LIke many others on the gulf coast, I'm dealing with a little bit of a storm right now. I'm not in the worst part of the hurricane but I lost power for about 5 minutes today and probably will lose it again. I'm nervous, not for my safety but for my plants! I'm 27 days into flower, and almost everything has gone perfect. No PH problems, no nute deficiencies, no pests, maybe a LITTLE overpruning on one. I know a few minutes isn't going to kill them, probably just stunt their growth. But i worry if it repeatedly goes off and on several times, just fucking with my plants not knowing night from day anymore. Could I put a few flashlights or something in my grow tent to supplement the dark? It wouldn't be anywhere near the same spectrum as my grow light, but something is better than nothing right?
if its shitty out side this big storm be smart . unplug every thing they can miss 1 day of light . so turn the equipment off and just let it be dark until there next morning . in michgian we get a lot of power outages in the summer from bad thunder storms . trust me on this it wont hurt them . this is your best option if it keeps going dark then light . and it protects your equipment . some people have large scale grows and they see this issue and this is what they do to be safe .
Thanks for the input fellas, very much appreciated. It's not as bad where I am because I'm more inland, but it's still raining sideways. I think you're right I'm gonna give them an extended night today and say fuck it. Hopefully my temperature won't rise too much but it shouldn't. I've read in other places that most growth occurs during the dark period, after the plant got all its light. Similar to how a muscle grows from resting after a workout and not during the "stimulation." Buuutttt I could be completely wrong and if I am, please call bullshit.
Kids, Your plants are not sickly, neurotic children subject to instantly over-reacting to any stimulus out of the norm.
Get a few led headlights. Many of them have like 30 hr battery life. If you had at least two and some batteries you could get through quite a while keeping them out of flower. You can also just open windows to let whatever light is outside keep them from thinking it's dark.
I have shit power in Alaska. It goes out randomly probably a dozen times or more a year sometimes for hours. I'm always having to correct my timers. My on time is always walking later and later every time the power goes out. That's exactly how I deal with it. Candles can work too if you keep them well away from anything that will burn and sit them in a bowl of water.
Thank you for the suggestions. I'm on the bottom floor of an apartment I unfortunately can't use window light Candles probably wouldn't work too well in my grow space since it's getting a little crammed in there, you guys know how it is. I do really like that headlight idea. I might do that for a little extra lighting towards the end of this grow. I've been looking to add some supplemental lighting just for a little boost, and I already have an absurd amount of batteries laying around that need to go lolol