12-1 lighting schedule, has anyone actually tried this?

LILBSDAD

Well-Known Member
I noticed this in another thread https://www.rollitup.org/newbie-central/445428-change-light-cycle-more-darkness.html and wanted to know if anyone has actually tried it? I would think there would be more people doing this if it worked, but I googled and there really is not anyone who has posted through the entire cycle. I am definitely interested to hear what you have to think. Saving 5 hrs. of light during the veg cycle would be huge, not to mention the savings in flower.
 

LILBSDAD

Well-Known Member
Here is the technique mentioned: the bigest innovator in the history of cannabis in my generation is Reinhard Delp. Not only did he invent and is the holder of the patent for ice water extraction, he has been building flower forcers since 1992. His new solar powered Sun-gate is the leader of the industry. He was the first to feminize seeds and sell them in Europe in the late 90’s. His process was done naturally, without the use of any chemicals.

No one is more copied but seldom matched than Mr. Delp, who to me is the top grower of our generation. The first time he impressed me he showed me 2 plants, planted next to one another, 1 completely covered in powdery mildew, the other completely clean and beautiful. He was developing mildew and mold resistant genetics.

In the late 90’s Reinhard brought back the gas lantern routine that you find in any college grade horticulture book, and applied it to cannabis. Cannabis needs only 13 hours to stay in the vegetative growth stage. The 18-6 lighting schedule in vegetation, actually stress your plants, that never get that much light in one-day outdoors. Cannabis is an outdoor plant. Growing indoors you should copy how it grows outdoors. No Cannabis growing in Afghanistan gets 18 hours of light in growth pattern. Most strains today have some part Indica in their genetic pool. Even equatorial strains don’t get 18 hours of sun a day.

The 12-1 lighting schedule is as follows 12 hours lights on, 5.5 lights off, 1-hour lights on, 5.5 lights off, and repeat schedule. The 1 hour on in between off period fools the plants that stay in vegetative growth state! Your immediate savings are 5 hours in energy costs daily, as well as your bulbs and equipment lasting longer. But how do the plants react to this lighting schedule?

You see immediate growth response from your plants, they are happy from the added rest time. By day 14 the plants tripled in size. The plants are bushy with twice as many bud sites without topping or bending, In fact when you top and stretch your plants out, you get many more bud sites than you would have had under 18-6 using same procedure of topping and stretching plant, your growing bigger and better and faster.

So your saving 5 hours daily in energy costs, as well as your excellerated growth pattern which also saves you time and energy and equipment use.

In the flowering stage, never use 12-12, start your flowering period at 11 hours on 13 hours off. When your are growing outdoors each day you get less and less sun light, you should copy the way the sun acts naturally in your indoor grow. So first 2 weeks of flower you go 11 on 13 off, the next 2 weeks you go down to 10.5 on 13.5 off, next 2 weeks 10 on 14 off, next two weeks 9.5 on 14.5 off and the last weeks of flower you should be at 9 hours on and 15 hours off. You’ll get bigger and better buds by copying the way the sun light works on cannabis outdoors.

Cannabis is an outdoor plant and you should copy the way it grows outdoors indoors. The only thing that 18-6, and then 12-12 lighting schedule's do is make the energy companies rich as well as the people who sell lights and equipment, the more you use the more you spend. 12-1 lighting schedule is a more natural way to grow indoors and you well have the best results you have ever had and save as much as 50% in energy costs
 

GeeTee

Well-Known Member
you are contradicting yourself. first you say cannabis is an outside plant and is best to mimic the natural light hours so you wont stress the plant, then you go and say try this unusual light schedule that is nowhere near natural light schedule (but somehow theres no stress). i have never experienced 12hours of light and 5.5 hours of darkness in real life nor 1 hour of light and 5.5 hours of darkness. ive always been open minded but there is no way i can try this as i have a job and a life and in order for me to try this i would have to have alot of time just to change the light schedule everyday
edit: also if your trying to mimic nature then do it right, theres 24hours in a day and that light schedule you posted is no where near natural
 

dopeyG

Well-Known Member
why would you want to "trick" the plant??? i thought we were trying to simulate outdoor life??
 

Alex Kelly

Active Member
The best grower of our generation is probably someone we dont know about... As far as the lighting schedules go, most genetics you see today have been grown under standard indoor 12/12 light cycles more than outdoor cycles in it's previous past. Most breeders do all of their growing and selecting under indoor 12/12 cycles, so maybe it's possible that these new hybrids we are all growing perform better under 12/12 light cycles. Interesting post though. You did contradict yourself but I see what you're saying, I happen to generally disagree that setting up your indoor grow to mock the outdoor environment produces the very best results. I think a little, i guess "technological intervention" (12/12 light cycle, chemical nutrients, pruning/trimming/ect, optimum temp control, ect.) produces better results. Just IMO though. Interesting post more detail than usual on his topic.
 

Gamberro

Well-Known Member
you are contradicting yourself. first you say cannabis is an outside plant and is best to mimic the natural light hours so you wont stress the plant, then you go and say try this unusual light schedule that is nowhere near natural light schedule (but somehow theres no stress). i have never experienced 12hours of light and 5.5 hours of darkness in real life nor 1 hour of light and 5.5 hours of darkness. ive always been open minded but there is no way i can try this as i have a job and a life and in order for me to try this i would have to have alot of time just to change the light schedule everyday
edit: also if your trying to mimic nature then do it right, theres 24hours in a day and that light schedule you posted is no where near natural
Co-sign. Tell us the technique is superior, but don't try to flaunt such an even MORE bizarre-than-normal lighting schedule as being superior because it is "natural". Trying to be open-minded to this technique, but definitely not a convert considering your statement about the schedule being "natural".
 

cannawizard

Well-Known Member
12off-12on (all)
13off-11on (landtrace/heirloom/dom sats)
11off-13on (landtrace/heirloom/dom indys)
0ff-24on (autos/rudys)


--cheers
 

SOCALRP

Member
I hear what everyone here is saying about the contradictory nature (pun intended) of the choice of words here, but let's not get too far away from the theory. Furthermore, lets not give plants more intellectual credit than they deserve. Plants are photosensitive. They do not think, and therefore could not care less about what we consider to be "natural". What we consider to be "natural" we do because it's what we are used to, and changing earths daylight/nighttime schedule is not within our control. Growing indoors, though, allows us to play the role of supreme being.

Now to me, the theory seems credible, but not necessarily for the reasons stated. My thinking is this: if a plants is deprived of light for 12 hours it induces flowering, but I cannot believe that this inducement happens instantaneously, as if the plant had a "watch", and realized that "oh, it's been dark for twelve hours, time to start flowering". Without being a botanist, but rather someone who has just read a decent amount, I would think that the switch from veg to flower, on a biological level, has to do with the ratio of the hormones responsible for vegetative growth versus flower production. Photosynthesis provides the plant with the energy it needs, but I would argue that the hormone responsible for veg growth is better served from longer periods of photosynthesis and that vegging becomes the plants top priority. As days grow shorter the ratio of these hormones might begin to tighten. As the days draw on and the photoperiod evens out, I would put forth that the plants priority changes to survival of the species by sexual reproduction because the photoperiod is no longer satisfactory to support vegetative growth. Hence the change from veg to flower (afterall pistils are the plants lady parts and the trichs are the lube). I look at this whole process kind of like this: imagine that the hormones responsible for flowering is milk in a pot; heating up that milk is kind of like depriving that plant of light (I know it's kind of counter intuitive, but bare with me); now the milk will reach a point of no return temp wise and will begin to boil over-- I liken this to the accumulation of those hormonal triggers for flowering that comes from turning out the lights; yes turning out the light is equal to turning on the heat in this analogy; We can turn off the heat to keep the milk from reaching that temp of no return, just the same as we could turn the lights back on to stem the accumulation of those flowering hormones. I wonder if turning the lights back on would be similar to turning the heat off to keep the milk from boiling over.

I believe that this topic is worthy of discussion for a couple of reasons. Saving money on energy is just solid thinking. Additionally, I think it would be easier to maintain homogenous temps throughout the entire 24 hour period, keeping your plant in that sweet spot for optimal growth. And let's face it, if you're greedy and basically a crook and are trying to run a commercial grow for profit these changing lighting schedules could act to throw off folks who might be snooping into your power bills because your coonsumption moels would be nothing like that of a normal grow op.

Oh, and BTW, BS is just the messenger here, so talk of contradiction or just general veracity/merit really only amounts to a petty personal attack. If this theory is bogus we should all send a nastygram to Mr. Delp, not BS.
 

Gamberro

Well-Known Member
I hadn't picked up on that being a copy-pasted entry. I honestly won't budge until I hear someone who actually tested and compared results though, over a period of time... And unfortunately, in this case, the experimenter is not gonna be me :) But I'd love to hear some results.
 

SOCALRP

Member
i hadn't picked up on that being a copy-pasted entry. I honestly won't budge until i hear someone who actually tested and compared results though, over a period of time... And unfortunately, in this case, the experimenter is not gonna be me :) but i'd love to hear some results.
agreed- i may be a jackass, but i ain't no guinea pig:-P
 

LILBSDAD

Well-Known Member
Just to be perfectly clear I read this in another post. I am not the one who wrote it, so to say I contradict myself is absurd. I was just asking if anyone has tried this. As stated by someone else, saving 5 hrs of electricty every day would be huge. And when I am running 18/6 it gets extremely hot during the day (I flower at night). I am going to try it in my mother room to see what happens. If they don't go into flower then I guess it means it works, at least for the veg cycle. I googled this and it comes up on almost every weed sight but I have not seen anyone who has actually done it through an entire grow.
 

GeeTee

Well-Known Member
Just to be perfectly clear I read this in another post. I am not the one who wrote it, so to say I contradict myself is absurd. I was just asking if anyone has tried this. As stated by someone else, saving 5 hrs of electricty every day would be huge. And when I am running 18/6 it gets extremely hot during the day (I flower at night). I am going to try it in my mother room to see what happens. If they don't go into flower then I guess it means it works, at least for the veg cycle. I googled this and it comes up on almost every weed sight but I have not seen anyone who has actually done it through an entire grow.
i apologize i dinn't realize you c&p that, but i still dont see the advantage of that light schedule. anyways GL and post your results
 

Joedank

Well-Known Member
i am playing around with a decending day flowering schdule and i will be updating my journal with the first installment of how it is affecting my girls this week i am in wwek 5 and they are on 11 on 13 off ... but as for the veggie cycle i used a flicker last year to keep outdoor plants vegging in march but to do that shit indoors seems hard to schedule for my life i like 20-4 light cuz it gives me options on when i can work ....
 

LILBSDAD

Well-Known Member
what happend to people just growing fucking pot? lol i mean what the fuck kinda trickery bs is this?
Just growing pot went out the door when we started growing indoors. Do you think they had grow rooms in the 60's? LOL! If you grow indoors you are ALREADY tricking your plants.
 

DrFever

New Member
well if your running 1000watt you produceing pretty much same lumens as the sun but you forgetting a few things other signatures ultraviolet light etc now how mother nature does it as you head into spring your ligght hrs are more once summer hits the sun being furthest away from earth days start getting shorter every day you start losing light in mins thus triggering flowering to get the best growth you need to run anywhere from 16 hrs of light and 8 off yes 18 / 6 is extreme but inreality its the best schedule once you decide to flip to flowering as it is in nature lights hrs get less so 12 / 12 pretty much = autum / fall as you proceeed in flowering its good practice to really go like 11 hrs light 13 off and possibly last 2 weeks 10 hrs light 14 off as you reach final days of flowering so should your temps :)) hope this helps
 

Attachments

SOCALRP

Member
what happend to people just growing fucking pot? lol i mean what the fuck kinda trickery bs is this?
Thank Jah that people are no longer "just growing fucking pot", if that were the case you would not have been able to rip off the pic of that tree you've got for your avatar. But hey, if you are down for thc concentrations in the 6%-8% range rather anywhere from 14%-28%, then throw some seeds down on the ground and grow some "weed". I'm gonna continue growing medical grade cannabis,so I will continue to trick my plants into outperforming ditch weed.
 

Gamberro

Well-Known Member
One kilowatt (1000W) times 5 hours at a fairly high rate of 10 cents per kW... That's a half-dollar's savings per day. By any reasonable measure, that is not "huge". If you are that desperate to save on electric, you should really just move your ops outside.
 

LILBSDAD

Well-Known Member
One kilowatt (1000W) times 5 hours at a fairly high rate of 10 cents per kW... That's a half-dollar's savings per day. By any reasonable measure, that is not "huge". If you are that desperate to save on electric, you should really just move your ops outside.
Are you saying it only costs 50 cents to run a 1000w light for 5 hrs.? I don't think so
 
Top