Do you ever learn the same lessons over and over again? I’ve looked at ugly re-vegging plants too many times over the years in too many of my other experiments. After my last post I started to wonder about the stretchy flowers. I didn’t think things would try to re-veg so early in the season. It’s only April 3rd, and equinox with its 12/12 daylight/ dark was just back on March 21st, making today surprisingly already 12 hours and 43 minutes long sunrise to sunset. So I got to looking at the timeanddate website, which I’ve used before when I was trying to figure out when I could safely put clones out in spring. I again came up against daylength and the gradual transition from light to dark and back again. As illustrated on the website, there is daylight totaling 12 hours 43 minutes today, twilight, nautical twilight, and astronomical twilight each total about an hour, so 30 minutes each when it’s getting light and 30 minutes each again when it’s getting dark. So where in that spectrum do the chemical changes take place in the plants that start and finish the day and night? I’m guessing that at least the first layer outside of daylight, twilight, is light enough to extend the day that 30 minutes on either end, making today really about 13 hours, 45 minutes long. That’s long enough to re-veg more equatorial strains for sure...as illustrated by my garden, especially the chemdog and Jack Herer. So I’ve learned the same lesson again and I’m looking at stretchy plants that want to re-veg...again. But I may have saved this one in time, we’ll see.
I finally got the panda film I needed today to darken the hoophouse at 5:15pm. This should make about an 11 hour day, or 12 if I count twilight. I’m going to stick with that for a week or two, then shorten day a bit more. I’ll see if I can keep things in flower and moving towards completion. Things still look great, but I see too much stem in too many places for perfection to be reached...I guess I’ll have to let go of that...again.
I’ll post some pics when I feel less embarrassed.