Dark period

Ok I have this AK47 that has been kept in darkness for 4 days now, I will harvest after 7 days of darkness. Can anyone please explain the theory of darkness before harvest? Is it more trichomes, larger trichomes, more potent trichomes???? Please splain it to me Lucy

7 days? Two or three is plenty. Theory is plant thinks winter is coming and tries desperatly to attract some pollen by stinking up the house!!

I heard it will will cause that plants resin productions to increase. This is from a class taught by DJ Shorts and retold by a participant.

BTW he used 5 days.

Makes sense to me! One last push before the big sleep...

Playtowin said:

I heard it will will cause that plants resin productions to increase. This is from a class taught by DJ Shorts and retold by a participant.

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i've heard this as well and tried it on my last grow, and i have to say that i didn't see shit in any increased resin production or w/e it's supposed to do..
the only thing i liked about it was it allowed my buds to dry out a bit before i chopped them which made drying that much faster.. other then that, not much honestly..

Hello, I have never heard of anyone putting them in pure darkness for anymore then 3 days, It is said that It does increase the production of resins/ essential oils , I don't disagree , my buds are always premium but i don't have a basis for comparison because i put mine in total darkness for 2 days prior to chopping, I also chop in the am and i don't let the plant ever see light before its cut from its roots after i start the dark cycle. If someone knows more I would like to know if / any benifits to extended darkness pre harvest cycle.

My bad, I just re-read it

Q: 5 days of darkness at the end of flowering to induce greater resin production?
A: Last few days are crucial. At least 24 hours of darkness before harvest. Don't water-->facilitates a faster cure.

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Hey, thanks for all the input, I have heard of 48hrs up to 2 weeks in darkness before harvest. 2weeks sounds a little much, but I am going to wait until a week is up. I will let all y'all know how harvest turns out. Stay medicated.

When your lights are on your plant is not growing, it is producing, and storing energy, when your lights go off the plant uses its stored energy to grow. Now we all know that light breaks down THC. Therefore, the theory is that if you put the plant in a 48-hour dark period the plant will use its stored energy to produce new THC that has no degradation from the light.

madmikeri said:

When your lights are on your plant is not growing, it is producing, and storing energy, when your lights go off the plant uses its stored energy to grow. Now we all know that light breaks down THC. Therefore, the theory is that if you put the plant in a 48-hour dark period the plant will use its stored energy to produce new THC that has no degradation from the light.

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Intersting MM. Wouldn't this imply that it (may) be beneficial to start decreaseing your photoperiod twoards the end of your flower cycle? Naturally the plant doesn't care about the amount of essential oils it's producing correct? It gets to a certain point and focuses mostly on seed production? (Fertilized or not.) Curious to hear your though... your input above makes a lot of sense.

I enjoy info like you posted.

I'm personally use to reading peer-reviewed journals and I am very surprised that papers from the likes aren't cirrulated on here. I see my share of mediocore, good and then great grows all over RIU - however I've wondered how long it took some of the good people to get "that good". In my opinion, resources are the only thing that holds someone back. You know, not everyone has the same doors opened as the next guy (although you better walk through if they do open!). One thing everyone has though is a brain and only you can stop yourself from using it.

Let's make this the most intelligent forum on RIU boys.


Bud

The one thing you can not learn from reading is how to speak plant, the only way to learn this is by doing. When you learn that your plants will be able to talk to you, they will let you know what they want or don't want, and if they are happy or not.
resources is a large part of the equation, but a good grower will maximize what is available. I have seen plenty of low budget grows that produce.

yep, i second that, i've seen plenty of "all the bells, whistles and everything elses" grows that produce absolute crap... the skill of the grower will determine the quality of the medicine... only... there are some tricks and tools that can make it easier, but if you don't love your medicine and your plants, it will not matter in the least when you are tasting the product... like art, sex, and love: you will know quality when you feel it, taste it, see it... there is nothing that will make a mediocre grower able to produce anything else but mediocre meds... that is what nute companies cottoned on to very early, and make good money selling the dream to fools... it is a good racket if you can get into it...

madmikeri said:

The one thing you can not learn from reading is how to speak plant, the only way to learn this is by doing. When you learn that your plants will be able to talk to you, they will let you know what they want or don't want, and if they are happy or not.
resources is a large part of the equation, but a good grower will maximize what is available. I have seen plenty of low budget grows that produce.

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Real talk Mike. I worked with scorpions for 10 years... some of the most medically significant in the world. Yes I've read hundreds of journals, papers, books, etc - however I respected them for what they were and never once did I have an issue. Quite amazing as accidents are inevidable, even with some of the best researchers in the field. However most of them had the resources to purchase and store anti-venom's. I didn't. I REALLY miss those days.

Maximize I did too, I studied in a 1 BR condo. Instead of clothes, both my closets had 8 foot shelves with a few hundred specimen on each.

to quote an old dude " 3 days man , 3 days "

madmikeri said:

When your lights are on your plant is not growing, it is producing, and storing energy, when your lights go off the plant uses its stored energy to grow. Now we all know that light breaks down THC. Therefore, the theory is that if you put the plant in a 48-hour dark period the plant will use its stored energy to produce new THC that has no degradation from the light.

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This is partialy true. Thc is produced in the morning hours right before sun rise. The thc is on the plant to protect it from the damaging uvb rays. So the reason you do a dark period is to simulate a longer moring like state in which the plant is producing more resin then it would typically. I do this method for 48 hours. And no matter how long you do a dark period, you only get 2% extra resin production.

PeyoteReligion said:

This is partialy true. Thc is produced in the morning hours right before sun rise. The thc is on the plant to protect it from the damaging uvb rays. So the reason you do a dark period is to simulate a longer moring like state in which the plant is producing more resin then it would typically. I do this method for 48 hours. And no matter how long you do a dark period, you only get 2% extra resin production.

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Interesting.

Citations? (Not that I don't beleive you.)

https://www.rollitup.org/advanced-marijuana-cultivation/225463-dark-period-before-harvest-3.html

https://www.rollitup.org/advanced-marijuana-cultivation/138006-dark-period-before-flower.html

https://www.rollitup.org/advanced-marijuana-cultivation/225463-dark-period-before-harvest.html

Thanks for the info Hobie! Interesting posts. The first one, are those excerts from the MMJ guide that Oban was showing me? That looked like an awesome book!!

I was hoping Peyote might have gathered the information he posted from somewhere other than a forum posting or second hand source. Like I said, I'm use to reading journals.

I found a decent article from a scientific journal which starts discussing photoperiods and amongs many other things. I'm going to give it a read but I thought I'd share, give everyone an idea of what I'm talking about.

http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=JvIyVk2IL_sC&oi=fnd&pg=PA3&dq=cannabis+grow&ots=ABhPu9vKiQ&sig=b4mw939bAVHTA2lp0MnXKb6VmU8#v=onepage&q=cannabis%20grow&f=false

Back in the day I was privledged enough to have (free) access to biological journals. However google scholar is a great supplament. It seems however it's changed and you can't download PDF's directly... greedy bastards and copyright infridgement laws. Never the less, a nice piece of advice is if you like a piece of work enough and can't find acess to the full article - contacting the author directly (doing some detective work) usually pays off big time. Seriously, I've had people send me hard copies of their work in the mail. And sometimes they had to dig through boxes in their attic to find them. Why? Because being a scientist is sometimes a thankless job and to have people appreciate their work means a lot.

Have a good night friends. Stay medicated and use your noggin!