So I just read about a technique for a vegetative light cycle called 12/1. You do 12 hours of light, 5.5hrs dark, 1 hour of light, 5.5hrs dark, then you start light again. Has anyone ever done this? It supposedly not only cuts electricity costs but can actually increase your yield as it causes the plant to bush out instead of growing straight up. I so want to try this but I need to understand it more. Can anyone help?
You should stick to proven methods that work. If you would research the flowering requirements for MJ you will find that there has to be 12 hours of uninterrupted darkness. Using this schedule your plants would never flower unless you were growing autos. This is a technique used by short day plant growers to keep the plants in a vegetative state until flowering is required. Poinsetteas, Mums, and Easter Lilly's are a few of the examples using this technique. It is definitely not used for flowering, the light interruption is for keeping the plants from flowering.. Wherever you found this link, it is totally false information. Please do not post this type of misinformation in the advanced sections of the growing forums. When you are starting to learn to grow, stick to the proven formulas until you become an advanced grower, then and only then should you try unproven growing techniques for experimentation. Learn the basics and be observant, growing healthy plants is all that is necessary for a good crop. PW
I have not heard of this method but I am interested to see the results. Like dude said, stick to proven methods unless you want to experiment, which is highly encouraged
The article is from the November issue of Skunk. I don't think I said anything about using this for flowering. I said it would increase your yield because of the bushing that happens to the plant. I'm not completely new to this, I've had a few successful harvests. The whole idea here is to do this during the veg phase, 1. To decrease power usage, increase eventual yield (by having a bushy plant instead of a tall skinny plant) Also, if this works for veg phase, it would make you almost invisible to the power companies or police, if someone were to look. Again, I'm new here so probably shouldn't argue with people but whywouldnt this be in the advanced growing technique section? Is this not an advanced growing technique. Its results have been scientifically proven in documented experiments. My point for talking about this is to see if anyone has done it themselves. You shouldn't try to discourage people from trying to expand on ideas and try different things. Isn't that how we get better at what we do? I'm going to do some more reading on this and if I attempt it I will start a diary here and post the results. It seems like its worth a shot. I have 2 rooms, so worst case scenario I have to start over with everyone in the veg cycle. It'll setme back a little but I have enough flowering to last me even if I do have to start over. I'll decide by tomorrow if I'm gonna do this and will post results here.
I must apologize for the misunderstanding of the usage of this technique. I see now you are trying this in the veg stage, not the flowering stage. As I stated, this is a technique to keep the plants from flowering until ready, so this will work for you in the veg stage. I don't know if it will make the plants bushy or not, but your plants will grow without flower initiation until the light interruption is stopped. This does decrease the light usage by 5 hours compared to 18/6, you will have to try it and see if it takes longer to finish both cycles or not with the reduced hours of light. PW.
I'm not really an expert on the subject but maybe it has something to do with dark more than the light. The even 12/12 cycle makes a plant go into flower because while in the dark it can create more bloom hormone than the light can destroy while on. There's also the short stretch phase in the beginning of flower where plants increase size and gain bushiness. Maybe this cycle keeps the plant right between cycles using bloom hormones to initiate rapid growth and just enough light to prevent full blooming.
Not working with any auto-flower strains, so that's not an issue. I'm going to do this, I just need to wait for my clones to root. I don't know how that light cycle would effect my clones rooting. Once they do, I'll start the cycle. I did already change the light cycle in my flowering room to 11/13, supposedly 12/12 keeps the plant right on the fence of flowering or not. What I have read suggests going down 15 minutes every week from 11/13 all the way until you are at 9/16. This supposedly helps to tighten up the buds and mimic real life light schedules. The only problem with this is if you are working on a perpetual grow, like I am. Every month I am putting 4 new plants in the flowering room, so I can't do that with the light cycle but 11/13 is supposed to make a healthy difference.
I've been running it for about a month and it's working fine for me. There is a flowering part of the method though, u initiate flowering by starting with 11 hours on 13 off, from there you decrease the lights on by 15 minutes per week until you get down to 9 hours. It also initiates flowering faster I believe. 12/12 has been used forever so I can't say anything bad about it but this last group of plants I sent to flower were showing pistils by day 4-5 of flower, when I sexed the clones from this batch I didnt see any for 11-12 days, males popped up @ day 10. I had 2 plants that were to young to take cuts from, 1 was male and showing at day 5 or so. At the moment I have my plants in veg under the 12-1 or gas lantern method, the one thing I would suggest if using is to use enough light for the room unless you are looking to slow them down as I am. But it works, I can say that. I'd suggest starting with this schedule if you can rather than going from 18/6 into it, my ladies seem like they suffered a little but everyone I have spoken to that started from day 1 is having good results though. I'll post some pics later on for you guys....
Saw this in this months Skunk magazine. Changes have already been made to how I grow. Fucking awesome issue IMO
That issue is awesome, great How-To stuff. I already changed the flowering room over to 11/13. Problem is that I can't continue to reduce by 15 a week with a perpetual grow. So I'll have to stay at 11/13. Still waiting for my clones to root before switching to 12/1. I'm scared that if I do b4 they root that it will mess things up for them.
Why would you even care to try something so confusing? I dont care what the final product is, its completely UNNATURAL. Considering im doing my best to simulate outdoors I am not going to do something completely unnatural with my "sun".
Lets be realistic... its unatural to grow indoors... and unless you have clouds inside ur house your not going to mimic outdoors.. so adjusting where you can to get better results makes perfect sense.. Ive experimented quit a bit with light cycles.. They do indeed make a difference in final product, and you can def increase yeild.. I practice it daily..
Hence the "doing my best to simulate" Any IDIOT knows you dont have clouds and there is NO WAY to fully simulate outdoors. But thanks for pointing that out to me. I thought I had outside inside my growbox. Once again, I really dont care how it all adds up. Ill stick to as close to natural light cycle as I can.
relax dood...take a puff... Most growers like to experiement and try to get better results. Part of the fun, ive been growing many years and sharing knowledge here in the city helps allot of folks.
[quote name='"althor"']Why would you even care to try something so confusing? I dont care what the final product is, its completely UNNATURAL. Considering im doing my best to simulate outdoors I am not going to do something completely unnatural with my "sun".[/quote] What's so confusing about it? A 5th grader could do this seriously. Maybe if you would read the issue you'd understand more before knocking something you have never tried. Matter of fact contact SKUNK and challenge whose in that article to a grow off. You using 12/12 him using 11/13. I'm not doubting your plants will look GOOD but I bet his are BETTER
[quote name='"Slayer50"']That issue is awesome, great How-To stuff. I already changed the flowering room over to 11/13. Problem is that I can't continue to reduce by 15 a week with a perpetual grow. So I'll have to stay at 11/13. Still waiting for my clones to root before switching to 12/1. I'm scared that if I do b4 they root that it will mess things up for them.[/quote] I agree. Well I'm about to throw mine into flowering and since I have no perpetual grow ill be able to cut the 15.
[quote name='"vostok"']Sounds like an easy way ...If you want Hermies "V"[/quote] Smh.... Don't you think if it caused hermies it wouldn't be in SKUNK??? half of the negative replies in here I bet are from people that haven't even read the article.