Theoretical light question...?

So, I switched to 12/12 on the 20th of January, and things have been rocking and rolling and flowering. My question is: What will happen if I go back to 18/6? I know I don't have the most potent lighting setup (138watts of 2700k, and 52watts of 6500k), so I was hoping to subsidize the lack of wattage with a longer light cycle. Will the plant go back into veg and the buds stop growing? Will I get a hermie? Will I get monster buds?

My next question is: When harvest time comes, what will happen if I just trim the buds from the plant and not cut the branches or fan leaves? Will the plant produce a new set of bud, will it die, or will it do something else?

Well first off the problem is you need more light. I'm sure you know this since your questioning the wattage and strenght of your light, right? So bad idea with going back to do it all over again . What you need to do is finish your harvest with a hps the bigger the better just remember there's more heat with more watts. Not a bad thing when you hook up a exuast fan and some duckting . It's worth it in the end if your serious . Then moving light is always the best light , always move your light. Your plants will respond alot more!!! Check out movers or rails for moving your light hooked up to a vent fan!! then in the final five days just before they need to be watered give them cold water ,(not freezing water just cold) and turn off the lights for the last five days !!! This will increse resin production !!!! Yumm

My guess is that it will hermie. Cannabis is an "annual"; it goes through a vegatative stage, then a flowering stage, then it dies. You can keep one in veg for years but when you flip it, it's two months or so from death, just like a salmon going back to spawn - and die.

So getting more light will make it hermie?

Yes

You will just confuse it and produce male flowers as its last ditch effort to reproduce.

I agree light stress by changing that late. Mabey if your within the firs two weeks. Then you'll only see some curling twisting leaf but it will go back into veg.