Switching to 12/12 leave under MH until signs of budding to reduce stretch?

[McBudz]

I will be switching over to flower very shortly and was thinking of leaving the MH bulbs in until the buds start to form. Once they do switch the bulbs over to HPS as per usual. I'm wondering if that week or 2 of MH in the beginning of flower will help reduce that initial stretch? has anyone tried this before? Is it really that lack of blue spectrum that causes the stretch or is it the 12 hours of darkness? Maybe its just the plant it knows to stretch out to make room for buds when it reaches 12 hours of darkness each night? Think I will try and and see what happens. Shouldn't hurt right?

 

[Harry Red]

I did that with my current LST grow. They still stretched but I think keeping it under the MH for the first two weeks of 12/12 helped. My tallest cola is 45" from the top of the bucket, which is exactly what I wanted.

From what I understand, the differences in temps between lights on/off is also a contributing factor so keeping that difference small will help. In my environment, I don't see a large variation there, perhaps 5-6 degrees.

This thread has some good info on stretch..

What is stretch and how can I minimize it?



Harry

 

[McBudz]

I did that with my current LST grow. They still stretched but I think keeping it under the MH for the first two weeks of 12/12 helped. My tallest cola is 45" from the top of the bucket, which is exactly what I wanted.

From what I understand, the differences in temps between lights on/off is also a contributing factor so keeping that difference small will help. In my environment, I don't see a large variation there, perhaps 5-6 degrees.

This thread has some good info on stretch..

What is stretch and how can I minimize it?



Harry

Thanks Harry, Nice thread.

 

[rome420]

that sounds like it might work but idk ifit is worth it becuase the bud formation wont start as head strong or fast under the mh becuase of the blue light. i think that once u flower u should use the hps for full bud potenial because if your flushing your crop then you will lose two weeks at least of bud formation with help of nutes so id get the most out of it as possible.

 

[BreakPoint]

What about a MH bulb with red spectrum? My 400 Watt MH Agrosun advertises red spectrum as well, so maybe staying with it for awhile would be a good compromise? For that matter switching to HPS with blue may be even better.
Any thoughts? I'd like to avoid stretch as much as possible. Gonna go back and read that link now...

 

[CocoJoe]

What about a MH bulb with red spectrum? My 400 Watt MH Agrosun advertises red spectrum as well, so maybe staying with it for awhile would be a good compromise?

I like to flower under a warm MH bulb. Sunmaster Warm, red spectrum inhanced, does a good job.