Forcing Indicas to Turn Purple Indoors during the heat

StinkBud said:

What happens when the temps get colder is called nutrient lockout. What your seeing is the lack of chlorophyll (green) production which allows the other colors to be seen. Same thing with trees. The color is always there. You just don't see it because it is masked by all the green chlorophyll.

So any hidden colors can be brought out by cutting out all of your nutrients before harvest (flushing). Flush long enough and you will see all kinds of beautiful colors you never see normally.

Flushing also makes your bud taste sweet. I use Clearex for the first 24 hours and then straight water for at least 2 weeks. Earl flushed a White Widow plant for 6 weeks and it turned totally purple!

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I always flush. I also understand how in the fall, when nitrogen levels are down, the plant uses its own nutrient stores. This causes the chlorophyll production to stop, which sucks the green right out of the leaves. However, there is more to it than just that. Temperature seems to control the intensity of the purple, or perhaps its exact color of purple. It also seems to be related to strain. I saw a pretty experienced grow journal for the Violator Kush from Barney's (pretty purple in the picture) that, when completely done correctly, had no purple on it at all. It had lots of yellow fan leaves and other leaves had also turned yellow, but did not show any purple. The dude was actually a little bummed, because he wanted them to be purple like in the picture. He also had high grow room temperature, and was told by the seed company that with lower temps at night, this could be achieved.

Personally, I have a strain that needs about 50 degree nights or a little below to get a beautiful purple/indigo. I've grown it outside and I got dark purple leaves with light green veins, indigo and light green calyxs. It was gorgeous! the next year, same variety, but it was a really warm fall, and there wasn't really any purple. Dark green leaves with light veins, and light green calyxs. the fan leaves and others had turned yellow from the nutetrient defeciencies that these plants go through that time of year, but it did not bring out the purple. Trust me, this is species specific. Some need no low temps at all to get purple, but some do. The ones that turn purple anyway would turn a darker or different color of purple if grown in colder temps. Genetics and temperature have just as much to do with it as the natural change that happens as plants divert energy elsewhere in the fall. So you are correct, there is just more to it than that. Temperature can play a major factor in some breeds, particularly the ones with just a little purple coloring.

Also, keep in mind that buds dont turn yellow as they are where the nitrogen and other goodies go to after leaving the leaves and turning them purple. The buds still have chlorophyll in them, as far as I understand. So in cases where your strain has calyxs that turn purple, you will probably need to lower temperatures to get the really pretty coloration on the buds that you want. You could also leave the fruit on the vine for a few more weeks and let it leach out naturally. However, it is pretty widely suspected that temperature can act as a catalyst in regards to the exact coloration. So I would rather just use a catalyst to speed part of the process up. So basically, it is a combination of 3 things: nature, genetics, and temperature. Not just nature. Thats what I've learned since posting this thread. out.

You can bring your temps down with a portable ac unit but its going to be much harder than you think,the temp your trying to reach is not reached by any ac unit,you need heat going into the ac unit in order for it to run the compressor continuously,which is exactly what you'll need to lower the temps below 60 degrees.

Ok now dig this,the intake air feeding the ac unit is being drawn from the inner room & hot air is being exhausted out the back of the unit,as the room gets cooler the intake air to the ac unit is also getting cooler,getting below the 62 degree mark with a window ac is going to be seriously complicated at the very least,thats if your ingenious enough to figure out a way to pump constant hot air above 80 degrees into the unit's intake without heating the room at the same time.

What you want to do is possible but it will require a whole lot of creativity & work.

I know everyone thinks that this is going to be very hard, but in my situation, how the grow-module I built is set up, and the fact that it is in a small, unheated building, I will only need to get it to go down maybe 5 or 6 degrees. It's naturally gonna be below 60 degrees. Some nights it gets to 50. That is WITHOUT any AC. So if I hook an AC unit directly up to my grow module (as if it were a window unit in a house), I don't see any reason that wouldn't lower the temperature by just a few degrees, which is all I need.

Also, aren't the temps AC units reach relative to ambient temps, at least to a certain point? if it's 55 degrees in a 4'x6'x6' tall room, then wouldn't adding an ac unit that exhausts outside the grow-module POSSIBLY bring the temp in that tiny space with a relatively low ambient temp.

It's my bad, It's not actually gonna be that hot out there, just not quite as cold as I want it to be. I want it like 5 or 10 degrees cooler than it is already gonna be, which is somewhere between 55-60 degrees most nights. I think this is VERY doable. I may not need to do a thing, as temps are usually pretty good. We were having a hot week when I posted this thread, originally, lol.

What your missing here is that window ac units need heat to operate,the heat needed is supplied to the air con from the interior of the room in which the cold air is being blown,the 60 degree air in your room is the air thats being supplied to the air con & will not allow it's compressor to operate.

If your temps are near 60 degrees to start with installing a window ac unit will end up being a dehumidifier,a dehumidifier that works very poorly too due to the lack of heat.

Your looking at this the same as if your trying to add heat to a room that is allready hot,this is not the same principal.What your proposing defy's the design & intent of all window ac units,they just can not do what they are not designed to do & thats add cool air into an allready cool room.

I understand what you want to do but im telling you from experience with ac units in my rooms that it flat out will not work.

This unit is huge for my room,it will not lower the temp 1 single degree below 62 degrees,no matter what the room temps allready are,if it was 55 degrees in my room the only thing the air con would do at that point is to run the fan,thats it.

I am having the same issure kind of. I can only get my room to about 85 degrees and I want it at 75. The thing is is that my ac has intake and exhaust. So the intake needs to be getting HOT air from out side. The intake is a duct. I have the exhaust out the window and I just have the intake intaking from the room. Out the window with the intake?

Well you are one of two or three people who seem to think that. I have also had two or three people say that it will totally work. So I am the type of person who needs to see it for myself, and am going to need to at least try it. If you say at it's worst it is a inefficient de-humidifier, then I really have nothing to lose other than the cost it takes to run an AC unit for a couple hours a day for 2 to 3 weeks. I mean, during flowering, dehumidification can also make it easier to avoid bud rot.

Also, the ambient temps would be the temps in the room where the grow-module is located, not the module itself. It usually runs between 70-80 degrees during the day, and 60-70 at night. So since the AC unit would be pumping into an area witha higher temp than the area around it, I would be happy. Fuck, I would be happy if it helped equalize the temp inside my grow-module with the temp inside the rome it is housed just 5 minutes faster than it would do it normally! God, I had already ended caring about this thread, and I'm not gonna get pulled back into it just to have an argument I already had earlier with someone else. I want to try this, so I hope you can sleep at night, that being the case. I'm not looking for alot of coolness, just a little. I don't see why people don't understand that. Also, scientifically speaking, heat is always present, otherwise we would be an Ice planet. Just let me do my thing, I had already gotten what I needed out of this thread, which was basically some people saying similar stuff as you, and other disagreeing with them saying it will work just fine. So I'm gonna have to try it for myself because it looks like the situation can be different from case to case, and maybe it will work for me, as it has worked for some others. can a guy just experiment?

And it's not like its the same temperature ever night either. perhaps it will find a use as something to help out and cool down the room after a hot day? I actually see more than one reason to install an AC unit. It will give me better temp control all year long, and may help with this during hotter parts of the season.

panhead said:

Ok now dig this,the intake air feeding the ac unit is being drawn from the inner room & hot air is being exhausted out the back of the unit,as the room gets cooler the intake air to the ac unit is also getting cooler,getting below the 62 degree mark with a window ac is going to be seriously complicated at the very least,thats if your ingenious enough to figure out a way to pump constant hot air above 80 degrees into the unit's intake without heating the room at the same time.

What you want to do is possible but it will require a whole lot of creativity & work.

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So if I run the hood exhaust from an adjacent room through the input of my ac, the output temperature will be colder with a constant power consumption?

panhead said:

You can bring your temps down with a portable ac unit but its going to be much harder than you think,the temp your trying to reach is not reached by any ac unit,you need heat going into the ac unit in order for it to run the compressor continuously,which is exactly what you'll need to lower the temps below 60 degrees.

Ok now dig this,the intake air feeding the ac unit is being drawn from the inner room & hot air is being exhausted out the back of the unit,as the room gets cooler the intake air to the ac unit is also getting cooler,getting below the 62 degree mark with a window ac is going to be seriously complicated at the very least,thats if your ingenious enough to figure out a way to pump constant hot air above 80 degrees into the unit's intake without heating the room at the same time.

What you want to do is possible but it will require a whole lot of creativity & work.

Click to expand...

So if I run the exhaust from a hood in an adjacent room through the intake of my portable ac, the output temperature will be colder with constant power consumption?

Heres my two cents on this one.

Harvested this week

This lady was grown throughout our cold Canada winter.

Same strain of bagseed, same nutes, flushing time etc. I wouldn't say there is any difference in the taste or potency, however lots of people love the colour so i'd have to say i give the bag appeal award to the grass grown in lower temps. i'd say the A\C definately cant hurt your situation regardless.

Something no one seemed to mention was its unlikely your window unit's thermostat will go below 60 degrees because it is meant to make temperatures comfortable for people. My window AC only gos to 66 degrees. And don't listen to people telling you that it makes heat vanish, your room will end up way hotter if you just let it run without the back end sticking outside, it takes heat from one point and moves it to another. And because its not 100 percent efficient it will give you a hot room unless the rear coils are exhausted. I like the "Portable" AC's" on wheels because they are ducted. You can run one duct outside, and some models have an output duct instead of a vent, so you can sit the unit outside on its lowest temp to keep it running, but have it powered by a 120 volt thermostat inside your grow enviroment for best temperature control. The portable ACs are usually higher BTU models than the cheap window units so expect to pay more.

my friend and i last winter wanted to creat the same kind of instante in a grow room , to try an increase yield and make it purple . we did this by puting ice cubes at the base of the plant on top of the dirt,misting the plant with ice cold water,and zero lights for 2 days before harvest.

^^^ that will do Nothing to yeild or anything for that manor.

How long before harvest do you have to apply the temperature drop?

Maybe dry ice and a fan? Ghetto, but if you're only talking a few days, it may work.

Rick James said:

Something no one seemed to mention was its unlikely your window unit's thermostat will go below 60 degrees because it is meant to make temperatures comfortable for people. My window AC only gos to 66 degrees. And don't listen to people telling you that it makes heat vanish, your room will end up way hotter if you just let it run without the back end sticking outside, it takes heat from one point and moves it to another. And because its not 100 percent efficient it will give you a hot room unless the rear coils are exhausted. I like the "Portable" AC's" on wheels because they are ducted. You can run one duct outside, and some models have an output duct instead of a vent, so you can sit the unit outside on its lowest temp to keep it running, but have it powered by a 120 volt thermostat inside your grow enviroment for best temperature control. The portable ACs are usually higher BTU models than the cheap window units so expect to pay more.

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agreed. although i have found open box portable ac units for only 200$ shipping included on ebay. Got mine last week and it has made a 20*f differnce bringing temps from +100*f to a cool 85*f. anything from home depot was 350$ or more.

I am gonna have to agree tho and say if you run one in a room without the heat exhausted it does absolutely nothing. Before i had mine vented it maybe lowered the temp 1*. After venting it blew ice cold!

marijuanajoe1982 said:

- Hank, thanks for the tip. but maybe you didn't understand what I'm trying to do/say/ask. I am growing a variety that turns purple more in response to lower temperatures as opposed to just becoming purple when it is relatively mature. I've harvested several types of purple outside that on a season where summer carried into September pretty good and it was ready for harvest without experiencing many nights below 50 degrees, there was very little purple showing, just a little bit on the calyx tips. On another season where the colder night time temps were already kicking in by september, the same variety will have developed much more purple pigmentation than in a previous, warmer late harvest season. In case anyone was wondering, it's "Fuckin' Incredible" by Visc (vancouver island seed company)
- Now I am growing indoors and will be flowering in a place that has great temps for growing, but will never get below 60 degrees at night. not even close to the temps I've seen make this variety turn more purple than green. I need something at least 10 degrees colder than that to get the pigmentation I really like.
-So Im just asking if there is something fundamentally wrong with having an AC unit run during flowering, during the 12 hours of dark, to get the temps down lower for just a couple hours during thier "night". sort of replicating what mother nature did that made this same variety a little better on the year it had some cold nights and turned more purple than usual.
- I do understand that some varieties will turn very purple regardless, but even they might get more purple in response to a week of cold nights. It is not simply that I desire a purple plant, I am trying to get a certain variety of plant to turn more purple than it is going to when I flower in a couple weeks. I hope this clarification helps someone tell me. If anyone has ever needed to use AC to keep plants cool because they have a hot grow-room, they could tell me if its safe for the plants. I'm wondering about cooling them off when it is dark and already slightly cool. will it hurt them at all? how cool can an adult plant get at night without damaging it? that sort of thing. any help appreciated.

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I hope to clarify, you ask if mking a plant cold will hurt it. Yes it will. It slow sugar production, root growth and is all around not good for a plant. If making a plant purple is more imporant that potentcy.... maybe... but I never know whan that will actually benefit you.