comeon! who doesn't enjoy a good electron transport chain article once and a while??? Seriously though, this is basic college biology. In fact, many of us learned this in high school. In a semi-unrelated note... how many of you rolled your eyes when your teacher told you to pay attention because you could use this info some day? had we all known that we would grow up to be farmers.
Both cycles work. You guys have taken this way out of proportion. It doesnt matter to me what you choose for your light cycle. I know the cycle that works for me and that is what I care about. Different strains react differently for different light cycles, and it also matters what your choice of grow is (hydro or organic). In the strains that I grow and have been growing for the past couple of years 24/0 works the best for me. My yields are so high I cant afford to stop 24/0. Myself and everbody else know that in a natural habitat that plants get darkness, and they do get darkness when I switch to 12/12. Hell just because I put more light on my plants doesnt mean thay wont grow. If that were the case then the 18/6 wouldnt work either duh. Outdoors the plants only recieve a maximum of 11 hours of light at peak season. Even the 18/6 would be to much if that were the case. BOTH CYCLES WORK JUST FINE. But for people to try and tell me that 24/0 doesnt work well I am laughing because for as long as I have been growing it has worked wonders. I dont even know the name of the person who posted this but to answer your question bro, They both work fine. The only way to find out what is best for your plants is to do some tests. Put some of them under 24/0 and some under 18/6 and see what your strain likes the most. It will be different for every strain. And for the person that is talking about college boi, nobody is impressed with that shit. I know alot of people that didnt even make it through highschool that will outgrow you blind. Growing and doing your own tests is what makes results. If you want to learn about plants then take up bot. classes not bio. classes jackass.
what's so funny about the internet is that the person giving advice could be someone that doesn't know the first thing about anything. The obverse of this is also true. The person to whom you're talking might be very well known in the growing community and just prefers the refreshing anonymity offered by a screen name on the internet. I'd be really impressed by anyone that could outgrow me blind.
naw.. I can be patient.. flood tables are a dream to me.. I'm still not used to watching a sog grow on a ebb and flow .. it's amazing.. specially 3weeks-6weeks.. I'm more excited than impatient...
Apparently science you have not attended college because if you had you would know that half of the Biology book covered plant biology. The electron transport chain occurs in both humans and plants. Jeez, what a knucklehead. LoL
Look no disrespect to anybody and when i found this sight i thought that it would be filled with people that liked to grow and talk about growing, not telling people that they are wrong and argueing. Honestly i cant tell you if you are wrong are not because i dont know your results but this is waisting my time going back and forth with you guys and it is really getting old, but no I am not a college graduate who studied bio. but I have been growing alot, and nomatter if you took bio classes, I know a thing or two about growing. The only reason I know how to grow is I have done alot of different things with jane. This is how I make my living. And I know that bio covers plants a little. But everybody knows that bot. classes are a full study of plant life. So like I said I am not impressed with your college bio. classes. You cant learn the things about jane in a classroom like you can in the growing field or room. I speak from experience not from a book. It really doesnt matter what a book says because no two strains act the same. Cross breeding has changed everything.And Im not saying that you dont but dont tell me I am wrong just because I didnt go to college.
I got tired of reading this thread after page three so if this has already been answered, I'm sorry. I noticed alot of people believe the plant needs rest and a "natural" enviroment. I also notice, not this thread, but others say that you need to keep all light from the plant during the dark hours. My question is, if you want to simulate nature, a little light getting in during dark time wouldn't hurt it, right? I base this on the fact that plants do get light from the moon at night if it is out. Also, if you have never seen it, when moon beams hit grass, the next day the grass is amazingly taller. Only in those spots where a moon beam hit tho. Is this maybe the light frequency of the moon that causes this, if so, what is that freq?? Maybe we should start giving our plants light at night, just a diff freq? What do you guys think? I will look more into this and maybe do an experiment with my next grow, which will be my second. Not worried about yield cause right now I'm just testing things to see what happens.
Don't subject pot to anything brighter than the light from the full moon during their dark period. Anything brighter than the full moon during flower and during the plants dark time, MIGHT revert the plant back to veg. The moon does not itself give off light. The light is a reflection of the sun and the sun light is measured as a spectrum not a frequency. Nice buds irieluv.
Thx for the response SmknVTEC, I did find this study already that started out studying the interference of moonlight in the plants growth but ended up with a finding that the moonlight actually helped the plants flower better. That's of course if I understood the whole thing. Check it out for yourself. http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=223607
I don't think anyone told you that you were wrong. In fact, the only people getting worked up here seem to be you. In fact, you called me a jackass and told me I shouldn't be referencing biology to discuss Krebbs and photo periods. Half of biology, the several classes of which one would take to get my degree in horticulture and agronomy would be spent, solely, on plants. Plants makes up more of bio class because there are so many shitloads of plants. Plants were here first. They've adapted amazingly to the environment in which they live. In fact, without plants, there would be no animals. If yu take a BIO class, you'll learn more about plants than animals. It's funny that you accuse us of being narrow-minded and intollerant of your observations and opinions, when on the same token, when you're presented with information you disagree with, it is YOU who are having a problem being tollerant of our assertions. I would also like to point out that no one ever said that you were wrong simply because you didn't go to college. No one ever said that. I merely pointed out that learning about the necessity of the dark photoperiod in many plants is BIO101. Not that BIO101 covers everything to do with plants. Never claimed that. But, BIO101 does spend an enormous amount of time on photosynthesis and the Krebs cycle. The reason being is that ATP (the fundamental piece of whatsit that fuels just about anything you, I, and just about any plant does) is essential for all life. That said, here's my observations, take them for what they are worth: I like 24 hour light on my clones and my young seedlings. For vegetative growth periods, I have seen a negligible, if not outright "no", difference between 24 hours of light and 18. Some strains I will see a little, but not enough to warrant the waste of electricity. Yes, you are correct, different strains exhibit different characteristics and needs. I've grown plenty of different ones. Anyone here that knows my real identity knows that I've grown A LOT of different ones. But, after all that, if 24 hours is working for you, then good. All the more power to you. Keep doing it. I'm not telling you that you are wrong. I'm not telling you to stop. I'm merely offering a different opinon than the one you offered, so let's agree to disagree. Now, let's hug it out bitch.
I can tell you that during a grow in college, I had a plant develop male flowers on it. It went hermie. I couldn't figure out why. Why did this one go hermie in seemingly random places but the rest of the clones in the closet didn't. Well, one night I jumped in that closet to hide from this one chick (that's a whole different story) and I noticed that a small amount of light leaked from the crack between the door and the jam. This small amount of light casted a nice little "line" of light all the way up that one hermie plant. Everyehwere that light hit, I have a male flower.
One little addition for knowledge's sake : While the moonlight's spectrum appears to be just about the same then that of the sun, there's a bit more to it then the average spectrum analysis would show. For most analyses fail to show the spectrum of electromagnetic energy outside of the visible range. Most frequencies out of that spectrum penetrate the atmosphere very easily. The sun outputs most of its energy outside the visible spectrum. Whilst this is not officially called light, the electromagnetic energy will apply force on the plant. I can garantuee you the moon does not reflect all electromagnetic energy that radiates on it. It will absorb some frequencies better then others. Anything with electrons in it (atoms, molecules, your plants, your bulbs or the sun you name it) has a magnetic and electric field of its own. These electromagnetic energy fluxes will interact with eath other. What it will do to your plants at what type of powerleves is anybodies guess. Theoretically, you could evolve your plant into something a lot better within only a few dozen generations. If you can do one generation of plants every 12 weeks = 4 per year = 40 per decade it seems possible within a mans lifetime. Any ubergrowers here up for the task?
Yeah ok so i read everyones opinions and quoted facts and really only agree with up4anything. I find listening to everyones ideas an experimenting to find what works best. Its all down to experience an really the question of 18/6 vs 24 should be in the beginners bit coz it all boils down to the electric bill really. My two pennies worth. Cheers, spud.
I was confused on lighting for my grow, so eventually I did both 24/0 and 18/6. Once I got tired of waking up at all hours of the night to a beam of light coming from the top of my closet, I stuck the timer back in and went 20/4, 19/5, 18/6 about a week later. As long as you make it a gradual change, nothing bad should happen. My lone plant turned out to be 100% female.
well this thread seems to have been around for a while, but I figured I'd look into it via the "search" button today cuz I was bored and wondered about this whole thing. About three weeks ago I started a few plants on 18/6 and noted that their growth was less than substantial, but I did NOT think this was due to the light period. Which is true. Indeed after the dark period was over, I'd open up the box and the plants seemed to develop a bit more than any other time I checked in during the light cycle. Nonetheless I converted over to 24/0 when i started two new seeds about two and a half weeks ago because I wanted to see what the difference would be and our power bill went down so much since I stopped using my space heater, I figured I'd give it a go. WELL, strangely enough I noticed different growth. During the 18/6 period I noticed a substantial amount of growth after the dark period, but it was mostly stem growth . . . meaning that it was searching for the light. It was not STRETCHING per say, but its leaves had only slightly shown growth. During the 24/0 photoperiod, the plants showed much more leaf growth and the internodes were shorter than the ones that had been on 18/6. Now notice I broke the rule of changing the photoperiod during vegetative stage for one of my plants. It's fine, but I don't know what sex any of them are yet, so I may yet see problems once flowering is induced/occurs. I think that one of the major factors when considering which photoperiod to use is whether or not co2 supplementation is being used. As up4anything's cited essay points out, plant's leaves absorb co2 more during the light cycle and close up in order to retain water and conserve energy during the dark cycle. This means that co2 in the room is not utilized during a dark cycle. While co2 is definately a plus for any grow room imo, if co2 supplementation is used, I think growers should worry less about problems with the 24/0 photoperiod if using co2. This is just because you are allowing the plant to utilize the light more efficiently if co2 is abundant. Nevertheless, next grow I'll see what this whole 18/6 thing is about for the whole ride through. But for now, no changing from the 24/0 cycle til flower.
Guess I'm not the only one who is restless...let me put in my 2 cents. Its real easy, both work and both exist in nature, I was in Alaska 2.5 yrs and they grew the shit out doors in the summer hours of daylight in fairbanks 23+ hrs. So its really a matter of cost and time. As for product output, I grow for my own personal use and my 3 grow space keeps me and a couple of friends happy.