Uncle Ben
Well-Known Member
Yes, which I've discussed a hundred times. It's called the plant's light saturation point such that "more is less". This is a concept folks need to research.
13/11 vs 12/12 ??????
- Thread starter Zaehet Strife
- Start date
churchhaze
Well-Known Member
11/13 will reduce yield..
churchhaze
Well-Known Member
churchhaze
Well-Known Member
So it's better (when you can) to increase daylight hours rather than light intensity.
Grandpa GreenJeans
Well-Known Member
Plants are phototropic. They rely on light, Co2 and nutrients to perform. If you limit them to a set amount of lite hours, you get what you give. If you give the most you can while still predominating the bloom cycle they will crank even harder. I have found that starting at a 18/6 and going down to 12/12 by the 9th week produces more robust and prolific plants and flowers. Some strains like sativa Dom varieties need to go as low as 6/18 to force ripen.
WattSaver
Well-Known Member
Thanks for this chart, but correct me if I'm wrong this just shows shows the rate that the plant can absorb photons, not the overall absorption a plant can handle through a light cycle and still be able to use up all the starch it made during the dark cycle. When I think of my outdoor grows where the direct sunlight is well over 800 moles/ second/ square meter. The plants during veg will make more leaf and wood than those indoors. During flower things seem to change a bit. My friend has a very sunny grow area so probable still gets 8 to 9 hrs direct, and the girls seem to get a little limp in the late afternoon to early evening not wilted but not at attention. Mine with only 5hrs direct stayed pretty much at attention. There are many differences between our grows, but I've wondered if light was the difference. I may be wrong but it seems to me there is a light saturation point during a light cycle, where less than 12 hrs of light might do the same work as a full 12 hrs.After about 800ppfd, you start to see hard diminishing returns.
There was an article in Skunk mag awhile back that said 6hr of light was enough. There are some scans of the article in another thread a couple of post down on this page
erodas
Member
I was also wondering why people stick to 24 hour cycle, when it's fully controlled environment. You could do that in vegging too....what if you flower 10/10....if your plants think 10/10 is a full day, then you will gain 1 day every 6 days(with the extra 4 hours each day)...so a 60 day flower will be complete in 50 days
...this is a thought i've been pondering over for a while now...seems to make sense in my twisted mind
...idk
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Your flowering cycle should be 12/12 no debate about it. I think there is one or two growers who spoke about using 13/11 to get certain trait characteristics to become expressed using that alternate light cycle. But not many people large or small use that cycle for a reason. The 12/12 light cycle is used and implemented for decades because it is tried and true. The only light cycles that can be played with are for veg. Which may be 24-0, 20-4 or the other common 18-6. Other than these veg cycles the bloom cycle should be 12/12.
I think recently some scientists have been doing some pretty innovative shit regarding light cycles involving various light and dark periods throughout the week And it is called phytochrome manipulation, which uses far red light spectrums to put plants into sleep shortening the dark periods and gaining light periods which claim to increase yields exponentially. I dont have any first have knowledge and the intracacies of these methods nor do I know exactly how they work but have read a few articles and discussions from scientists expirementing with this right now. Google it and you can find information on it in several places on the web. I think it is still in the process of fine tuning and nothing is set in stone whether or not it is worth doing.
12/12 cycle is the way to go and is the ideal period of light and dark needed to get the best results for bloom. By nature cannabis needs 12 hours of dark to bloom the best therefore the other 12 the lights should be on. When people argue that it is dark outside for only 10 hours etcc thats because although it is still "light out" and not exactly 12 hours of dark to initiate flowering is because of the type of light and spectrum the plants are getting which is the far red spectrum which is forcing the plants to go to bed and isnt the light they use to grow. We cannot see these light waves or colors like plants. That where the phytochrome expriment comes into play using these red light waves to alter the light periods gaining something like 14% more light during flowering without effecting the plants internal clocks. But google it and read up fr yourself if you want a better understanding because I dont know if I am even explaining it 100% accurately. But it is along those lines.
I think recently some scientists have been doing some pretty innovative shit regarding light cycles involving various light and dark periods throughout the week And it is called phytochrome manipulation, which uses far red light spectrums to put plants into sleep shortening the dark periods and gaining light periods which claim to increase yields exponentially. I dont have any first have knowledge and the intracacies of these methods nor do I know exactly how they work but have read a few articles and discussions from scientists expirementing with this right now. Google it and you can find information on it in several places on the web. I think it is still in the process of fine tuning and nothing is set in stone whether or not it is worth doing.
12/12 cycle is the way to go and is the ideal period of light and dark needed to get the best results for bloom. By nature cannabis needs 12 hours of dark to bloom the best therefore the other 12 the lights should be on. When people argue that it is dark outside for only 10 hours etcc thats because although it is still "light out" and not exactly 12 hours of dark to initiate flowering is because of the type of light and spectrum the plants are getting which is the far red spectrum which is forcing the plants to go to bed and isnt the light they use to grow. We cannot see these light waves or colors like plants. That where the phytochrome expriment comes into play using these red light waves to alter the light periods gaining something like 14% more light during flowering without effecting the plants internal clocks. But google it and read up fr yourself if you want a better understanding because I dont know if I am even explaining it 100% accurately. But it is along those lines.
churchhaze
Well-Known Member
There are a bunch of us here that use phytochrome manipulation using 730nm leds for 5 minutes immediately after lights out to convert Pfr to Pr faster than darkness would. This is what allows us to get 13 hours of daytime without changing effective night length. The 730nm pulse after lights out increases effective night length somewhere around 1-2 hours.
https://www.rollitup.org/t/the-far-red-thread.867665/
If you use the 730nm pulses after lights out on a 12/12, you will actually shave off a few days from flowering as if you were using shorter nights.
SPLFreak808
Well-Known Member
Will they finish sooner?
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NWbordergrower91
Member
If you're using HID lighting then I wouldn't risk it. People do run 13/11 with hps, however you run the risk of naners (a slight type of herming out). If however you are up to using led, then you can get your flower cycle up to 14/10 with 0 problems. Looks into flower initiators in the LED section on here and you will be pretty amazed. I've been using them for a little while now and haven't had any problems yet.
