36 hrs oh darkness? really?

brett silva

Active Member
greetings gentlemen and ladies? :)

First time poster, very pleased and excited to be here.

I have 6 plants for medicalnal use, and I am a first time grower. Ive prolly spent $40k on pot in the last 10 years, so I decided to get a doctor's note and grow my own shit :)

So here's my ?. My girls have been in vegg for 60 days now and I am about to flip them to flower. But I read in "the bible' that before you flower , that you give them 36 hrs of light? What do ya'll think of this?

Thank you all very much in advance

-Brett
 

Antman

Well-Known Member
Negative. Just change your lights to 12/12 when you're ready to flower them. Why does it say to do that anyway?
 

daleh717

Well-Known Member
ive heard this also,i guess it is supposed to help trigger the plant to flower quicker than apposed to just switching to 12/12
 

JN811

Well-Known Member
ive heard of it but it but also read it can stress the plants, basically its up to you if you wanna risk it
 
I

Illegal Smile

Guest
I veg in 24 hr light so one day they just get 12 hrs of the first dark they have ever seen. That should be sufficiently shocking but at the same time they are getting a spectrum change and a shift to bloom nute schedule.
 

Antman

Well-Known Member
ive heard of it but it but also read it can stress the plants, basically its up to you if you wanna risk it
I agree with JN811. I have been growing for many, many years, and I have never done that. My plants never had a problem getting triggered into flowering with just switching the lights back the regular way, and after spending 60 days vegging a plant, I'm not taking any chances.
 

fallinghigh

Well-Known Member
this is a trick that some use to cut back on the growth spert stretch stage and go straight into budding.

My theory is, wtf are you complaining about the growth spert stage for. Grow a plant for 2 months then complain when it doubles in size in 2 weeks? gets me.. I know some sog applications... or low hight grow rooms... but still..

now I do use this trick for males I want to harvest. you dont need a big male plant it gets pollen ready early and can be stored
 

Antman

Well-Known Member
Just realizing that the thread title is " 36 hrs oh darkness? really?" but you asked about 36 hours of "Light" before flowering. I know a lot of ppl give their plants 36 hrs of darkness before they chop em' down.
 

brett silva

Active Member
Just realizing that the thread title is " 36 hrs oh darkness? really?" but you asked about 36 hours of "Light" before flowering. I know a lot of ppl give their plants 36 hrs of darkness before they chop em' down.
HOLY SH**!!!!!!!! I made a TYPO!!!!! I meant to say 36 hrs of DARKNESS before the 12/12!!!

WOW, I must say that I am VERY , VERY, VERY pleased with ALL OF YA'LL's replys and feedback! And you all replied in a VERY swift manner! This is AWESOME!!!!!!!!

Well gentlemen, here is WORD for WORD which I read in "the bible":

give plants 36 hrs of total darkness just before inducing flowering with the 12/12 photopierod. This heavy dose of darkness sends plants an unmistakable signal to flower sooner. Growers using this technique report that plants nornally show sings of flowering, such as pistil formation, within two weeks and develope pistils after a week of flowering.


oh and CdnBud, all 6 of them are 24" tall or more :)

thank you all very much again for your replys, time, and 411
 

Antman

Well-Known Member
These are the words from the bible: "give plants 36 hrs of total darkness just before inducing flowering with the 12/12 photopierod. This heavy dose of darkness sends plants an unmistakable signal to flower sooner. Growers using this technique report that plants nornally show sings of flowering, such as pistil formation, within two weeks and develope pistils after a week of flowering." , but it's never taken ANY longer than that for me to see pistils or bud formation switching the lights without the extended dark period beforehand. Just my two cents. Out.
 

doc111

Well-Known Member
These are the words from the bible: "give plants 36 hrs of total darkness just before inducing flowering with the 12/12 photopierod. This heavy dose of darkness sends plants an unmistakable signal to flower sooner. Growers using this technique report that plants nornally show sings of flowering, such as pistil formation, within two weeks and develope pistils after a week of flowering." , but it's never taken ANY longer than that for me to see pistils or bud formation switching the lights without the extended dark period beforehand. Just my two cents. Out.
I agree. I've never had it take much longer than a week to start showing signs of flowering. I've heard of people doing this and it does stress the plant. I am all for trying new things and maybe some day I will try it. If the plants are mature and showing preflowers they should flower pretty quickly anyway. :bigjoint:
 

DoeEyed

Well-Known Member
I've done it both ways, and there was no difference - both sets of plants still showed around five days in.:peace:
 

d.c. beard

Well-Known Member
I used to give em 24 hours of darkness in between veg and flwr, but now I usually just flip em right into 12/12.

If you try to flower before the plants have grown to sexual maturity (ie., NO preflowers) it MAY help to shock your plants into budding-mode via the 24-36 hrs of darkness, but not my much if anything. It takes months for the plants to grow, and 1-1.5 days isn't going to make that much difference either way. Plants are very slow to respond to external stimuli, meaning that anything occuring for only a day or so isn't going to affect them that much anyhow.

If you veg your plants to sexual maturity first, waiting until you see preflowers before flipping to 12/12, you'll never have a problem getting them to flower quickly, and you won't have to use any special 'tricks' to get the results that you want. Plants cannot produce flowers until they have reached sexual maturity anyway.
 

Antman

Well-Known Member
Plants cannot produce flowers until they have reached sexual maturity anyway.
Everything you wrote was correct...except this last sentence. Loads of ppl growing pot flower their plants long before they ever reach sexual maturity(alternating internodes). These ppl flower their plants as seedlings or 1-2 weeks into "veg". That's way before the 4-6 weeks it USUALLY takes a plant to mature.
 

AquafinaOrbit

Well-Known Member
I always use about 36 hours of darkness when I switch to flowering. I find it helps speed the process and gives the plant a smooth transition
 
Top