Forcing Plant To Mature Faster Using Complete Darkness?

I let them sit for 72 hours.....I can speak for anything longer. More than forcing maturity....you will benifit from a nice slow dry n cure.

 

Ive never gone total darkness for longer then 2 or 3 days, possibility of it turning hermie I imagine if it went to long. I dont know for sure youl have to see.

 

Amen bro......I know if you keep the humility low...it can't hurt the plant and seeds take 14 days to mature.....good luck!!!

 

This is just my opinion, but I don't think keeping plants in complete darkness for any length of time other than their 12/12 cycle has any benefit. 24 hours darkness, 72 hours, 1 week, etc.. all it does is deprive the plant of light, which means it can't photosynthesize, which means it can't grow or mature. Plants need light to do any work. If you need to harvest early, then just harvest early and accept the reduced maturity/yield. If you keep them in darkness for a few days first, they're going to be even less mature than if you left them at 12/12 for as long as possible and just harvested, because they didn't have any light to do what they need to do.
 
Again, just my opinion.
 
EDIT to add: You can't really "force" maturation in any plant. It will mature when it's ready to mature, in its own time. The best you can do is give it the ideal conditions to mature. Think of how they mature in the wild. They're definitely not subjected to extended darkness. If they are, they end up turning white from lack of chlorophyll production and die off because they can't photosynthesize any of the proteins they need to grow and mature.

 

I've tried keeping a plant in darkness for the last few days in order to bring the flavor out and I noticed that the first couple of days the plant bulks up. The plant does keep working without light and you will be able to finish your plant off by going all black for a few days. I have messed around with the number of days, but I've only used this method the last four times. So I have to respectfully disagree with SunOfMan, only because I've had luck with putting the plants into darkness. 
 
Sounds like your game plan is pretty good. I would say you could go dark for a day or two less than you planned, but that's just from my experience. Good luck bud. Let us know what you end up doing.

 

It'll just turn into that yellowy neglected sort of bud after harvest.
Smokeable but not impressive.
I'm Still keen to watch if you give it a shot,

 

Plants do continue to convert energy and resources collected during the daylight hours (and those collected during the early hours of the night) into new growth, but during the evening and dark hours you'll see slightly more stretching, which requires less energy and fewer resources, and slightly less useable newly developed plant growth, like nodes and flowers, than during the mid-end of the daylight hours. The amount of night-time stretch can actually vary based on the shade, strength and penetration of the light source during lights-on. It also varies depending on the 'suddeness' of the change. This is why indoor plants can appear to become rapidly, but temporarily spindly during even just the first day or so of 12/12, and then seem to adjust. The longer it's dark, the longer the plant is deprived of the energies it needs to convert into productive growth.
 During any extended dark period during the first three-quarters of the plants life, while the plant still has vigor and highly active hormones, you can see a marked height increase, in part because the plant thinks it's suddenly been shaded and responds to this somewhat as a threat to its existence, by directing the energy it still has towards reaching a light source that was there, at that same time yesterday, and according to its programming 'should' still be present. It knows that it needs to correct this before its resources run out, so even fewer resources are exhausted on nodal or flower growth than under a normal darkness period. But suddenly or not you'll see only the same, or less productive growth during lights out, than you'd note during the day with the help of the sun encouraging its metabolism and providing energy. And once the flowers are mature or very close to it, and especially after any seeds have separated from the 'funiculus' or the small stalk attaching the ovule to the plant, allowing for the delivery of vital nutrients (they are still held inside the calyx 'husk', but they are no longer attached to nor are they receiving further nutrition from the mother), the extended night will not have the same effect on stretch or growth where its hormone cycle is slowing down, and its search for the sun is coming to an end, which can help final ripening as well as helping to control terpene production and preservation, especially where the plants tend to lose terpenes during the day faster than they can create them due to heat and UV light. It's why your plants smell the most a few hours after lights-off, and during the earliest hours of lights-on, and why they tend to smell the least towards the end of a long warm day. 
 
 
  Reducing the light cycle further can help to speed up maturation, but how it does so, and what cycle or method is best, will be entirely dependent on your genetics. In the more common strains most users grow these days it just indicates that fall is coming to an end, and with winter nearing, it means their lifecycles as annuals will need to be complete in order to ensure reproduction can be successful before the season is over. Some equatorial sativas, or plants that come from regions close to the equator, actually don't even respond to 12/12 and can continue vegging for months, or even indefinitely, under those lighting conditions, and will require a 10/14 light cycle in order to be 'force triggered' into blooming at all.
 
 
 
 Long story short, at least a day to a few days of lights-off (and in some cases, reducing the light cycle by a few hours per day during mid to late bloom) before the final chop, should improve the potency and odor-appeal, of virtually any cannabis plant that isn't susceptible enough to succumb to mold or bud-rot in your environment, under those conditions.
  But if you're cutting it close with the lights on, as far as your cleanliness and ventilation conditions are concerned, and you're already concerned about bud rot... then you're best off just chopping first thing in the AM, right before your lights have a chance to come on. And in that case, you need to be sure that your drying conditions are better than your growing conditions, or you may not end up with any safe smoke at all!

 

 
 
I did spend all that time to confirm for you that darkness can help with ripening, did I not?
 
It's not really a 'hypothesis', it's something you would have learned by reading!
 
 
 It's why many of us give a full day, to a few days of darkness before harvest, primarily for terpene production and for a little final ripening and chlorophyll metabolization while still on the plant.
 
 
 And it's not just the increased dark that helps finish things up, it has just as much to do with the steady lowered temps versus those that existed during lights-on. Dropping your temps, even during lights-on, can also help speed ripening as it indicates the approach of winter, and you can still benefit from photosynthesis and increased yield in the process.
  Some plants respond very well, if given darkness at the right point in their lives. But don't forget that for many plants, lights-off for that extended a period can also reduce potency, as well as your yield, compared to a healthy, vigorous plant, that's had access to the light it needs to generate those chemicals and tissues you're after during that same time period. Especially under the wrong conditions, but wrong or not, chemically and even physically some plants respond poorly to more than two or three days of darkness. Yours may be ready to come down as we speak, or it may last another few days or a week. Too much darkness when a plant is too young can also be detrimental to its health for other reasons, compared to an older, more ripe plant. When the plant is alive and it's deprived of light, just like being deprived of nutrients, it can cannibalize itself. The more lively the plant, the more successfully it will cannibalize its components in a shorter time frame. That means converting tissues and even chemicals back into energy reserves. So keep a close eye on her starting now. Maturation and ripeness, are just half-steps away from the end of a plants life cycle and the degradation of its tissues and chemicals. As you're learning, your approach and timing has a lot to do with how well a plant finishes. 
 
 
 Another concern, besides mere reduced potency and yield, is something that many newer growers face when toying with extended darkness.... you're also risking a lot of mold, and no smoke at all. So again, keep a close eye on her.
 
 
 
 For many of us long-time growers, this is just common sense stuff! There are dozens if not hundreds of threads on GC, by folks new to growing and to the process, just like this one.  
 
 Rather than linking you to a dozen or so, and leaving it at that, since I'm sure you know how to use the search feature yourself, I'm just trying to help you learn what you're doing, and why, so you have a better understanding of the process and so you can be prepared to act, if it happens that you need to.

 

I was growing the infamous "Pineapple Chunk known for it's extended flowering times. At 17 weeks I just stopped. I could not devote any more time to these plants. During the last 5 weeks all I fed was distilled water and molasses. 
I shut off the lights and kept in total darkness for 5 days. Mama Mia! These ladys went NUTS! They had bulked up like crazy during these 4 days. I figuered what could I lose? Plus, being they were still alive and drinking, the plants were starting to go dry which helped make my curing go faster. Good smoke but never again for the P/Chunk.

 

I have a Cannatonic Plant.   The Resin Seeds Grow (the seed maker)..  grew and was cut down @10weeks  "However they had HID's". 
I have Pro Grow CFL's  (2 reds at the moment- have blue too).   BY THE WAY THESE BULBS MEASURE THE LENGTH OF A FORE-ARM AND ARE 300W EACH.   "NOT" LITTLE SPIRAL HARDWARE STORE BULBS !!    Sorry i get pissed when people say "CFL's LOL no wonder your having problems".
 
 
ANYWAY  my grow is now at week 14.   Ive got 50/50 brown hairs and as a first time grower i "think" most trichs are clear.
 
I switched to 10/14 a week ago and i can say it made no difference to this plant.
 
I must note aswell (as a concern) some of the main buds have started putting out tiny long shoots from the tops (new and un-usefull growth).
 
if i try total darkness should i keep her topped up with water.
 
ALSO any other usefull coments appreciated.

 

How can i see hairs turn in complete darkness. Good trick

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