What is optimal "Dark-Time" from veg to flower

My one strongest plant has now been in dark since thursday (yesterday) night at 6. I have a timer set to start the light at 6am saturday(tommorow) yill 6pm. I'll post some more pics when i wake up, maybe around 11.

Can anybody help me with the whole upload thing? My plants came out of black today, and look tremendous with good additional growth!

Upload pictures, that is..

joker cant wait to see how i turned out, I think depending on your pics i am gonna do 36 hours too. might pick up some bud blood,lol

hey guys, it's 10:40 and the light did kick on at 6 this morning. This is my first grow so I'm sure i'll be able to tell much difference. But, we'll see how long it takes to sex.

Here they are...



Also, to upload pics, go to the home page and click on one of the random pics. It'll take you to the picture part of the forum. Then at the top there's a button to upload your own pics.

edit*also, just ask if you want a close-up or something like that.

c im telln u the whole 24 36 hr thing does wrk u c a big diff not only in nodes and size but it starts 2 show sex n u didnt evn use bud blood 4 the process

i'm not completely sure because i've never sexed b4, but i think it's a female. I'm going to post up pics monday morning. I'll try and get some close-ups of the nodes.

Do you guy feed the flowering nutes before or after the 36 hours of darkness? I am putting my babies into flowering mode in 1-2 days.....

i'm not doing nutes yet, but i'm prolly be giving them light doses in a few days.

gonna try that budblood idea, sept without that harsh budblood heh, ill just use alaska morbloom 0-10-10

zonked said:

i just finished 36 hours in dark and now im in flowering and I see a HUGE difference, at least 3-5 new nodes and hairs from the stem and now there, so I say YES that theory is absolutely correct and it works. nuff said ......

Click to expand...

um, not to be pedantic, but that is hardly a scientific approach. you need a control group (plants of the same genes not subjected to 36 hours of dark) in order to make a real determination.

why do i think your results are anecdotal and not true?

the answer is twofold.

First: there are no natural 36 hour dark periods on this planet and so no genetic reason for plants to learn to exploit that.

Second: any experienced grower knows that the most dramatic growth of a plant happens after a plant goes to flowering. what i mean is your growth drama might very well have occurred with just a normal switching the light cycle and no mad scientist extended dark cycle.

to really know if it works, you need at least 6 plants (from the same clone mother) and three chambers. 2 plants per chamber and all aspects except lighting kept as identical as possible.

one chamber stays at the veg lighting. (control group)

second chamber goes directly to 12/12 lighting with no delay. (standard group)

third chamber goes from veg to flower with a 36 hour dark period. (test group)

you would take measurements and pictures before the lights changed and after and that would give you a good idea of how it was going. you would still not have evidence that it was better until you finished the grows and compared which group finished flowering first and which group yielded the most.

all you have proven so far is that the 36 hour dark period doesnt kill the plants.

dont they teach scientific method any more?

all that said, if a 36 hour dark period makes you happy and doesnt kill your plants, have fun! just dont try and claim proof without real testing being done.

trial and error, this is my first grow so i'm just trying to get some experience.

experience is goooooooood! even doing bad things and learning from the mistakes is good

try and remember though, that while some people use NASA methods with hydroponics and such, this is still botany, not rocket science.

Interesting BFG, but on the other hand there is no such thing as "Bud Blood" out there 'naturally' either I think your ligic would be grest for a longitudinal study, however short of controlled research, the more people that one can get to "try" non-variants, the assured the results might be. I have tried both ways and I believe the growth spurt is 'radically' altered with this dark process. Now that said, whether that is good or bad has yet to be seen as I have not tasted the bud that I have altered.

you can have your plants veg in 24/0 and put them into 12/12 right away if you want

Roadhousepsych said:

Interesting BFG, but on the other hand there is no such thing as "Bud Blood" out there 'naturally' either I think your ligic would be grest for a longitudinal study, however short of controlled research, the more people that one can get to "try" non-variants, the assured the results might be. I have tried both ways and I believe the growth spurt is 'radically' altered with this dark process. Now that said, whether that is good or bad has yet to be seen as I have not tasted the bud that I have altered.

Click to expand...

sure there is a natural version of Bud Blood... it is just simple chemistry when it comes down to it and nutrients are nutrients. adding this chemical or that chemical will change how things react

but, your point is totally correct: my words are no more valid than your words.

the only way to know for sure is to experiment for yourself and see what works.

because there are so many variables though, the experiments should be done as controlled as possible... specially if sharing the data is a concern.

well, just 4 laughs we can see if it's quicker sexing on my plant. Who knows.

BFG you have a logical point, but the idea of growing indoors is merely to mimic natures natural process and take the angles available to us through technology to speed up this process. natures intentions are not focused on the aspect of time but this essence is a huge topic for some growers. Therefor, growers have established techniques and ingredients to speed up the natural process. My opinion is you can and will get to C by going through A and B in natures time,but too many have accounted on getting to C in a 1/3 of the time by using a 36 hour dark period with administration of Budblood to ignore it. I have been told personally by peeps that own my local hydro shop about this process and it worked for them. again the only way to know is to do it yourself, and i plan on it. Your correct on the no being a 36 hour dark pd. on earth, and that in a nutshell is the reason that the plant releases its hormones in response to the conditions, which in collaboration w/ B blood gives you rapid sexing. I guess we will have to see

hey, i would love to be wrong! just do me a favor and try and give good evidence so myself and others can learn from it too you show a couple of pics that show sound evidence and i will be first in line to show my plants what night time on the Martian poles is like!

the way I see it, a combination of dark + coolness triggers the "Night time functions" within the plant, which is partly growth and hormone production i think (someone please correct me on that) i think this is how automatic flowering works, over the periods of darkness the flowering hormone builds up within the plant then when levels reach a breakpoint it starts to flower. So ... after a particularly long dark period before starting the flowering cycle (which in itself is just a method of making the hormones faster because of the longer dark periods) those levels are that bit higher (4.75 "nights" worth of production in 1 dose)

So, yes I think there is scientific reasons why this will have some effect, not sure if the rate of production escalates because the dark period is longer (some plants, like some cacti, produce more hormones the darker they are, mostly consistent dark nights means the same is produced each night, but if you lock it in the dark for a LONG period the hormone that is produced in the cacti that keeps it dormant can be 20x normal production after only a week or so of constant dark, meaning the rate of production gets higher, just like in a night period the start of dark it produces less than the end of the night)

Many factors, so a proper experiment with a good sample size would be good to get some usable figures. If you dont mind causing minor harm to the plant sap can be tested for PH during the experiment on all samples to get some kind of idea at rate of production (Sap PH will sway away from soil PH as the plant is focusing on hormone production as to nuit takeup from the roots)

This is theory mainly taken from my experiences with cacti and other plants.

thoughts?

Mor