The Myth About Light Leaks

When, not if power goes off, I make sure not to shorten the night for the plants. Longer lighted periods don’t seem to hurt. The plants time the night and the clock begins ticking at “lights off”.

Crumpetlicker said:

Probably right. The problem can also be sometimes that breeders use genetics that they know are a little bit hermie but have strong potency.

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Yes there are tons of pollen checkers out there, I don’t think I would call them “Breeders” though..

Pollen chuckers*

But they are promoting themselves as breeders which means something far different than it did even a few years ago. People that bred and crossed and selected from hundreds of plant over generations. Those are Breeders.
Throwing a certain male at every girl around is something else than that. And then just tossing ‘em on the Market, that’s chucking.
Okay if you know and are wiling still to go.

xtsho said:

Plants flowered like normal.

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photoperiodics? how do you know? can you firmly say that if very same plant would've in total darkness it would've developed equally.
I had small light leaks causing individual young plants delaying the onset of flower exactly where the leak fell into the tent.

Dr. Bugbee says there hasn’t been enough research done due to prohibition, but he is running test on potency with various amounts of light leaks. He thinks there is a definite effect. They even invented a light pollution meter at Apogee.

hillbill said:

But they are promoting themselves as breeders which means something far different than it did even a few years ago. People that bred and crossed and selected from hundreds of plant over generations. Those are Breeders.
Throwing a certain male at every girl around is something else than that. And then just tossing ‘em on the Market, that’s chucking.
Okay if you know and are wiling still to go.

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Exactly!

Kassiopeija said:

photoperiodics? how do you know? can you firmly say that if very same plant would've in total darkness it would've developed equally.
I had small light leaks causing individual young plants delaying the onset of flower exactly where the leak fell into the tent.

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Yes photoperiod plants.

I'm just referring to having a constant light next to plants. It was nothing scientific but just an observation. The walkway lights come on at night and are much more than any small leaks or small lights on equipment in a tent. There was also moonlight as well.

With the plants being outside the environment was much different than that of inside a grow tent. But the lights were bright enough that you can read by from a few feet away and they were right next to the plants and on all night.

It is possible that the light extended the flowering stage. I don't know. I'd have to do 2 of the same plants. I could could do it and move one away from the lights every night and see if there was any difference. But I don't have the desire to do that and will let others spend their time experimenting with this particular subject.

These are the kind of lights that were next to some of my outdoor plants that flowered normally.

Yeah these are not very radiant at all... just like stars & moonlight... it could be certain thresholds haven't been crossed, or the plants adapted to that and took that as base.

Bugbee did a study on cannabis & FR/IR night lights and it did delay flowering much. but he used 100W led diodes right ontop so the radiant influx was much greater.

also I believe the outdoor situation changes something, one phytochrome is sensitive to temperature. you live in the northern hemisphere or get nightly temps lower than 20°C?
thanks for the explanation, I thought the lights were much bigger/taller

As an intermittent grower, with no real understanding of this topic, here is my theory:
When a plant is grown outdoors, the photo period changes slightly every day.
Flowering is triggered when the dark period is, more or less, equal to the light period. (correct me if you feel the need)
As the days get shorter, the nights become longer, which accelerates the flowering processs.
A momentum builds which, becomes harder and harder to interfere with.

When a plant is grown indoors, (with a 12/12 or (13/11 etc.) light cycle, the flowering is triggered, but no momentum builds, since the light and dark periods remain the same throughout the remainder of the grow. (The plant is constantly on the verge of revegging, and any additional light during the dark period could send it into confusion.

I could go into more detail on this, but i figure there are some people who do support this idea, since some growers do use a tapering light schedule for their indoor grows.

Just because plants evolve to do the best with what they have doesn't mean they can't do better under improved circumstances. With thousands of growers being successful it generally takes time to adopt new methods as they PROVE more effective for the purpose. Concesus generally meets in the middle as being 'safe'.

bamboofarmer said:

As an intermittent grower, with no real understanding of this topic, here is my theory:

As the days get shorter, the nights become longer, which accelerates the flowering processs.
A momentum builds which, becomes harder and harder to interfere with.

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I only wanna comment on this bamboo...no there's no momentum im sorry. Flowering is highly reactive and easily interrupted at any given stage of the flowering.

mudballs said:

I only wanna comment on this bamboo...no there's no momentum im sorry. Flowering is highly reactive and easily interrupted at any given stage of the flowering.

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mudballs said:

I only wanna comment on this bamboo...no there's no momentum im sorry. Flowering is highly reactive and easily interrupted at any given stage of the flowering.

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But an outdoor plant isn't as sensitive to a 'light leak'. (unless im wrong about that too)

Id love to help but it's at this point people start trying to attack me and my input. I like this topic, im following same as you all with no real authority beyond what you have.
I just know for certain flowering is a jittery lover, bamboo.

Crumpetlicker said:

The stress is going from 18 hours of light straight to 12/12.
That never happens in nature.
Even 18 hours of light is not natural.

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Yes 100% folks dont realize how much a plant stress from going 18 to 12, took me a few yrs to learn this the hard way now i go 18 to 12 over a week a lot less stress.

mudballs said:

Id love to help but it's at this point people start trying to attack me and my input. I like this topic, im following same as you all with no real authority beyond what you have.
I just know for certain flowering is a jittery lover, bamboo.

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Glad to see you're still on here, btw. You helped me years ago when i first started growing.

bamboofarmer said:

Glad to see you're still on here, btw. You helped me years ago when i first started growing.

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I really only sink my teeth into arguments i can back up with scientific, peer reviewed articles these days. While i do have an opinion on outdoor light leak, to back my opinion up would require convoluted backlinking of plant systems, and it still wouldn't prove my position...only that the plants biology supports the possibility.

Antidote Man said:

1/4 to 1 inch gaps around my collapsible closet doors, in an office room that gets a lot of light, and one giant budding romulan plant in the closet on day 37 with no male flowers. just sharing some facts.

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I love the romulan strain... That smoke was definitely where no one has gone before.

Crumpetlicker said:

The stress is going from 18 hours of light straight to 12/12.
That never happens in nature.
Even 18 hours of light is not natural.

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Wouldn't it be beneficial to gradually change the light hours instead of just abrupts 12:12?

ShawnSunshine said:

Wouldn't it be beneficial to gradually change the light hours instead of just abrupts 12:12?

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Difficult, time sapping and easy to forget. Somebody should invent a timer that reduces time each day by a given amount to reflect certain latitudes on Earth. The next thing you can do is find the minimum number of hours you need to hold a plant in veg. Then it would be more like the environment it came from. Especially handy for sativas I would have thought.