This year I'm hoping to get my plants outdoors a couple weeks earlier. Obviously if its earlier there will be less light. Does anyone know what the threshold is for planting outdoors early spring the min hours to stay in veg? 14 hours? Any info would be greatly appreciated. Thank you kindly for any insight.
Early planting outdoors light cycles
Scientific
New Member
I'm going to guess (and it is just a guess) that as a worst case scenario if you have been giving your plants 18 hours a day of intense artificial light in a warm grow room and then abruptly move them outside where it's cooler, dimmer, and the days are shorter, a biological trigger is going to fire saying "Fall is here, it's time to bloom."
Going the other way, the best case scenario would seem to be to make the indoor conditions as close to the outdoor as possible to minimize the shock of transition (including "hardening" the pampered hothouse darlings to cooler and less stable outside temperatures).
All of which is to say I guess that the flowering signal is probably not just a simple binary of receiving greater than or less than 12 hours of illumination and to try to sync conditions in the grow room to those outside, possibly even moving the plants outside when the lights are off.
That's just my .02. I'm sure there are lots of people here who have actually done this who would have something more useful to say.
Good luck and have fun.
Going the other way, the best case scenario would seem to be to make the indoor conditions as close to the outdoor as possible to minimize the shock of transition (including "hardening" the pampered hothouse darlings to cooler and less stable outside temperatures).
All of which is to say I guess that the flowering signal is probably not just a simple binary of receiving greater than or less than 12 hours of illumination and to try to sync conditions in the grow room to those outside, possibly even moving the plants outside when the lights are off.
That's just my .02. I'm sure there are lots of people here who have actually done this who would have something more useful to say.
Good luck and have fun.
Scientific
New Member
I got to thinking about this on my walk this evening. If this were my outdoor grow, I'd look up the number of hours of daylight when I planned to set out the plants and actually give them significantly less. So if they're going out when there are 15 hours of light I'd give them 14 and be sure to center those hours around solar noon, e.g lights on 7 hours before solar noon and out 7 hours after. That way the plant is on-cycle and sees longer days when it goes outside. I would still want to give them some time outdoors to harden them, especially at night. So lights out at 7 PM, out the door until sunrise--something like that.
- Thread starter
- #5
Yeah they have been getting a little outdoor time already but extremely cold month of April here in Ontario and May has started out bout the same. Calling for snow tomorrow then slowly warming by the weekend and continues going up for there. Well thanks for the advice started by dropping a half hour off their indoor light schedule last night. Figure leave that for couple days then another half hour and so on till I achieve somewhere around 16 hours indoor for a few days before they make the plunge into what I've been preparing for the last several months as their summer home. Thanks again scientific appreciate the words!
Ogwillis
Well-Known Member
Where in Ontario are you located? We where supposed to get some snow in my area as well, this weather has been crap lately
- Thread starter
- #7
Just north of renfrew upper end of the valley
Ogwillis
Well-Known Member
Ahhh okay, I used to live in the area.
