manipulating light duration and plant growth possable new growing idea

go go kid

go go kid

Well-Known Member
Hi all, i got to thinking about a plant and how light affect it, now most indoor for arguments sake are 18-24 and 12/12.
My idea is to have a light on for 10 mins and off for 50 each hour for the duration of the grow, so if you were growing 24/0 , tricking the plant into thinking its had a full 24 hrs of light and do this for the duration of the growth stage
And do the same for the 12 hrs of flowering time.
Is it possible it would work??
Ive no doubt the plant willgrow, but would it streach? i dont know if the on off cycle would trick the light into thinking its had a day of bright light or weather it will think of it as weak light.
Anyone see any problems with this aproach

There are obvious draw backs, ie the starter in bulb giving up/beraking for some reason
and plantstreach was my other concern. any ideas ofr info wellcomed. go go
 
go go kid

go go kid

Well-Known Member
Light movers allow you to grow many plants in a strait line should you only have an area like that. so the plants at the end of the line wouldn't get enough light if that were so. so im begining to think my idea may work
 
BobCajun

BobCajun

Well-Known Member
No, it won't work. It's the total amount of light that matters, not if it's continuous or not. With LEDs you can actually make them turn on and off several times per second. It just makes it look dimmer and has the same effect as dimming them with a dimmer, reduced growth. Lots of experiments have been done with various periods of light and dark and they all produced less growth than continuous, not necessarily meaning 24 hours continuous, just continuous for 18 hours, 12 hours or whatever followed by continuous darkness.
 
Y

youraveragehorticulturist

Well-Known Member
go go kid said:
Hi all, i got to thinking about a plant and how light affect it, now most indoor for arguments sake are 18-24 and 12/12.
My idea is to have a light on for 10 mins and off for 50 each hour for the duration of the grow, so if you were growing 24/0 , tricking the plant into thinking its had a full 24 hrs of light and do this for the duration of the growth stage
And do the same for the 12 hrs of flowering time.
Is it possible it would work??
Ive no doubt the plant willgrow, but would it streach? i dont know if the on off cycle would trick the light into thinking its had a day of bright light or weather it will think of it as weak light.
Anyone see any problems with this aproach

There are obvious draw backs, ie the starter in bulb giving up/beraking for some reason
and plantstreach was my other concern. any ideas ofr info wellcomed. go go
Click to expand...
So you get all the yield and you only use 1/6 of the electricity. Great idea!
 
go go kid

go go kid

Well-Known Member
Well that was the theory behind it, i got to thinking that plants that ive seen in not flowering threads being caused by lights being left on outside affecting the grow, and noticed no streach on them, they were basicly as the grower had grown them.
So i got to thinking thaat it could be possible to only have the lights on enough to make the plant think its growing.
but as stated above, it wont work.
Im still sure it can be done still and plan on useing a 10 watt led on a small cutting to see if it works. as im sure theres some logic behind it
the only drawback is that the starters in the bulbs could wearous significant ly and it may cauuse streack
 
go go kid

go go kid

Well-Known Member
if it was done through flowering, maybe it could be used to grow them. lus messing with the plant in late flowering was what caused it to turn hermie
 
BobCajun

BobCajun

Well-Known Member
I don't know about stretching, just total growth would be less if the light is not continuous. I suppose they would stretch if you only gave them 10 minutes every hour, because it would be like using a dimmer to reduce the power to 1/6th normal. I can't prove it though so I guess an experiment would be useful to find out.
 
Oldreefer

Oldreefer

Well-Known Member
The only thing you're manipulating is your belief that you're doing something ingenious when all you're gonna do is screw up an opportunity for fine bud. Mother natures time table can be adjusted but your idea is simply hogwash...wouldn't be more beneficial to adjust your understanding of photosynthesis?
 
Brandon137

Brandon137

Well-Known Member
I have been using the gas lantern routine for a month now 12 on 5.5 off 1 on 5.5 off here is the plants on August 14 20200814_215317.jpg
And September the 12th20200914_075714.jpg20200912_184925.jpg
As you can see no flowers yet and it's been a month since starting on this lighting routine
 
WattSaver

WattSaver

Well-Known Member
Plants need a light and a dark cycle, I believe the dark is more important than the light, especially HID lighting. Plants make carbs and special sugars during the light and these are used during the dark. It's like a battery the longer the dark the more drain on the system. As you all know the growing gets accelerated after you flip reducing the light. I've found with Sativa strains that starting the at 11/13 instead of 12/12 they kick off a lot quicker. Over the yrs I've experimented with reducing the flower light time and went as low as 9/15 and didn't see that much difference in growth. Currently I'm 2 wks in running 10.5/13.5 and they are exploding.
You can reduce light but don't interrupt. But I would like to see a side by side to see if your theory has any merit.
 
CannaOnerStar

CannaOnerStar

Well-Known Member
I recently read somewhere that it takes quite a while for the plant to notice that it got dark, was it hour or two hours or something like that. But this time can be shortened if you simulate sunset by changing the spectrum to red/deep red for about 20mins before it gets dark. So if you give it an hour of darkness by suddenly taking lights off, chances are the plant doesent even get to figure out it got dark before more lights came back on, and what it could not do as much is photosynthesise due to less light. 10 mins of darkness the plant definitely will not notice in any meaningful ways.

Not trying to put you off from testing, its nice to see people try out different things, but maybe you want to modify what you do a bit and perhaps add some sunset if possible?
 
go go kid

go go kid

Well-Known Member
im trying toget my head around brandon127's post, i never herd of it b4 and wondering what hes trying to do.with this light scheme



CannaOnerStar said:
I recently read somewhere that it takes quite a while for the plant to notice that it got dark, was it hour or two hours or something like that. But this time can be shortened if you simulate sunset by changing the spectrum to red/deep red for about 20mins before it gets dark. So if you give it an hour of darkness by suddenly taking lights off, chances are the plant doesent even get to figure out it got dark before more lights came back on, and what it could not do as much is photosynthesise due to less light. 10 mins of darkness the plant definitely will not notice in any meaningful ways.

Not trying to put you off from testing, its nice to see people try out different things, but maybe you want to modify what you do a bit and perhaps add some sunset if possible?
Click to expand...
thanx, all info being given by other growers greatfully recieved go go
 
Brandon137

Brandon137

Well-Known Member
go go kid said:
im trying toget my head around brandon127's post, i never herd of it b4 and wondering what hes trying to do.with this light scheme




thanx, all info being given by other growers greatfully recieved go go
Click to expand...
It cuts back on the electricity bill I didnt notice a significant change in growth either
 
BobCajun

BobCajun

Well-Known Member
What I use is 21 on 3 off for veg and 12.5 on/11.5 off for flower. I was using 13 on before but found it caused too much water usage, 12.5 is about right. 12 is a little too slow in growth for my taste. I've tried reduced hours in late flower and it didn't help anything. Didn't ripen faster at all that I could notice, or produce more resin. It was the last 2 weeks that I reduced it, to various amounts, 11, 10 and 9 and even 8 once. Growth did seem to reduce with the lower hours though. I also found that it takes 16 weeks for buds to fully thicken up. At about 10 weeks I nip just the very tips of the large buds off and it makes them thicken up nicely over the following 6 weeks.
 
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