I came across this article a few days ago and thought this is interesting. The theory makes sense to me, but I'm not sure how this would work with cannabis. I will be trying this in a couple of months, but in the mean time ... anyone starting a new grow that is willing to try this? Or has anyone tried it before?

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The Theory

The theory behind the 18 hour Day/Night cycle is that during a normal 24 hour light cycle plants will usually achieve high growth rates peaking at 100% capacity during the first 50 - 60% of the day. The growth rates will then diminish rapidly and the last 20 - 30% of the day achieves minimal growth. So by reducing the length of the day we are triggering an increased growth mode where the growth rates are at their peak for the majority of the day. This effectively achieves a very fast growth cycle with full yield potential.

NOTE: To achieve these incredible growth rates it is important to provide maximum light intensities and CO2 enriched conditions. The recommended lighting is 600W per square metre.

The Cycles
Vegetative Cycle - Lights ON 14 hours Lights OFF 4 hours Flowering Cycle - Lights ON 6 hours Lights OFF 12 hours The Benefits

The growth achieved during an 18 hour cycle can be the equivalent to that achieved during a 24 hour cycle. So by running 18 hour cycles the same growth and yield can be achieved in 75% of the time.
Reduced day lengths also mean reduced power consumption. Grow more and use less power. Who can argue with that?
For example, an average crop grown from seed using a 24 hour day/night cycle will have a 4 weeks grow cycle and an 8 weeks flower cycle. This equates to 28 days @ 18 hours a day and 56 days @ 12 hours a day = 1176 hours of light over 12 weeks.

An accelerated crop using an 18 hour day/night cycle will achieve the same yields using a 3 week grow cycle and a 6 week flower cycle. This equates to 21 days @ 14 hours a day and 42 days @ 6 hours a day = 546 hours of light over 9 weeks resulting in a 40% reduction in power consumption and a 25% reduction in crop time.



Source: Intelli-Cycle Digital Cycle Timer

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sounds lovely but I highly doubt that only 6 hours in flowering mode of light is benificial to the plant whats so ever.

THere is another cycle outthere called planet X light cycle.

Its something like 21.5 hour days, where the plant get 14 some hours of light and the rst dark... It was developed by some scientist specifically in relation to cannabis....

I dont know, just stick to 24 veg and 12/12 flower...

wouldnt more light in flower be better always.

Also really messing with light cycles can cause hermies, so I just play it safe.

sounds cool ive been thinking about what if u did a variation on 12/12 and run 6/4
so its kind of like 2 days in 1. its just an idea tho i have no idea if it would work..do any of the rollitup botonist know if a plant would flower on 6/4 light cycle?

what if you were to like


would that work?

I'm going to do a side by side comparison using the following...

18/6 veg ---- 12/12 flower

14/4 veg ---- 6/12 flower

Stay tuned...

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Sounds silly to me,the information quoted is a sales pitch written by the company selling the intelligent timer,of course they'll make it sound all technical & give a bunch of reasons that sound plausible,it sounds like snake oil to me.

If this method was grounded in even the slightest bit of fact based information there would be atleast 1 peer reviewed white paper on the subject,ive looked & there is no information on the net other than sales pitches & speculation.

If it were me i'd stick with tried & true methods.

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Michigan Medical mj vote comming up in november,sign up & vote dammitt !

I hear ya, but I'm going to try it and see for myself.

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Good man! I hear these odd time schedules talked about often, but have yet to see an actual comparison grow.

sounds interesting... keep us updated