What do you think would happen if i put a 4 week old healthy plant on a constant 1hr light 1hr dark light cycle? i'm assuming this has been tried before.
Hmmm. My guess is the plant would stay in the veg state as flowering needs an uninterupted dark cycle to start. There maybe additional stress to the plant from doing this too. Also, in my case with a HPS, 12 on/offs per day may add more strain on the ballast/starter. I know very little about how ballasts work but it maybe something to consider but anyway, I think the plant will stay in veg state as it needs 12 hours uninterupted, not cumulative per 24.
good point, as far as i know the ballast gives the light the jolt needed to get it started. so yes more on and off's would cause the ballast/lights stress.
"Silly Question but.. What do you think would happen if i put a 4 week old healthy plant on a constant 1hr light 1hr dark light cycle? i'm assuming this has been tried before." -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Think about it. Does nature work that way? I think not. The best you can do to "fool" mother nature is to simulate the respective naturally occuring photoperiods and to adjust and sustain those simulated (and improved upon) lighting conditions after germination and sprouting. With indoor growing you can do better than a natural sunlight "schedule" only by: 1) Letting them start out at 24/7 light with plenty of clean water for a number of weeks until they're 10 or 12 inches high. They really don't need darkness while in vegetative growth, indoors or outdoors. Given that, you know you can just keep the lights on until they're mature enough to be switched over to simulated lighting conditions for flowering. and 2) When you switch your lighting to flowering mode you can provide the perfect balance (12/12) of light/dark for an extended period of time indoors while nature only provides that for just a few days a year outdoors. With natural sunlight outdoors, you eventually end up with more darkness and less sunlight than you need. So, when you flower indoors you can just keep it 50-50 (12 hrs. on/12 hrs off). Within three weeks, they'll show signs of sexual maturity. Then, you can remove the male plants and continue in flowering mode for 12 weeks or more with occasional nutrients mixed with water and good air circulation until they're fully developed, harvested and eventually, cured. In a lot of places, outdoor growing cycles will allow for only 7 or 8 weeks of flowering time. Indoors, they can flower for 12-14 weeks and never get frost-bitten! BTW, my best work was done using soil mix for roses with 10% added vermiculite in a 24" black plastic tree pot under four 85 watt spiral CFL's, Shultz's Bloom Plus (flowering only) and a 10", 3-speed box fan. If I wanted to, I could pull down 12-18 oz. a year out of a 3' x 3' x 5' high compartment. I can start with 12 sprouts and end up with 4 adult females, sometime more. It's stealthy, cool and inexpensive as hell! Once you get into HID lighting such as the much hotter HPS's and MH's, things can get quite a bit more complicated and frankly, more dangerous, risky and expensive. For people who want just enough for themselves, you can't go wrong with this approach to CFL lighting. It worked for me!
hehe i know it was a silly question i suppose it's all in the genetics of the plant, and we are only simulating an "enhanced" outdoor enviroment indoors. i have 5 in pots and 1 on nft at the moment, i find the nft method is so much simpler.