School me right quick

Whats up everyone

So in nature a cannabis plant very gradually receives less and less light initiating the flowering process...
would this be beneficial to indoor growing? Instead of switching from 24/0 to 12/12 maybe 22/2, 20/4, etc..etc...

Any thoughts on this guys? Let's hear all the possible pro's and con's...

I have seen people discuss it and bottom line is it just prolongs and adds weeks to the flower period, which is unnecessary , and for an indoor grower it waste electricity, i wouldn't recommend it.

Well put fjg.
Bd consider yourself schooled bro

Flowering is induced by long nights which allow the hormone phytochrome to build up in the plant. This hormone is only produced in the dark and is produced throughout the plants life. It has to reach a critical level to induce flowering. The long nights allow it to build up to sufficient levels.

Once that critical level is reached, flowering begins. It continues as long as the dark hours remain the same or more.

A better strategy would be to find out the minimum hours of darkness it takes for your strain to flower and keep it around there. Some will flower with 10 hours dark and some even less. The extra light would be more beneficial to the plant that extra darkness.

MYOB said:

Some will flower with 10 hours dark and some even less. The extra light would be more beneficial to the plant that extra darkness.

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So not all cannabis will start flowering with the same photoperiod...?
Examples of strains that are like this?? Not disagreeing just finding the info very interesting.

FuckJeffGoldbloom said:

I have seen people discuss it and bottom line is it just prolongs and adds weeks to the flower period, which is unnecessary , and for an indoor grower it waste electricity, i wouldn't recommend it.

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Maybe i dont understand fully but wouldnt it be more like adding weeks to the veg cycle instead of the flower cycle coming from 24/0 and successively adding a 2 hour dark period?

Its also the 730nm IR light the sun puts out at sunset in late summer to fall. That's why plants flower with 14/10-13/11 hour days. You can recreate using some led floodlights that put out that wave length. Run them for 10 min a day. Turn on for the last 5 min. Stay on 5min after lights go out. There are some of those lights on eBay. Growlightsource sells better quality ones but very price. Last a very long time. Around $120 for 20w. Works very well. Or you can diy led. That's the way Im going

banks dank said:

Maybe i dont understand fully but wouldnt it be more like adding weeks to the veg cycle instead of the flower cycle coming from 24/0 and successively adding a 2 hour dark period?

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Well yes and no... see until the plant is given a longer dark time, or equal, as in 12/12, the plant will not turn over into flower...so i guess yes in a way you are prolonging a bit of veg time, and also prolonging your flower time. By switching from 24/0 or 18/6 or 20.4 whatever veg time you have, by going to 12/12, you signal the plant that its time to flower,as you know, and the plant starts to throw all of its energy into flowering and producing buds, or seeds sometimes. by going slow, the plant will not react as quickly into flower, it would be prolonged, either way on the veg and flower side, add weeks to your plant in general. Doing it the slow way, or mimicking "nature" is pointless just because we are indoor growers. the point being one would veg to about 50% of your wanted height, sometimes give 75% strech for those sativa and sativa dom's, after the flip, by slowly flipping there is just no benefit, except a larger electric bill, and a slower maturing plant, anybody else feel free to chime in if they do not agree, but for the most part i believe just flipping to 12/12 or doing a day or two of darkness then 12/12 is the best bet, and as for the 13/10 etc, i see growers, experienced growers, only do this in like week 5-8 for indicas, and week 11-14 on sativas...

hope this helps, enjoy your day

FJG

hyroot said:

Its also the 730nm IR light the sun puts out at sunset in late summer to fall. That's why plants flower with 14/10-13/11 hour days. You can recreate using some led floodlights that put out that wave length. Run them for 10 min a day. Turn on for the last 5 min. Stay on 5min after lights go out. There are some of those lights on eBay. Growlightsource sells better quality ones but very price. Last a very long time. Around $120 for 20w. Works very well. Or you can diy led. That's the way Im going

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Do you have some more reading on this?

I was/am under the impression that phytochrome was the determinig force behind flowering. Different strains from different regions require different "night" lenghths to induce flowering. The phytochrome is only produced at night. Until the night length gets ling enough for the phytochrome to build up to critical levels, the plant stays in vegetative state. Light actually destroys the phytochrome. Flowering is all about dark/night length.

Indicas grown in cooler northern regions with shorter days need longer nights to flower. Equatorial strains may never even see a long night so they may require much less a dark period, some as little as 8hrs. I dont know specific strain names but have a look at landraces from different regions.

The reason most indoor growers use 12/12 is because it is a good "catch-all" photoperiod that works with indica and sativa dominant hybrids.

^^^^The IR sends the plant into pbytochrome state within minutes. Without IR it takes 2 hours to go into phytochrome state (indoors). Plants require 10 hours of phytochrome sleep. Hence 12/12. theoretically using IR you can keep lights on longer. Inda gro induction makes an led add on pontoon that does just that too. There's several induction and led threads that use IR. Captain morgans flowering with cree bulbs thread has the floodlight doing critical kush. Chazbolin shows his in the inda gro induction thread. Tags420 apache thread he has an inda gro with pontoon too. He just did some tga jilly.

banks dank said:

So not all cannabis will start flowering with the same photoperiod...?
Examples of strains that are like this?? Not disagreeing just finding the info very interesting.

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Right. Some require as little as 8 hrs dark. Some may require more than 12.

hyroot said:

The IR sends the plant into pbytochrome state within minutes. Without IR it takes 2 hours to go into phytochrome state (indoors). Plants require 10 hours of phytochrome sleep. Hence 12/12. theoretically using IR you can keep lights on longer. Inda fro induction makes an led add on pontoon that does just that too. There's several induction and led threads that use IR.

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I believe what the IR does is NOT affect phytochrome like daylight would. So theoretically you could provide light in the far red spectrum and not interrupt the flowering response. I have learned more than I thought I knew in the last hour though.

After reading some, it seems that IR can work to produce flowering hormones faster than just darkness. Seems to be in the experimental stage. I can't see the benefits of a marginally shorter onset of flowering but I hope people that like to experiment keep working with the concept. Need those people around

Not something that would benefit a novice grower IMO. There are many other more obvious things you can obsess over when it comes to improving yield/quality.

Here is the article I came across while trying to do some learnin'

http://www.chrysanthemumsvancouver.com/photoperiodic.php

Far red is IR 700nm -780nm, deep red 650nm - 700nm, red 630nm - 650nm. Running IR for 5 min after lights turn off or sun goes down induces the phytochrome state. There are places in the world that has IR all day and year round. Like Hawaii. Texas a&m has done plant studies using IR and they said IR drives flowering. I agree. I've used in my t5 when flowering. Wave point coral wave bulbs. Those have quite a bit of IR. Plants start flowering at day 8. I've even used them during veg 20/4 they caused plants to flower too. Them I took them out and pinched off buds. Plants went back to veg state.

imo and I have seen several times. Running IR the whole time lights are on. Induces quite a bit of stretching too.