Ok, I'm a newb. I've done a few grows, indoor and out, soil and hydro. It's generally accepted that hormonal changes in plants are slow, taking a couple of weeks to display the changes. In my experience and with the strains I've grown, males usually show their pre-flowers first after about 14 days of 12/12. Females show theirs shortly after, somewhere between 14 & 21 days. I know this is anecdotal, and will vary greatly between different strains and environments. I'm going to try something in a couple of weeks, when I'll be at about 8 weeks of 12/12: I'm going to switch to 24/0 and see what effect this has on yield. My hypothesis is that the hormonal change will be slow enough that new calyxes can still form and grow, and maybe faster than they normally would since they'll be receiving twice the length of light. Anyone who has put a post harvest plant back into veg knows that it takes a good while before the plant recovers and start new growth. I take this as evidence that a plant at the end of flowering has a such a hormonal impetus that it resists the veg state. Ideally, I'd do this with two similar clones in separate flowing chambers so I could make a direct comparison. Hopefully, I'll be able to try this in the future, after I get my ak-48 seeds and get a mother to take clones from. Of course, I'd need to build a second flowering room with another equivalent wattage lamp. I'm just curious what some of you vets think of this idea. Cockamamie? Ever heard of anyone doing it?
Neat idea One consideration however- I wonder if THC biosynthesis is more efficient in the dark? Maybe it even has a step in the biosynthetic pathway that requires darkness? As far as housekeeping functions like photosynthesis and protein synthesis, these can obviously happen in full light (24/0 light cycles during the veg stage give perfectly healthy plants) However, I know that in "C3" plants like cannabis, the cellular respiration rate is higher in the dark. Keep us updated!
Standard practice to put your plants into total darkness for sometimes up to a three days, boosts trichome production apparently.
I wouldn't say that it's 'standard practice', nor have I ever seen any empirical data to support that particular theory.
It is also generally accepted that buds get their weight in the last two weeks of 12/12. I don't think you will gain anything, I think you will lose weight. I think the plant will go back into veg, possibly stress the plant out and maybe go hermie. Kudos for exploratory research though. The reason we all say the things we do is the same sorta premise of religion. We only know what we've been told, and for all we know, it could be a farce or some farmer a long time ago who had a bad problem and preached changed... Good luck
Wives tale. But prolonged darkness before a chop is helpful to let the nutrients from within the plant get stored down in the root system while they "sleep". Im going to go with turning hermaphrodite...that would be a massive light leak and yes THC production needs the dark cycle. My vote is nothing happens or you get a hermie. Good luck with your choice
Well its standard practice amongst my grow and all the growers I know. And wives tales never hurt anybody I was just trying to say that this isn't a good idea.
Nothing against it, if everybody did the same thing half the stuff we've found out about growing cannabis would never have been learned...perhaps I should have said educated hypothesis. Im an outdoor grower so we never get more darkness then the night will allow without bringing attention to our plants or creating a possible mold issue.
It's a very interesting idea. I actually had pretty much the same thought while I was reading some ones analogy of the hormones in mj being like a big boat and how once it gets going in a direction its hard to stop it or change directions. I think if you have plants that are predisposed to hermie they will probably hermie. If they don't you might increase yield slightly but probably not noticeably, you also might hurt quality since I know thc is photosensitive. I do recall reading that thc content is highest in the morning right before the lights come on so there might also be some credibility to what people are saying about plants needing dark to produce thc. I don't remember where I read that though so it might not be true.
If you keep an Indica or Sativa on anything more then 15/9 then they will stay in veg and not produce THC...within weeks of flipping they produce THC. Ruderalias (autoflowering) will flower under 24/0 but a pure ruderalias has very little THC content (<1%) so yes THC is photosensitive, so be careful.
I appreciate your contribution to this thread. The more ideas the better, imho. However, I feel your falling into specious reasoning here. Ruderails is indeed light neutral, and it has low THC content, but I don't think that is sufficient evidence of a causal relationship. Secondly, I have been unable to find any evidence of the supposed photo-sensitivity of THC, which also seems to be part of your conclusion. If you have and documentation of this, I'd love to take a look at it.
I agree. Just because ruderalis has little THC and very little darkness doesn't mean THC production is "photosensitive". What did you mean when you said "dark cycle" supa nova? If you are referring to the "dark reactions" or "dark stage" of the Creb's cycle, these reactions do not require light, and are only initiated in light. Contrary to popular belief, the dark reactions do not happen exclusively in the dark, nor do they require darkness. What IS photosensitive is the expression of genes responsible for flowering. Take the thale cress, aribidopsis thaliana, a small flowering plant of the mustard family commonly used as a model organism in plant biology. In arabidopsis, a gene called CONSTANS (hereafter referred to as CO) codes for a protein that accumulates during the day and is degraded in darkness by the plant. Once day length starts getting longer, less darkness happens each night, and the CO gene product accumulates in the leaves. Once CO gene product levels have reached a threshold level, it activates the expression of a gene called Flowering Locus T (hereafter referred to as FT). The FT gene product is mobile, and is transported via the phloem to the apical meristem (growing tip), where it forms a dimer with a gene product called FD (Flowering Locus D). This dimer then finds its way to the cell nuclei of the growing tip, and induces expression of the "floral identity genes". These genes code for proteins specific to flowering. We can provisionally say that the enzymes responsible for calyx formation, and by association THC production, become activated all by the hand of the FT/FD dimer. Arabidopsis thaliana is a long-day plant, meaning it flowers in response to increased day length (through the CO protein). Cannabis, on the other hand, is a short-day plant. The mechanism of photoperiodism in short-day plants is not as well understood, but scientists doing experiments on rice (a short-day plant like cannabis) showed that in these plants, CONSTANS may be a supressor of Flowering Locus T, rather than a potentiator. We have to look at what is happening downstream of what here. Enzymes responsible for THC biosynthesis are triggered DOWNSTREAM of the induction of flowering. It is possible that floral induction is dependent on photoperiodism, while the enzymes responsible for making THC are triggered by this, and by themselves require no darkness once activated. After flowering is hormonally induced in a short-day plant, it apparently needs to be maintained. We know this because reverting back to a 24/0 cycle from 12/12 lighting can cause flowering to cease, and vegetative growth to resume. So the question is whether you can maintain flowering in cannabis by keeping CONSTANS levels low, but still give the plant more energy for sugar production and growth by adding more light. Maintenance and degradation of CONSTANS in long day plants is mediated by complexes called phytochromes that are responsive to very specific wavelengths of light. In the morning, light rich in the 660nm range allows phytochrome B to degrade CONSTANS, keeping its levels low so it doesn't "jump the gun" into flowering. In the afternoon, if the day is long enough, phytochrome A sees far-red light 730nm (typical of late summer evening) and is induced to maintain the stability of the accumulated CONSTANS concentration. So my idea is: Since cannabis is a short-day plant, what if you included all wavelengths of light required for growth and sugar production for 24/0, but BOOSTED the wavelengths that degraded CONSTANS via phytochrome action and removed the wavelengths that maintain CONSTANS, as it is a supressor of flowering in short-day plants. That is, give the plant light, but give it NO light in the 730nm range, and TONS of light in the 660nm range. This may allow enough usable light for sugar production and growth, but knock out most of the CONSTANS protein responsible for halting flowering in cannabis. Does anybody think this is a good idea???? I think you may be on to something tubesock
ive left a white widow in complete dark for five days, and it doesn't necessarily make the plant create more trichs, but it does make it look a bit more frosty, but i believe this is only due to the fact that light tends to degrade some of the thc, therefore no light to degrade, all the trichs that are formed will just appear more frosty but as far as the OP, i doubt it will increase yield any, like previously stated that late into flowering it will possibly cause a hermie, although you could try it and keep watch and if you see male bananas popping up pluck them off and harvest but it may not hermie and try to go back to veg, which would definitely take some time to actually accomplish if you've ever seen a reveg or a flowering clone, they tend to take a month or so to fully go back into veg, and you'd probably only be going 24/0 for a week or two at most to see the effects, but you should consider that if the plant is working back towards veg state then it is no longer producing thc, or trying to produce flowers(buds), it will be working more towards trying to grow leaves and stems, so it will probably end up with the buds running and losing potency something i have thought about was at the end of vegging on 18/6, put it on a crazy 30 hour day 18/12, to give it the full 12 hours of darkness to see if it will flower, and possibly increase yield due to the extra light it is receiving, but it might just hermie, or stay in veg, i dont have the plants or space to try just yet
This is such a good goddamn post. When I'm done researching all the terms and concepts I'll try to make a proper reply. Thanks a bunch KindTime. Shit man, I wanna come over to your house and smoke weed and just bounce ideas off you.
The stability of cannabis and its preparations on storage by J W Fairburn, J A Liebmann, and M G Rowan circa 1976 This paper documents a number of tests showing the photosensitive degradation of THC both alone and in a solution of alcohol.
Thanks tubesock let me know if you have any more questions you should wikipedia "florigen" and "phytochrome" - may shed some light (pun intended)
I've never heard of anyone doing this before. I've heard of the opposite, where you can cut the lights down to say, 10/14 for last week or 2. This more naturally mimicks mother nature, because when growing outdoors in sunlight near harvest you actually do have less than 12 hours of daylight. I've never tried that either, but its supposed to speed up the time it takes them to finish. but it will decrease your yield, so unless its an emerency situation...like gotta move or something, I wouldn't do it.
The same thing will happen that always happens when you get a bad light leak. If you let it go long enough it will start growing shoots back out of the nuggets and it will be fucked up lol. That's even if it doesn't hermie. If i was interested in using light cycles to increase bud size i would consider starting my flower cycle at 12/12, and then 2 weeks in moving to 13/11 or slightly more for 2-3 weeks. then back to 12/12 for the last couple weeks.
what you should really do is mimic what happens outdoor and follow the lines of evolution. decrease your dark period slowly throughout the cycle. starting with 18/6 then 17/7 and so on. you'll see alot less stretching and you'll get better quality bud. i've been doing this for years guys. i finish with 14 dark usually, 10 light. there's alot more going on when it's dark then you think or know....it's just as important. that muvh light = heat. thc degrades above 85 degrees by alot. when the trichomes are in that state, adding that much light to them doesn't help...only hurts. it converts the thc in time. don't do it. and if you still want to try, don't use all your lights, and raise them way up. give them the light, but no heat. you won't like it either way. just from experience. and if you have the luxury of infinite electric or electric bills, then just add a light and grow more plants, you'll do better.