12/12, to 13/11 Light Schedules

[CA215]

So, this morning I've been doing research on a topic I have been thinking about for the past couple days.

I have had my tent on 12/12 for a month now. After thinking about the time change with the sun I was contemplating changing the light schedule to 13/11 to mimic a shorter day. Flowering plants need about 12 hours uninterrupted darkness to produce the necessary hormones to achieve a "flower", or bud. Has anyone done any experiments with this sort of schedule change or something similar?

The only cons I can think of would be possibly less yield due to the hour of light lost..

Pros could be, less chance to hermie ( or would that make the pant more prone to herm since it is going through a change ) and more of a correct usage of light..

Any input appreciated! Thanks in advance

-CA215

 

[shottafire]

You can do it with no problems at all. Dj short talked about this in a lecture I attended a few months ago.
He said you would never really see a huge difference just save an hour of power

 

[Fuzzy Duck]

I've used 11 on, 13 off with a diminshing light routine reducing lighting by 30 mins every 2 weeks for quite a few grows...


Only really reduces electric bill cost...

But have noticed early ripening of pistils as soon as the 4th week of flowering with an indica dominate strain !

Which i'm know trying 12/12 & which i have seen a more uniformed ripening of pistils towards the end of the 5th week/border line early 6th week.

Not really seen any differnce in yield tho...

 

[Hiker]

Hey CA, this is talked about under the name Diminishing Light Schedule (I think that's the term). I've seen it discussed along with GLR. It seems like the same folks that are willing to try GLR get to thinking about the light schedule in general and decide to simulate the coming of winter and shorten the daylight.

The experiment I want to try someday is non 24 hour days. There are lots of variations you could try, but one I want to try is this. Start a plant at 24/0 as a clone/seed. Then slowly add dark hours, but without lowering the amount of daylight.

I believe flowering is triggered by the buildup of hormones that get destroyed with light. It takes about 12 hours for the plant to reach that critical threshold that induces flowering. With a standard 24 hour day, the plant gets 12 hours to rest and build up flowering hormones and then 12 hours to "eat". If I still gave it a 12+ hour dark period, would it still flower even if it had 24 hours of light?

I won't try this now, as it would require manually changing timers all day and would I would probably fuck it up. Someday, I'd like all the mechanicals of the grow rooms, ie pumps, fans, ac, etc, to be controlled by a computer via a PLC. Once I get that running, a computer should be able to execute this schedule I'd like to try. Maybe I'll find that I can harvest a plant in 21 "days" this way!