11/13 flower light cycle?

Have a kush strain going for three generations and have always went with a 18/6,12/12 light cycle. I heard a dj short interview where he said hes been using a 11/13 flower light cycle with good results so I decided to try that out. I just read another article that said he uses 11/13 for sativas and a 12/12 for indicas. Has anyone tried this on indicas and if you did what results did you get.

Im in week two of flower now with the 11/13 cycle

I tried backing off my light cycle a couple times, one time I got it down to 8/16 (through multiple steps)
In my understanding its just a trick to speed up ripening (at the expense of yield) though I have read some statements recently that if true would lead me to believe that it might encourage more resin production (potentially gaining some quality in exchange for lost yield). I'm not set up to do the kind of side-by-side experiments it would take to verify that one though..

To elaborate, I have recently begun experimenting with phytohormones so I have been doing alot of reading on the subject.

One of the things I have been looking in to is forcing plants to flower under long light cycles (18-24 hours of light a day). What I have been able to gather so far (from the limited papers I have found on the subject) is that THC/resin production may be reduced (13% THC from a plant that might otherwise offer 15%) it would also seem that the total THC production per watt or meter of garden space would be increased (making it a reasonable trade off).

Additionally its not an uncommon practice to give your crop extended periods of darkness before harvest (anywhere from a day to nearly a week in some cases) to encourage resin production..

What I draw from all this is that darkness may have some influence on potency/quality.
From what I read the harshness of light (particularly UVB) might also have an influencing quality.

An interesting experiment would be to run a couple 2ft tables under 250w hps bulbs however add a couple-few 18" UVB lights to one and reduce its light cycle relative to increased power consumption (60 watts for 4) making your new day closer to 9.5-10 hours.
If you record time to maturation, yield (dry weight) and lastly the most heart breaking part how much hash you get from processing the entire harvest of each table. It would provide a few good data points for future speculation and experiments..

Good info man thanx. This is what im looking for. I grow for quality not quanity too so I think im on the right track.

kbz said:

Good info man thanx. This is what im looking for. I grow for quality not quanity too so I think im on the right track.

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You may want to check out the UVB thing then.. There are a couple threads on it here..

Yeah ive been reading up on that and im ganna buy a couple cfl style uvb bulbs and see what happens. I run a 600 hps with three blue cfl's hanging over the canopy. I think im ganna replace two of the cfl's with the uvb. Do you have experience with uvb? ive heard a lot of different info on amount of time to leave the uvb on and plants burning, shit like that.

kbz said:

Yeah ive been reading up on that and im ganna buy a couple cfl style uvb bulbs and see what happens. I run a 600 hps with three blue cfl's hanging over the canopy. I think im ganna replace two of the cfl's with the uvb. Do you have experience with uvb? ive heard a lot of different info on amount of time to leave the uvb on and plants burning, shit like that.

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I've read a little on the topic, but never conducted any reasonable experiments. I have been thinking about giving it a try though it will likely be months down the road before I do.

The theory behind it sounds reasonable and the material costs don't seem that bad. Besides it would give me an excuse to make a rig'n. I love making something from from nothing (and I already have some T8 ballasts kicking around).

Nice, let me know how it goes when you get into it.

Ive read that thc production is either stoped or atleast slowed way down with 10 hrs or less of light.
im sure there are some strains that do well with that dont know.
i am intrested in how that works out ???

got a uvb light today ganna put it in tonight when lights come on. Well see what happens. ON another note I noticed trich production already, half way through week two. THats at the least a week or maybe more faster than my last few generations started pumping them out. I'm starting to think this light cycle may work better than I thought it would.

Heres the light I bought at petsmart for 40$ Desert 50 microwatt UVB

Im really hoping to get stronger tastier nugz with these new lights and light schedule. I have a 600w hps,4 blue cfl's, 50mw UVB. IN th e past ive ran just a hps in flower and I can't ever get the full flavor out of my budz or the potency I really wan't. Im really hoping this can step things up a notch.

Don't get me wrong this afghan kush special is strong and has a good smell and taste too it, I just want it to be even better. With just the HID you can definitely tell its missing something or it could be a little better. Anyways got my uvb yesterday and put it in. Heres a couple pics of my light setup now.

Can't get a close up of the buds but they already have trichs forming on the leaves and bud. beginning of week 3

the uvb looked so dim compared to the 600 and the cfl's that I thought it wasn't even working. I shut off the hid and the cfl's just to see if the uvb light even touched the canopy or not. It covered every part of my plants from were I have it hung. Its about 16 inches from the top of the canopy right now and i'm probubly ganna move it closer every couple days until I get it about 8 inches away. See if I can get it to shit out as much crystalz as pos. Oh and im running the uvb the entire 11 hours I have the lights on because the sun puts out uvb all day. well c what happens.

This is the uvb I bought. 41$ petsmart If anyone asks its for a bearded dragon. No one will prob. but just in case.

A couple shots of my cured 3rd gen. AKS.

i have a 7 day timer and my light cycle start at 13 hours light and 11 hours dark then works its way down 11 hours light 13 hours dark. excellent results so far increase in flowering speed it seems like

i use a 400 super hps hortilux and 400 MH hortilux(plenty of uv-b i thing 20% of light is put off in uv rays in MH and 5% for hps vie versa as far as the IR goes)
i only turn the MH on for 6 hours so as to simulate morning noon and evening.

uvb is at its highest during noon time

that light cycle sounds like a good idea man. I might try that next run.

You been using that cycle for a while or did you just start?

a while at one time it was a 1000w agrosun for 8 hours and 2 400w super hps one on each side of the room for 12hours but i have reduced a lot since then...

i have tried a lot of different light cycles and spectrum's but i find a changing light cycle helps more natural. no day is the same in the wild. and i like Mh when flowering the blue and uv-b help make the buds frosty. i think balanced spectrum's grow the best buds and most people hype up hps only because they grow 1 massive tree under 1 1000w hps for way too long. when they could have got better quality bud in dual spectrum with a shorter grow time and less space consuming plant