Increasing light hours at end of budding

[stewbacca6]

I saw on a video that you can increase the light hours to 13 or 14 with one or two weeks left in the budding phase without negative consequences. Is this true? Will the plant just use the extra light on the buds and not revert to a vegetative state? thanks a lot

 

[Boss]

I hear opposite, turn them off for the last 2-3 days.. hehe rumors rumors..

 

[Racefan]

Buds "need" ...no wait..."require" light to grow. It makes no sense that to shorten the light hours increases bud size. Plants "do not" flower at 16 hours of light. They might show preflowers but they do not flower at that light cycle unless they are pre-programmed to do so like lowrider and other autoflowering strains. It does no good to reduce the lights near the end of flowering either. To run a grow at 10 hours or more of light and 14 hours or more of darkness affects yield. I've done it and can speak from experience. Sure it cut off a week of flowering time. It aslo cut off 1/4 of the yield.
Hairs are not a good way to judge when to harvest. Trichs are the best way. Hairs can be a indicater for certain strains but in no way is it the best way to judge as not all strains have hairs that change color or wither. The only way to judge harvest time and decay accurately is to look at the trichomes. The moment the trichs become amber is the moment they are decaying. Not the hairs.
Yes the fact that you are having as much success as you are says something about your growing ability. But it also says a lot about how strong cannabis is and how hardy it truly is. Just imagine the yield if you dialed things in and did things in ways that only benefited the plants and caused no stress at all?

 

[stewbacca6]

so should it just be kept at 12 hours. I got this info from a grow video by a reputable seed company, like DNA genetics or delta 9, i cant remember. Whats the consensus?

 

[greenmonkey]

if youre trying to get bud of the plant then keep it the way it is. if youre trying to expeiriment then go all out. increasing the light time will make the plant think it going back into spring. could strees into hermi or could produce awesome buds. seed companies have a lot of experience growing so hopefully they arent blowin smoke out their ass, did they mention it on only certain strains or for all their plants?
good luck with your buds

 

[Racefan]

Look at this. That sugary substance looks like this picture under a microscope or strong magnifying glass.

 

[sfhaze]

It is Tokay to increase the light cycle from 12/12 to 14/10 (14 hours of light) once blooming starts. Somewhere between 14 and 16 hours is the threshold for veg or bloom, the exact timing depends on the strain and other factors. The more light, the higher the yield.

Since shorter days indicate the onset of winter many people just assume gradually reducing the light will somehow help encourage the plant to bloom faster or larger but the plants need the light so going shorter then 12 hours is counterproductive.

 

[Boss]

The research says in the wild, more then 11 hours and 15 minutes is doing no good. But inside, with hps spectrums, who knows. I say do what works

 

[Racefan]

Yeah, most say to reduce the light, which I have and maybe it won;t be the greatest buds, but I'm pretty happy making my plant have 19 to 20 buds. The main buds are about 2 inches tall/long.

Okay, so here, "RaceFan" I do have white hairs to start, then as the buds grew about a month, then some turned to amber hairs still with lots of white hairs.
So before they turned amber, the bud leaves started building TONS of white gain sugar like, (aka: Trich) as you all call it. So question, should that white grains of sweet smelling sugar turn amber, that would be decay?

As for my plant, Called "Buddie" the sugar/Trich. is still prouducing full amounts and more and more leaves. When should I harvest?? I could now, but geese, I might get even more bud.
Let me know?? The lighting thing sort of worked for me, yet I had days it cheated, some days a bit longer than others.
Anyway, let me know about the harvest? I'm pretty excited, my 1st growing, but not my first plant owning since a teen.
Sabin

Actually read this post.

How To Know When To Harvest

 

[kickstart]

Buds "need" ...no wait..."require" light to grow. It makes no sense that to shorten the light hours increases bud size. Plants "do not" flower at 16 hours of light. They might show preflowers but they do not flower at that light cycle unless they are pre-programmed to do so like lowrider and other autoflowering strains. It does no good to reduce the lights near the end of flowering either. To run a grow at 10 hours or more of light and 14 hours or more of darkness affects yield. I've done it and can speak from experience. Sure it cut off a week of flowering time. It aslo cut off 1/4 of the yield.
Hairs are not a good way to judge when to harvest. Trichs are the best way. Hairs can be a indicater for certain strains but in no way is it the best way to judge as not all strains have hairs that change color or wither. The only way to judge harvest time and decay accurately is to look at the trichomes. The moment the trichs become amber is the moment they are decaying. Not the hairs.
Yes the fact that you are having as much success as you are says something about your growing ability. But it also says a lot about how strong cannabis is and how hardy it truly is. Just imagine the yield if you dialed things in and did things in ways that only benefited the plants and caused no stress at all?

agreed.

 

[4twenty4all]

Hey Racefan, thanks for the pictures! They sure help to explain without a doubt what you need to look for when determining harvest time. Also, I read for new growers it is a good idea to take buds at each stage to determine what kind of high you most prefer. So with my current grow I will have 4 jars and label them with the trich stage of the buds when I harvest and see what I like best since I haven't tried that yet.

 

[kickstart]

Hey Racefan, thanks for the pictures! They sure help to explain without a doubt what you need to look for when determining harvest time. Also, I read for new growers it is a good idea to take buds at each stage to determine what kind of high you most prefer. So with my current grow I will have 4 jars and label them with the trich stage of the buds when I harvest and see what I like best since I haven't tried that yet.

+reps for great analysis and hopefully follow-up...

 

[4twenty4all]

Here is the follow-up to my post on 4-4-08 about testing buds at different stages of maturity using the color of the trichs to determine effect.
Now for the quick smoke report, this won't be in as much detail as some of the more experienced growers but should give a good idea on this strain. I tried buds at different stages.

about 70% cloudy and 30% clear trichs:
This was greenish woodsy taste and the high was mostly in the head but not very strong.

close to 100% milky trichs:
This was a softer, lighter, slightly sweet smoke (i'm not very good at describing all of the flavors) with a nice relaxing feeling on the body and a slightly dreamy head feeling.

All milky and maybe 10% amber trichs:
Same soft, light, slightly sweet smoke that seems to fill the lungs (doesn't cause me to cough or anything) more of a relaxing body with slightly heavy legs (this is a cool feeling) and a more dreamy head (kind of hard to have a good conversation as I find myself not remembering what someone just was talking about )

Hope this helps some of you people out there determine how the affect changes as the trichs change colors.