Have plants "a sense of time"?

Hey guys,

i've had this crazy idea a while a go and i thought i can't be the first thinking this:

Does a plant, in our case cannabis, have some kind of sense for passing time? Would it be possible to shorten the life cycle by pretending that the days had only 20 hours by using a 10/10 cycle instead of 12/12? Would it get confused or would it then just take more of these shorter days for the plant to finish?

I mean, they've done crazy stuff to plants before like crossing ruderalis in for autoflowers. Who would have thought that 20 years ago?

So, just an idea. And i guess that programming the timer would be a proper pain, too.

The required dark period (which is what matters) variates slightly per strain and 12/12 is just the safe tried schedule. Some could use 11 dark and dome maybe even just 10 or less, but if you then reducing the day time too, and it would actually work, as in finish sooner, you'd obviously have less yield.

But yes, crazy idea, not very original either.

To answer your title question: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circadian_rhythm#In_plants

after years of growing i agree with Sativied, and have seen people use a 8 on 12 off schedule (dont go less than 12 off) and produced potent bud, just not as much. I think it is generally only recommended if your room cant handle 12 hrs of light (heat stealth ect) i dont think there is any real benefit, my friend did it because he only could get the room cool enough from like midnight to 8 am.. I am not sure if a plant knows or cares about anything besides darkness. Cannabis has a thing with 12 hrs of dark, it is like a bell goes off and they need to make babies. Ive had clones in transport for 9 hrs of darkness multiple times and never had them flower. It is 10-12 hrs and for most cannabis 10 wont even make them flinch most the time. Ive had power outages, visitors ect and 10+ hrs of dark and have never caused an issue for my veg plants. A flowering plants is a totally different animal, but they do fine as long as they get 12+ hrs of perfect dark.


But im rambling, basically your plant knows/cares very little about its on light schedule (wont grow without light) accept when its been in the dark for 10+ hrs and begun flowering and then may freak out if it doesnt get its pure dark.