New Lighting Schedule

As long as a plant gets 12 hours of darkness a day, it'll keep on flowering. This allows a grower to set the daytime lower. I've been on a 10/12 schedule from the start of flowering, but it is annoying to have to reset my timer every few days because it does not fit on the timer nicely. I figured that as long as the on and off times added up to a multiple of 7 it would work out nicely. I thus decided upon 7.75hours on/13.25hours off. With my current light, the plants could not handle a full 12 hours on, so the loss of light does not impact the plant all that greatly. I have 500W blackstar and using the wattage from that, I save 13$ a month, and use 35% less energy. It keeps heat down, bills down and makes it harder to track a grow by electric bills. This is all in addition to the fact that a 60 day flower cycle which using a 12/12 schedule will take 8.6 weeks, my schedule will take 7.5. This allows for quicker turn around on plants. Not using a perpetual grow, traditional methods allow 6 full flower periods. My method allows 7. What do you guys think?

I'm interested in trying this out. How did your yield measure out compared to the standard 12/12?

I have no plants that I can compare from when I used 12/12 for right now and the plants currently under 10/12 are still about two, two and half weeks away.

Here's what I did... I have a stacked growing table... Plants on toip flowering, bottom vegging..There is very littlew bleed over of light from bottom to top... I do 12/12 on top and 18/6 on bottom, but here's the catch. I overlap them so top is getting just a few hours before.after the 12/12 kind of like sunrise/sunset.

you just cutting you yeild running a schedule like that, your just tricking the plant in to rushing maturing and ripening because it thinks the season is changing soon and it need to reproduce asap but to each there own.....

I understand how it works. The point is, my light hurts my plants when it's on for too long so yield can actually decrease with more light. There is a balance between the two. Will the yield drop? Yes, of course it will, I'm not retarded, but what you gain from it is a quicker cycle, lower light use and odd pattern help keep up with yield drop and keep authorities from bugging you. It's better for certain growers, whereas 12/12 is better for others.

I was wondering why your numbers didn't add, 10/12? 8+13=21 (7.75+13.25)? Ok, so you overlap. There's alot to be said, but my girls were taking their sweet time at 12/12 so i upped the light to 15/9 and i got calixes poping galore, but also more new growth, so back to 12/12. They grow more with more light and flower at night. So once no pollen is found they switch to producing resin, hence more light, but not for lond like 2wks.

10/12 does not fit on the time I have nicely so I had to keep going back and changing it, which sometimes didn't work and the timer just didn't turn on. Because it is 21 hours, I can fit it nicely onto the schedule so it will always reach the same time on a new week.

I'm curious how the lint was damaging the plant if left on for the extra hour? I mean if its damaging the plant at all i would think there are other issues to work out before the timing.


Oh and if your interested in alternative photo periods i would do some searching. It has been posted a lot, i think i even did a long while ago. One interesting thing that is still being tested is the use of uv bulbs during the dark period as this encourages the production of some hormone type chemical at a rapid rate. This chemical is produced naturally at night and the level of this hormone in the plant each day determines if the plant should flower or grow(as it depletes during light hours). S end result is adding this specific wavelength of light could trick the plant into thinking a 5 hour night was really 12 or something to that effect. The same theory/study was playing with the amount of light per day to get optimal balance between yield and speed.

That was about a year ago and was rumored to be in rosenthal's (or George maybe) new book edition. Not sure how it turned out.

The light is exceptionally strong and although it is "damaging" the plants during the time that it is still on, it does not do so in a bad way. When left on for too long the plant becomes over saturated from the light and will slow down growth and plant production as a result. My light already contains UV and I would not try and put anymore UV on my plant.

TheGaussianMan said:

The light is exceptionally strong and although it is "damaging" the plants during the time that it is still on, it does not do so in a bad way. When left on for too long the plant becomes over saturated from the light and will slow down growth and plant production as a result. My light already contains UV and I would not try and put anymore UV on my plant.

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run the light on a 30min on 30 min off schedule from 7 am to 7pm then run it for one hr during 12 hr dark cycle only use 7 hr of power and have better growth drives down the cost/gram i do this in my 4x8 tent w/2k for my veg cycle have a lots of yeild, i also harvest in less then 50 days with 70% cloudy and 30% amber

You might want to do a little reading.

In "marijuana botany" by R.C. Clarke, he states that there is a marked decrease in THC when plants receive less than 10hrs of light in flowering.

So, you will lose both potency and yield.

YMMV

Wet

I'm hoping that its not too too noticeable although I recognize there will be diminished returns. If you look at my plants though, they're pretty frosty so the UV might be helping. I'll know in the end though.