Nothing new about this, been around for years but not sure how many people actually use it. I decided this cycle to give it a go because I was bored. The claim is that plants can only absorb a useful amount of light during a giving period and that by using this cycle you optimize their growing potential during veg. Well after a week and a bit I can say that I see less vertical growth than I am used to and more side growth. Obviously not a very scientific observation, next round I may do 18/6 and 6/2 side by side with the same strain to do a better test but I thought it was worth throwing it out there in case anybody was not aware of this alternative lighting cycle.
Alternative Veg Lighting 6/2
- Thread starter DaFreak
- Start date
Mitchician
Well-Known Member
That article is also where I found out about the 6/2 cycle, some good stuff on that site..
I think the age/size of the plant has a great influence on it's DLI requirements, so maybe the 6/2 cycle (3 per day) is more suited to early veg, then maybe you'd go to 8/4 (2 per day) in late veg or "pre-bloom", before the 12/12 flip.. Probably wanna give a full 24hr dark period before the 12/12 though to try 'reset' the sleep time. As I understand it, plants develop a circadian rhythm like us so you'd think changing from 2 sleeps a day to 1 would throw a little spanner in the works.. especially since most of the new dark period will be when the plant was usually awake.. Maybe it would pay to do a week or 2 of 18/6 before bloom to get the plant used to 1 cycle/day.. This would greatly increase the DLI from the 6h cycle though so maybe you'd dim the lights if you were changing from 6 to 18h. You could possibly do a slow flip too and raise the wattage while lowering photoperiod to keep DLI similar..
Cool experiment man thanks for sharing, been wanting to see someone try this out since I read that article. The thing I wonder about is how does the plant get any sleep if it takes 2 hours to get to sleep without far-red? Maybe the time it takes to fall asleep is dependent on the photoperiod? Like 6h on should only take 1 hour to go to sleep? I'm confusing myself now too much thinking..
I think the age/size of the plant has a great influence on it's DLI requirements, so maybe the 6/2 cycle (3 per day) is more suited to early veg, then maybe you'd go to 8/4 (2 per day) in late veg or "pre-bloom", before the 12/12 flip.. Probably wanna give a full 24hr dark period before the 12/12 though to try 'reset' the sleep time. As I understand it, plants develop a circadian rhythm like us so you'd think changing from 2 sleeps a day to 1 would throw a little spanner in the works.. especially since most of the new dark period will be when the plant was usually awake.. Maybe it would pay to do a week or 2 of 18/6 before bloom to get the plant used to 1 cycle/day.. This would greatly increase the DLI from the 6h cycle though so maybe you'd dim the lights if you were changing from 6 to 18h. You could possibly do a slow flip too and raise the wattage while lowering photoperiod to keep DLI similar..
Cool experiment man thanks for sharing, been wanting to see someone try this out since I read that article. The thing I wonder about is how does the plant get any sleep if it takes 2 hours to get to sleep without far-red? Maybe the time it takes to fall asleep is dependent on the photoperiod? Like 6h on should only take 1 hour to go to sleep? I'm confusing myself now too much thinking..
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