Question about light leaks

xtsho · Mar 27, 2020

I think people blame light leaks for plants turning hermie much to often. Stress is just as likely a culprit especially during flowering. Stress can be cause by over fertilization which is common with so many people dumping a dozen bottles of unnecessary stuff on their plants. Stress can also be caused by excessive pruning especially in flower and with the new fad of defoliation going on many people are stressing their plants by butchering them. People are quick to blame the genetics when in fact a good percentage of plants going hermie is caused by stress created by the grower and totally avoidable.

jerry-joe · Mar 27, 2020

Just to clarify, the reason I made the original post was that I see posts and videos all the time talking about how bad light leak is, and what you can do to combat it. I think it's one factor indoor growers try to control, when logic dictates that the plants have existed for thousands of years without complete and absolute darkness.

jerry-joe · Mar 27, 2020

xtsho said:
I think people blame light leaks for plants turning hermie much to often. Stress is just as likely a culprit especially during flowering. Stress can be cause by over fertilization which is common with so many people dumping a dozen bottles of unnecessary stuff on their plants. Stress can also be caused by excessive pruning especially in flower and with the new fad of defoliation going on many people are stressing their plants by butchering them. People are quick to blame the genetics when in fact a good percentage of plants going hermie is caused by stress created by the grower and totally avoidable.

Now I'm beginning to understand. Light leaks are blamed for hermie issue? I thought hermie issues were common with the trend of feminizing seeds.

rkymtnman · Mar 27, 2020

jerry-joe said:
Just to clarify, the reason I made the original post was that I see posts and videos all the time talking about how bad light leak is, and what you can do to combat it. I think it's one factor indoor growers try to control, when logic dictates that the plants have existed for thousands of years without complete and absolute darkness.

you are confusing what the human eye sees and what a plant receives in lumens. you think it's bright outside with the moon b/c your pupils dilate. plants don't do that.

ilovereggae · Mar 27, 2020

xtsho said:
I think people blame light leaks for plants turning hermie much to often. Stress is just as likely a culprit especially during flowering. Stress can be cause by over fertilization which is common with so many people dumping a dozen bottles of unnecessary stuff on their plants. Stress can also be caused by excessive pruning especially in flower and with the new fad of defoliation going on many people are stressing their plants by butchering them. People are quick to blame the genetics when in fact a good percentage of plants going hermie is caused by stress created by the grower and totally avoidable.

In my case I had 2 other clones of the exact same plant in the same tent at that time, that did not herm. The cola that hermed literally had a pin of light from a dining room lamp hitting it. The rest of the plant was fine. Since then have never had an issue. So I am pretty confident in saying the light leak caused the herm.

HydroRed · Mar 27, 2020

Im guilty of sitting in a brand new tent with the light off (for bout 5 min so my eyes can get adjusted to the dark) to make sure that the tent is 100% light proof. If you are going to play Mother Nature and control all light/dark periods...you may as well do it right 100%. Removes ALL doubt about light leaks causing plant issues like intersexing if they do arise.
As long as I've been growing, I still cant even attempt to answer the OP's original question lol (obviously an indoor guy haha).
And just to play Devils Advocate here....what about plants grown outdoors in the close proximity of a flood light/street light etc. Ive seen plenty of outdoor being saturated in city lights come out with not a seed in it. How can that be if there is such a sensitivity to light pollutions and/or light leaks when grown indoors?

jerry-joe · Mar 27, 2020

rkymtnman said:
you are confusing what the human eye sees and what a plant receives in lumens. you think it's bright outside with the moon b/c your pupils dilate. plants don't do that.

Aaaaah. OK. So even if I'm looking at a cannabis plant at night, with no moon, and I can see it, the plant isn't registering any light whatsoever.

rkymtnman · Mar 27, 2020

jerry-joe said:
Aaaaah. OK. So even if I'm looking at a cannabis plant at night, with no moon, and I can see it, the plant isn't registering any light whatsoever.

bingo.
i just checked real quick:
full moon lux is 0.27 to 1
40 w bulb lux is 450.

rkymtnman · Mar 27, 2020

HydroRed said:
Im guilty of sitting in a brand new tent with the light off (for bout 5 min so my eyes can get adjusted to the dark) to make sure that the tent is 100% light proof. If you are going to play Mother Nature and control all light/dark periods...you may as well do it right 100%. Removes ALL doubt about light leaks causing plant issues like intersexing if they do arise.
As long as I've been growing, I still cant even attempt to answer the OP's original question lol (obviously an indoor guy haha).
And just to play Devils Advocate here....what about plants grown outdoors in the close proximity of a flood light/street light etc. Ive seen plenty of outdoor being saturated in city lights come out with not a seed in it. How can that be if there is such a sensitivity to light pollutions and/or light leaks when grown indoors?

i'm hardly an expert but i would say stress can cause hermies. i would think a light leak is a stressor to some extent. so do your best to get rid of any stressors.

jerry-joe · Mar 27, 2020

HydroRed said:
Im guilty of sitting in a brand new tent with the light off (for bout 5 min so my eyes can get adjusted to the dark) to make sure that the tent is 100% light proof. If you are going to play Mother Nature and control all light/dark periods...you may as well do it right 100%. Removes ALL doubt about light leaks causing plant issues like intersexing if they do arise.
As long as I've been growing, I still cant even attempt to answer the OP's original question lol (obviously an indoor guy haha).
And just to play Devils Advocate here....what about plants grown outdoors in the close proximity of a flood light/street light etc. Ive seen plenty of outdoor being saturated in city lights come out with not a seed in it. How can that be if there is such a sensitivity to light pollutions and/or light leaks when grown indoors?

I'm not a geneticist, but I'm guessing that cannabis has evolved over thousands of years, if not more. In all that time it would have had to be in an environment that provided absolute darkness. Except for the ruderalis strain I don't know of any other strain that puts itself into flower because of amount of light issues; every other strain is photoperiod.
I know a guy that grows in a walk-in closet. No covering for the door. When he's in 12/12 there is ambient light. Not a lot, but....

xtsho · Mar 27, 2020

jerry-joe said:
Now I'm beginning to understand. Light leaks are blamed for hermie issue? I thought hermie issues were common with the trend of feminizing seeds.

Light leaks are one of the first things many point to when someone has a hermie. After that genetics or feminized seed. The issue of stress from over fertilization or excessive pruning is rarely mentioned even though both of those cause stress which can cause hermophrotism.

jerry-joe · Mar 27, 2020

xtsho said:
Light leaks are one of the first things many point to when someone has a hermie. After that genetics or feminized seed. The issue of stress from over fertilization or excessive pruning is rarely mentioned even though both of those cause stress which can cause hermophrotism.

I've heard that about excessive pruning. I was taught way back in the day that I should trim any dead leaves but also what we called sucker leaves. I did that once or twice in veg, and twice now in flower. The last time I did it I filled a 5 gallon bucket (not packed, just thrown in). And I'm still seeing the porential more. My girls are so thick they seem to want it, but I know your not supposed to trim past week 2 or 3 of flower.

spek9 · Mar 27, 2020

xtsho said:
Light leaks are one of the first things many point to when someone has a hermie. After that genetics or feminized seed. The issue of stress from over fertilization or excessive pruning is rarely mentioned even though both of those cause stress which can cause hermophrotism.

To boot, there are so many people who identify a male plant as a "hermie", it's ridiculous. The misunderstanding of the difference between male and hermie is disturbing.

Usually, personally, for every 100 feminized seeds I produce, I might get a couple of hermies (depending on the strains, and the environment).

For every regular seed run I go on, I get ~70% female seeds. That is just my luck though. Female to male is an indeterminate thing.

Stress can definitely cause hermies. High/low temps, over/under nutes, bad pH, too small/large a bucket, bad lighting regimes, toxifying with chemicals that "Produce the best bud growth EVER", it's all the same.

Males are males, hermies are female plants that produce male traits, and sometimes pollinate themselves.

Until people understand this, we'll always have videos.

TreeFarmerCharlie · Mar 27, 2020

spek9 said:
To boot, there are so many people who identify a male plant as a "hermie", it's ridiculous. The misunderstanding of the difference between male and hermie is disturbing.

Usually, personally, for every 100 feminized seeds I produce, I might get a couple of hermies (depending on the strains, and the environment).

For every regular seed run I go on, I get ~70% female seeds. That is just my luck though. Female to male is an indeterminate thing.

Stress can definitely cause hermies. High/low temps, over/under nutes, bad pH, too small/large a bucket, bad lighting regimes, toxifying with chemicals that "Produce the best bud growth EVER", it's all the same.

Males are males, hermies are female plants that produce male traits, and sometimes pollinate themselves.

Until people understand this, we'll always have videos.

A female that stresses and throws stamens out of the bud technically isn't a hermaphrodite, either. I forget what it's technical name is, but a true hermaphrodite is when the plant produces both female flowers and full on male pollen sacs.

spek9 · Mar 27, 2020

TreeFarmerCharlie said:
A female that stresses and throws stamens out of the bud technically isn't a hermaphrodite, either. I forget what it's technical name is, but a true hermaphrodite is when the plant produces both female flowers and full on male pollen sacs.

So you're calling me out on a technicality on a newbie thread. That's fine, and I do know that a female can throw the odd nanner. I don't believe that was the overall point here in this thread though.

TreeFarmerCharlie · Mar 27, 2020

spek9 said:
So you're calling me out on a technicality on a newbie thread. That's fine, and I do know that a female can throw the odd nanner. I don't believe that was the overall point here in this thread though.

No, I was throwing some knowledge that I learned, but guess what? I looked up the book that I read that in and I was WRONG

It was from one of Ed Rosenthal's books. What he said (that I misremembered) is that cannabis plants that show both male and female traits are not true hermaphrodites and that they are technically monoecious. My post wasn't mean tot be a correction, I thought it was interesting so I shared it...but Like I said, I was incorrect, so I'm clearing that up here so it doesn't confuse others.

spek9 · Mar 27, 2020

TreeFarmerCharlie said:
No, I was throwing some knowledge that I learned, but guess what? I looked up the book that I read that in and I was WRONG
It was from one of Ed Rosenthal's books. What he said (that I misremembered) is that cannabis plants that show both male and female traits are not true hermaphrodites and that they are technically monoecious. My post wasn't mean tot be a correction, I thought it was interesting so I shared it...but Like I said, I was incorrect, so I'm clearing that up here so it doesn't confuse others.

I'm glad there are still people on this planet that can admit when they make a mistake.

Truly I applaud that. Kudos.

People just can't admit they were wrong anymore. It's hard to comprehend. How does one learn if they are always right at all costs?

TreeFarmerCharlie · Mar 27, 2020

spek9 said:
I'm glad there are still people on this planet that can admit when they make a mistake.

Truly I applaud that. Kudos.

People just can't admit they were wrong anymore. It's hard to comprehend. How does one learn if they are always right at all costs?

I'm with you on that. It pisses me off so much when people just delete their posts where they posted incorrect info without a correction. People do that all the time on Reddit and claim it's so they don't confuse people who read their wrong information.

spek9 · Mar 27, 2020

TreeFarmerCharlie said:
I'm with you on that. It pisses me off so much when people just delete their posts where they posted incorrect info without a correction. People do that all the time on Reddit and claim it's so they don't confuse people who read their wrong information.

If one admits and takes responsibility for mistakes they've made, whether through inexperience or deliberate interference, I applaud them. It's important though that they learn from such mistakes, and resist responding to other questions with possible misinformation too, though.

There's a difference between peddling bad information intentionally, and peddling bad information due to inexperience, then accepting and admitting that they were incorrect.

Dr. Who · Mar 27, 2020

jerry-joe said:
I see a lot of people talking about what kind of tent to buy and to be careful to choose a tent that isn't notorious for light leaks. To be fair though, light leaks aren't only a grow tent thing. I grew for many years in a closet in my house with a blanket secured around the opening, and I wasn't able to keep all the light out all of the time. So here's the question: in the wild, cannabis plants do not encounter complete darkness so why do growers focus on it so much? Plants in the wild have moonlight and starlight with which to contend. Even with a new moon, there is plenty of light for cannabis plants to absorb. Complete darkness isn't in their DNA. I can understand that by striving for complete darkness, a grower can achieve a certain result; but to say that light leaks are bad for flowering plants, I'm having a hard time understanding that one.

They are not that important at all.
Back in the day when all this was new. You get an issue in a plant - herming was a real big one.
Folks liked to believe that "light leaks" was the cause. All sorts of people got on board that one.
They even wrote it in their books, like Jorge did. He was one to further that point.

We know now that, like other things he pushed hard for over the years......Was false.

To much light will begin to slow the bloom down and by quite a bit. On to the plant re vegging or not blooming at all.....

Question about light leaks

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