Tomorrow, me and my girlfriend plant are going into the flowering period. Its our first grow, we have read that its good to let her n total dark for about 24 hours before going 12/12. Whats your opinion on this? Should we do it?
24 hours of darkness just costs you a day of growth. The plant will start producing the needed hormones after it receives a series of 12 hour dark nights, not one long night.
yes go 24 hrs of dark IMO it will jump start the flowering i did 24 hrs off and 3 days later had flowers yes 3 days i bet if you just went into 12 / 12 it will take longer to go to flower not sure the picture is like end of week 1
24 hours of darkness just costs you a day of growth. The plant will start producing the needed hormones after it receives a series of 12 hour dark nights, not one long night.
there is no need to have a prolonged dark period which in itself can cause stress if you allow temps to drop too low etc.
I have ran both scenarios using a 36hour prolonged dark period and just switching straight to 12/12 and i have seen no viable difference to convince me to do the prolonged darkness.
Some people will actually tell you to go two days, one day without light, wait 2-3 days and then another without light. I'm not saying I necessarily support that concept, because I think it's best to ease them into flowering rather than freak them out. It can't hurt, but your plant might not stretch as much in the post-12/12 period... which could actually be a good thing, depending on your exact circumstances.
i am currently growing a few plants one of which is a sativa dom, when i switched to 12/12 she started stretching higher than the rest so i am now using LST methods to tie her at the same height as the canopy of the others. i will add that i topped at the 3rd true node once she was 7 nodes high . Vegg'd for around 7 weeks under 200w CFL cloned a few times. Then after the first week of 12/12 she stretched , it was at this point i LST'd her and what was under growth has now took the lead. Approx 13 colas forming on her now and she's around 18inches tall.