Anybody try 13/11? Or 14/10?

Onamatopeia

New Member
We all know about putting your plants into 12/12. Many of us who have grown outdoors know that our plants in the wild start flowering way before 12/12. In fact, in my area they start flowering when there is still over 14 hours of daylight.

So, it seems to me, once you get your plant firmly into flowering mode, maybe they would be fine flowering in 13 or 14 hours of light. I think you would spend the first two weeks at least in 12/12 just to decisively get them to flower. But maybe once that was established they would bloom with the benefit of more light.

And possibly at the end for those tropical sativas especially you would want to cut down to 12/12 or even 11/13. Just to make them finish.

Maybe people feel that is not enough extra light to risk a bunch of hermies.

But has anyone tried this or something like it?
 
Not on purpose. I noticed about 2 weeks into flower that my lights were coming on an hour early so had been 13/11. I hadn't noticed any problems and had nice buds forming, so I switched to the correct time. I did drop the light to 11/13 for the last couple weeks to balance it out.

I wonder what would have happened if I left it at 13/11 for longer. Maybe a good experiment for someone.
 
If you do the calculations, every outdoor plant in the world flowers way before 12/12.

On September 21, the autumnal equinox. The whole planet will have 12 hours of direct sunlight. But really, there is usable light for at least 1/2 hour before sunrise and after sunset. So on September 21 there is at least 13 hours of light.

Any plant that finishes in Mid-October started flowering in early August, which almost everywhere in the USA would have more than 14 hours of effective light.

So it seems to me, if they can be triggered by 14 hours of light, maybe they can flower all the way through with two extra hours of sunshine.

Similarly, if auto flowers will flower in 24 hours of light, it makes no sense to me to ever turn the lights off for them!
 
I think we need to differentiate between pure Indica and pure Sativa as they are two totally different plants and originate from very different enviroments. We'll leave hybrids out as they are different again.

Genotype + Environment = Phenotype

When growing outside plants do what they do and we have no control over the photo-period (unless you are force flowering) or environment. The plants are exposed to the elements, varying light intensity due to cloud cover, different temperatures in relation to seasonal change etc whereas in the grow room variations in light intensity and temperature are more constant.

Try taking two cuttings of a plant and grow one outside and the other in the grow room, you'll end up with two different looking plants.

With the pure Indica strains there have been studies done for both vegetative growth and flowering.

With Vegging ie under hid lights,

20/4 produced the most sturdy growth and the most bulk. Best final yield, taken as 100%.
22/2 Less of both. yield 88%
18/6 Studier than 22/2 but slightly less bulk. yield 87%
24/0 Much lighter in all aspects than 18/6. Yield 79%
16/8 The weediest plants. yield 67%

Indica is well suited to a 12/12 flowering cycle but can be induced to flower under 14/10 if given a 48 hour period of total darkness at the switch. This will have the effect of lengthening the flowering time by roughly two weeks giving an increase in yield. It is suggested that at the first sign of cloudiness in the trichomes cutting the light cycle back to 13/11 and then around a week later back to 12/12 until harvest.

As Sativa is an equatorial strain, in it's natural environment there can be as little as 1/2 hour difference in photo-period between summer and winter and as a result they can grow into huge plants, anything up to 4m or 15ft.

If attempting to grow a pure sativa under lights this can pose a real problem and it's not uncommon to see the inexperienced grower explode his grow room though overgrowth :rofl: . Putting it in a big pot, start pumping heaps of nitrogen into it and give it 18/6 or 20/4 in veg you are going to have serious problems. :laughtwo: It's going to think to itself, "Hey, I got heaps of soil and heaps of food, I'm making a run for it to break out above the non-existent canopy of the jungle".

Put the Sativa in a small pot (and I mean small) and the plant will think "Hey, I'm growing in a little rocky outcrop so I better behave myself or I'm not going to survive". Unlike the Indica who will just eat and eat and use the nutrient, the sativa naturally stores nitrogen for use in the flowering stage so it's best to start them straight on flowering nutrient to limit the nitrogen intake and reduce stretch. Sure there will be heaps of yellow leaves towards the end but they do that naturally in the wild as they often grow in poor soil.

Begin the seedling under 13/11 and when 1 week old switch to 11/13. After about 8 to 10 weeks drop the cycle back to 10/14 to try and encourage it to finish. Expect a flowering time of 12 to 16 weeks.

I have grown Ace Seeds Golden Tiger and Zamaldelica or Cannabiogen Destroyer using the above method successfully and I highly recommend those varieties. They are lethal in potency and only for the extreme hard core smoker. Use with caution. :yikes:
 
As we are talking light here, could I ask the best scenario between lights in two tents?

I have 2 Mars II 1200w and a Budmaster II 675XG. The two Mars' draw about 600w each and the Budmaster 380w. The Mars are more red dominant than the Budmaster.

I use one tent for vegging and one tent for flowering and each tent is 1.2 metres squared with 2 metres of height.

Does anybody know what the best configuration would be using all 3 lights in the 2 tents? My guess would be to have the BM in the vegging tent due to more blue but would a Mars sit with it or am I way off? The real question is would more power be better in the veg tent or flower tent?

I currently have the BM in the veg tent under 24 hours but this will change now based on Hybrid Garden's answer above and the 2 Mars are together in the flower tent under 11/13.
 
Fantastic again HG. Is there no end to your knowledge of growing cannabis?

Lolz, who do you think that inexperienced grower who kept exploding his grow room was?? :rofl:

I'm a glutton for punishment. I hate Indica, I find it bland and uninspiring. Couchlock Blah. I only grow it because my girl can't handle my lethal stabilized sativa strains.

When you encounter problems you need solutions. So you just try and solve whatever problems you have with trial and error. Read all the info you can get your hands on, test, test and more test.

Springs coming, maybe I should do a grow journal growing a sativa to full term in a yogurt cup. :laugh:
 
As we are talking light here, could I ask the best scenario between lights in two tents?

I have 2 Mars II 1200w and a Budmaster II 675XG. The two Mars' draw about 600w each and the Budmaster 380w. The Mars are more red dominant than the Budmaster.

I use one tent for vegging and one tent for flowering and each tent is 1.2 metres squared with 2 metres of height.

Does anybody know what the best configuration would be using all 3 lights in the 2 tents? My guess would be to have the BM in the vegging tent due to more blue but would a Mars sit with it or am I way off? The real question is would more power be better in the veg tent or flower tent?

I currently have the BM in the veg tent under 24 hours but this will change now based on Hybrid Garden's answer above and the 2 Mars are together in the flower tent under 11/13.

Not familiar with those brands of lights, but if you are running 1200w in a 1.2 m (16 sq ft) that's a lot of light. Works out to about 75w per sq ft. They say anything above 65w per sq ft is overkill but I bet you get a nice tight internode spacing.

If i'm growing pure Sativa I run metal halides for flower, but HPS for Indica or Hybrids.

Are the lights you use LED's?. I have no experience with them. If they are HID's your 380w light is only putting out 25w per sq ft, might want to up it a bit to at least 35w psqft
 
Well if you are only vegging for clones I'd leave it the way it is, but if you are vegging to move into the flower room with that extra light they might start growing too quick for you.
 
Well if you are only vegging for clones I'd leave it the way it is, but if you are vegging to move into the flower room with that extra light they might start growing too quick for you.

Thank you my friend, I will go with one 1200w in vegging and then put the other two together for flowering.
 
Why don't you convert both tents to flowering. Set your small light up in a cupboard or something, plant your seedlings, wait till they are 5 weeks old and move to first flower tent. Then start more seedlings and at 5 weeks move to second flower tent. Then start more seedlings and at 5 weeks you should be around harvest in the the first tent. Harvest, move seedlings and rinse and repeat. That way you'd be doubling your output with out increasing power usage
 
I'm going for a perpetual harvest now. I am cracking 2 seeds per week at the moment but that will go down to one per week once I have about 20 plants going. I am vegging for between 4 and 5 months using Fluxing and Main-Lining. The idea is to get about 8/10 nodes then let them go vertical for the rest of the vegging time. Once the two tents are full it will be a case of one in and one out every week. That's the theory anyway and it will need tweaking as I go along.
 
I read of something called the Emerson effect, where a certain wavelength of light above 700nm will put plants to sleep 1-2 hours sooner if it's the only light being received. I don't know how accurate or true that is, but they were saying you could flower 14/10 with last 20 minutes being >700nm. Maybe that is why plants in nature can flower under 14/10, the deep red sunset is like a sleep trigger.
 
Since I'm currently growing outdoors and have preflowers at almost 14 hour light, and those who planted in spring have quite a bit of flowers already, this interests me a lot...

I was thinking that flowering could be lengthened in indoor grows, and bud production increased, if the photoperiod was adjusted gradually. Go from 20/4 to 18/6, then from 18/6 lower it 30 min a day till you get to 14, then lower it 30 minutes a week for 2 weeks, then 15 min a week for 4 weeks, then stick around at 12/12 till they are almost done, and then lower it 5 min a day till it is ripe...
 
The OP appears to be long gone, but this thread has received activity this year, so...

I read of something called the Emerson effect, where a certain wavelength of light above 700nm will put plants to sleep 1-2 hours sooner if it's the only light being received. I don't know how accurate or true that is, but they were saying you could flower 14/10 with last 20 minutes being >700nm. Maybe that is why plants in nature can flower under 14/10, the deep red sunset is like a sleep trigger.

Icemud is currently doing a grow with far red (730nm) supplementation in order to experiment/learn about such things. His journal about it can be found here:
Icemud's Far Red LED Journal - Flower Trigger Manipulation - Budmaster LED Lights
 
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