging along once the power came back. I made no changes left them sealed didn’t even try to give them anything just left them on auto-pilot. Plants also needed no water in between that time because transpiration was very low without the lights on.
I’ve had this happen the last two years in a row now during summer time 2-3 day outages. The plants seem to do just fine we however hate our lives without power.
If it was enough to trigger flower, you won’t really know for a week…is there any benefit to 24 hr lights in the mean time?
For example, during the first few lights out parts of the resumed regularly scheduled program, will the plant spend the night thinking its getting it’s auxins in line for flower till the light comes on abruptly in veg cycle?
That’s totally normal. The plant doesn’t go into flower during veg because the dark cycle isn’t long enough to allow the hormones to build up to the levels needed for flowering.
For discussions sake, let’s say the op’s situation was enough to trigger flowering. Will 24 hrs light help pull it out faster? If the plant starts flowering, the horomones are already rolling. They’d continue to roll through the first light cycle, and part of the way through the dark cycle continuing to prepare for flower. Would a 48 hr light cycle before resuming veg schedule help throw the brakes on it?
I know it’s just a day we’re talking about, but you know…spitball
Yeah, reveg signs seem to happen slower than flower transition, though I’d imagine the plant hormones change back and forth at the same speed?
What I really mean is, will not introducing nights at all in the first 48 hrs be the quickest best practice to ensure you’ve done everything possible to minimize potential um…incidental damages? Lol
A plant flowers because the phtochrome enzymes build up to a “critical level” during darkness. The phytochrome must reach that tipping point repeatedly to remain in flower. Many plants require about 9 hours of darkness to flower but we normally use 12 hours just to be sure. Any red light will suppress that phytochrome.
If you were going to transplant and flip them to flower anyway on sunday… it might be best to just do all that now instead - and then the plants will not be ‘confused’ about what is happening.
Depends on a few things… but if they are a reasonable size then i would say losing a few days veg is your safest option.
Flowering response varies greatly between genetics and some really don’t appreciate being messed with… others don’t seem to mind. days in darkness will cause a strong flowering response (some people do that on purpose at the start of flower) - a few days at 20/4 will make them think about veg again… only to be flipped back to flower! - it may be fine but i would say that is a bigger risk.
VG
