Hi I am trying to reduce my light bill and I wanted to know whats the least amount of hours u have used to keep the light on during veg period so that it wont go into 12/12 flower. I currently have heard about 18 hours. Has anyone been successful vegging by keeping the light on for a lower number of hours during the day?
My buddy has done 17/7 for veg... And I have heard of growers doing 16/8 also. But, 18/6 is ideal in my opinion. Pending on how much wattage your running everyday, an hour more a day isn't going to break you, you'd likely barely see a difference overall on your bill... but like I said, obviously if your running 6K watts of lights you'll see a significant difference, but if your only running say a 400w bulb, you'll see very little change.
You will only risk hurting your plant and see very little change to your electric bill if you run less than 18 hours light per day. Let's say you are running a 400w HPS or MH, and you cut back from 18 to 16 hours light per day. That's 800 fewer watts per day, or about 24 kilowatt hours per month. If your rate is 10¢ per kilowatt hour, that's saving $2.40 a month. And, you may need to veg longer to make up for the shortened growth from less light, so you may end up using all that electricity anyway but just stretch out your timetable. Â