One of our instructors at school suggested it, I tried it, it worked great, so I thought I'd pass it on. Everyone seems to be hung up on the traditional 18/6 light schedule and then a sudden drop to 12/12 and a change to flowering nutes and it's usually accompanied by complaints of plant shock and stress. He said with the progressive light schedule, accompanied by a more gradual change in nutes there would be none of that. After using his idea three times, once in my Aerogardens and two more times in my DWC bubble tubs, I found there was none of that. He was right.
Start your seeds on pH balanced water and give them 24 hours of total darkness in a comfortably warm room. Stay on pH balanced water for the first week. At the beginning of the second day go directly to twenty hours of light and four hours of resting darkness for the remainder of the first week.
At the beginning of the second week drop the light to nineteen hours of light and five hours of darkness and feed your sprouting seedlings half strength veg/grow nutes.
Considering that your seedlings look happy at the beginning of the third week, you can go to eighteen hours of light, six hours of darkness and full strength nutes. This is with the assumption that we are going to dump our nutes each week.
At the beginning of the fourth week we drop the light another hour to seventeen hours of light and seven hours of darkness. We maintain the full strength vegging formula as long as the plants appear green and healthy.
At the beginning of the fifth week we drop the light to sixteen hours and eight hours of darkness. Etc, etc, etc.
A few weeks later, at about fourteen hours of light and ten hours of darkness don't be surprised if your plants starting flowering on their own. At this point you might want to change to a half strength flowering formula nutes as a test. If your plants like it, the following week you can go to a full strength flowering formula.
I probably followed his program longer than I had to, to around a couple of weeks of ten hours of light and fourteen hours of darkness. I continued my grow until my trichromes were about two thirds amber and then I flushed for a week and harvested, dried and cured my crop. It was as good as any I've grown.
I think his rationale was important; "In nature there's a more gradual light change through the seasons and that by bringing it down an hour a week it's less stressful on the plants and yet still much faster." I'm sure you could push it even faster but I didn't. He reasoned that by holding it at 18/6 and then slamming them down to 12/12 with a drastic flowering nute change it was a lot more stressful and that stress would be evident in product appearance and taste.
Following his plan worked for me. Would any of you be willing to try it? I think I was the only one in our class that was willing to actually do it and the rest of the guys are still pissing and moaning about plant shock and stress. I'd be interested to see if you have the same results.
Now I'm guessing that a lot of you are probably saying, "Bullshit," but I tried it and it worked. In fact, there was such a smooth transition from sewing seeds all the way to harvest that I decided to retest his theory a second and a third time. I got the same results.
If you're willing to try it on your next grow, please, lets compare notes. HSA
Start your seeds on pH balanced water and give them 24 hours of total darkness in a comfortably warm room. Stay on pH balanced water for the first week. At the beginning of the second day go directly to twenty hours of light and four hours of resting darkness for the remainder of the first week.
At the beginning of the second week drop the light to nineteen hours of light and five hours of darkness and feed your sprouting seedlings half strength veg/grow nutes.
Considering that your seedlings look happy at the beginning of the third week, you can go to eighteen hours of light, six hours of darkness and full strength nutes. This is with the assumption that we are going to dump our nutes each week.
At the beginning of the fourth week we drop the light another hour to seventeen hours of light and seven hours of darkness. We maintain the full strength vegging formula as long as the plants appear green and healthy.
At the beginning of the fifth week we drop the light to sixteen hours and eight hours of darkness. Etc, etc, etc.
A few weeks later, at about fourteen hours of light and ten hours of darkness don't be surprised if your plants starting flowering on their own. At this point you might want to change to a half strength flowering formula nutes as a test. If your plants like it, the following week you can go to a full strength flowering formula.
I probably followed his program longer than I had to, to around a couple of weeks of ten hours of light and fourteen hours of darkness. I continued my grow until my trichromes were about two thirds amber and then I flushed for a week and harvested, dried and cured my crop. It was as good as any I've grown.
I think his rationale was important; "In nature there's a more gradual light change through the seasons and that by bringing it down an hour a week it's less stressful on the plants and yet still much faster." I'm sure you could push it even faster but I didn't. He reasoned that by holding it at 18/6 and then slamming them down to 12/12 with a drastic flowering nute change it was a lot more stressful and that stress would be evident in product appearance and taste.
Following his plan worked for me. Would any of you be willing to try it? I think I was the only one in our class that was willing to actually do it and the rest of the guys are still pissing and moaning about plant shock and stress. I'd be interested to see if you have the same results.
Now I'm guessing that a lot of you are probably saying, "Bullshit," but I tried it and it worked. In fact, there was such a smooth transition from sewing seeds all the way to harvest that I decided to retest his theory a second and a third time. I got the same results.
If you're willing to try it on your next grow, please, lets compare notes. HSA
