Mimicking natural sunrise/sunset times indoors

I'm getting ready to start my next batch and I thought I'd switch it up. Instead of running 18/6 and then 12/12, I am going to run the natural sun cycle for my location.

My timer has space to save mon-sun on and off times, so one time per week I will set next weeks light schedule per my locations sunrise/sunset. I.e. the days will get longer for a short period and then continually get shorter until harvest.

12/12 is obviously the easiest way, and it works, but I'm looking for ways to improve quality.. with this I have to believe the plants can sense the days shortening and it triggers various processes along the way. I mean, for my growing location, I start seeing pistols almost always around August 7th. In which the days are actually LONGER than 12 hours. This leads me to believe there may be some important stuff we are missing by going straight to 12/12.

Has anyone experimented with this and followed through for a whole indoor grow? Thoughts? Comments?

Gquebed said:

i vegged 16 on 8 off.
Then i flowered 10 on 14 off
Got the same weight as always with that strain, but it finished 10 days earlier.

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Interesting findings! Did you notice any other differences, either in the plants themselves or quality after harvest?

You can gradually reduce the lights on time from 18/6 down to 12/12 by dropping the lights on time by 30 minutes daily until you reach 12/12. Lights go off 15 minutes earlier then come on 15 minutes later ... something like that.

I have done the graduated drop above - and I have gone right to 12/12 from 18/6. I did find that the stretch seemed to be a little less going graduated - but I didn't find that much difference in the bud quality. Both methods produced very good results

It will take longer to transition into flower and extend the harvest date. You won't gain anything. You can get astronomical timers that you just set and forget after putting whatever geographical location you want for sunrise/sunset.

Dankyspank2456 said:

Interesting findings! Did you notice any other differences, either in the plants themselves or quality after harvest?

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Not really no