Dimming Lights Towards End Of Bloom

[FooDoo]

Anyone turn their ballasts down towards the last two weeks of bloom from 1k to 600?

The colas are usually rock hard and set by week 8 and for anyone running an extra two ontop of that, I'm wondering if 600 is plenty to ripen them. Saves a tiny bit of cost I presume as well

 

[stickyfing3rs]

I flower under only 600s, lots of ppl do. I actually turn them down to 50% last few days just so there's still a light cycle and save a little $. Seems like I get less new white hairs when I do.

 

[FooDoo]

The tops of my.girls are foxtailing in week 9. Next round I'll be scrogging and keeping them.shorter and further from the bulbs however I really don't feel like 1k watts right now is doing anything other than stressing them and causing more heat .

I'll be powering down the ballasts tonight.

 

[G gnome]

The tops of my.girls are foxtailing in week 9. Next round I'll be scrogging and keeping them.shorter and further from the bulbs however I really don't feel like 1k watts right now is doing anything other than stressing them and causing more heat .

I'll be powering down the ballasts tonight.

I wouldnt UNLESS there's a heat issue. My rationale is to get every lil bit. Just my opinion. Stay cool foodoo lol

 

[FooDoo]

I wouldnt UNLESS there's a heat issue. My rationale is to get every lil bit. Just my opinion. Stay cool foodoo lol

Here they are a week ago

I feel like I already got every last bit that they can give awhile ago. I only let them go longer to ripen up the taste.

The tops are shooting out massive fox tails and white hairs and look worse than the shorter colas.

I just feel like the intensity is too much for a plant that's done packing on weight

 

[stickyfing3rs]

Read all kinds of debate about having lights completely off for a few days before harvest (some ppl up to two weeks). Main reason is to prevent new growth. Some say it makes it frostier, but idk about that.

 

[FooDoo]

Read all kinds of debate about having lights completely off for a few days before harvest (some ppl up to two weeks). Main reason is to prevent new growth. Some say it makes it frostier, but idk about that.

Yea I don't consider doing that anymore. When I was growing in highschool and was on overgrow I read BOG mention the 48 hours of dark before harvest and used to do that but I've realized a lot of stuff older growers do is just pseudo science. I will be harvesting on Tuesday right when the lights flip on

 

[germinator]

What do your trichs look like thru your scope?
I know my cookie crosses don't like strong direct light.
But that's a tasty lookin nug.

 

[FooDoo]

What do your trichs look like thru your scope?
I know my cookie crosses don't like strong direct light.
But that's a tasty lookin nug.

I never scope . usually take to 70 days or if I'm in a rush I chop at 63 days . I can just look at the flowers and know when they are ripe

 

[420circuit]

Always wondered about the dark for a couple "days" before cutting, supposed to increase the THC content was the reason as I understood it. never saw any science to support the idea, but might be true I guess.:bookworm:

 

[Junk]

For what it's worth, I still do the 48 hour dark period, but also have no idea if it's actually doing anything. It doesn't seem to be hurting it, & in the absence of some scientific evidence, that's enough for me.

As far as turning down the light, in most of the world (the equator the least affected) the sun naturally becomes less intense as flowering time comes around for photo's. It sits lower in the sky & of course the earth is moving farther away from it, so it seems reasonable to turn it down if you are getting ft's

 

[FooDoo]

For what it's worth, I still do the 48 hour dark period, but also have no idea if it's actually doing anything. It doesn't seem to be hurting it, & in the absence of some scientific evidence, that's enough for me.

As far as turning down the light, in most of the world (the equator the least affected) the sun naturally becomes less intense as flowering time comes around for photo's. It sits lower in the sky & of course the earth is moving farther away from it, so it seems reasonable to turn it down if you are getting ft's

That's a good explanation. I ended up turning them down . I'm not super confident in whether I should continue to do that in future crops but I guess I'll just expirment

 

[Junk]

My personal opinion; if you are turning it down for the ripening stage, yield losses would be negligible. If you are doing 12/12 you are already giving it more light than nature would, if you averaged out it's flowering cycle.

Another option, which is what I do, is to keep it at full strength, but run 12/12, then to 11/13, then for the last week I do 10/14. This mimics at least the way the light changes in nature. When I factor in all of MY variables (I run co2, I'm LED & vertical CFL) I seem to do better this way than with a constant 12/12 throughout.

I think part of what allows me to do this is I run a lot of light (1250 actual draw, 4 plants) so when they are on, the plants are getting tit loads of light. You could try full strength light & vary the time. Or, you could really mimic nature & ease off on intensity & time.

In my own little experiments, I've found that I yield more keeping full intensity & just adjusting timing. But I don't have the ability to adjust output the same way you do. I have to lose some of the vertical lighting to lower output, which takes away from the lower buds.

 

[3N1GM4]

The sun being lower on the horizon filters the sunlight differently making the light spectrum more towards the red than the blue spectrum during the final weeks of outdoor flowering. A way you could simulate this would be to add extra red light the last weeks of flowering.
From what I understand about the photosynthesis process is that the plant stores up co2 water and sunlight during the day and then uses that stored up energy during the dark period to produce the terpines and do most of their growing. Stopping the plant from getting light stops it from storing new energy thus triggering the plant into survival mode and telling it to send all available resources to the part of the plant that produces seeds ensuring its survival by future generations.
Not sure if it is true but I don't think it hurts.

 

[DrFever]

One thing i never did is go completely opposite i mean from 12 /12 to raising light hrs ,, So you finish up around 14 hrs of light,, now i might get some people thinking she is going to reveg or what ever but i forced flowered a plant out door left it in dark for 48 hrs then back into light for first 2 weeks i kept her at 12 / 12 when my daylight was actually 18 hrs of light :)
on 3rd week i have left plant outside non stop not covering it or nothing presently @ 17.5 hrs of say light and let me tell you all shes flowering made here is 28 days from flip .. i tell yeah big nugs already
So i am thinking going to try raising light hrs from 12 / 12 to final week 15 - 16

hrs on

 

[Kronikcowboy]

Dr fever what strain you playin dr with?

 

[Junk]

One thing i never did is go completely opposite i mean from 12 /12 to raising light hrs ,, So you finish up around 14 hrs of light,, now i might get some people thinking she is going to reveg or what ever but i forced flowered a plant out door left it in dark for 48 hrs then back into light for first 2 weeks i kept her at 12 / 12 when my daylight was actually 18 hrs of light :)
on 3rd week i have left plant outside non stop not covering it or nothing presently @ 17.5 hrs of say light and let me tell you all shes flowering made here is 28 days from flip .. i tell yeah big nugs already
So i am thinking going to try raising light hrs from 12 / 12 to final week 15 - 16 View attachment 525162 hrs on

Also curious on the strain. The node spacing is really tight.

I messed with something similar with my newer test plant. I let it fully transition to flower, then gave it 3 weeks. I then put it back to 18/6 for 4-5 days. It remained in flower but grew a lot. I pulled it out though, back to 11/13.

All I really wanted to see was if it would stunt the plant, or cause some sort of ill effect, if I accidentally set a timer wrong & didn't catch it for a few days. The plant was/is fine. I don't advise it, it was an experiment, but it seems if it's only for a short time, the plant will survive.

I just want to understand what you are saying so I can learn from what you are doing. Do you mean you plan on leaving that fully transitioned flowering plant out for 18/6 & bringing it down to 12/12? (I can tell you from experience that won't work with a photo) Or going from 12/12 up to 14/10 during the last couple weeks?

 

[DirtySanchez]

So we would only usually turn down our lights the last few days/weeks of flower in the rooms that run a little warm so we can bring temps down and really close/harden the buds. We have also run 10k mh lamps in the past and this absolutely has had an indisputable positive effect on the finished product. You're basically emulating winter in that the days get cooler and the light gets blue-er.

I think that turning down the lights and the effect it has on the plants has less to do with the actual light and more to do with the room temps, this is at least my take on it. I think this goes the same for the 2 days of darkness, just 2 days of cold weather and the plant freaking out thinking winter is coming which stimulates extreme trichome production in hopes of catching pollen to reproduce.

 

[DrFever]

Dr fever what strain you playin dr with?

Cherry pie x Pakistani chitral kush

Also curious on the strain. The node spacing is really tight.

I messed with something similar with my newer test plant. I let it fully transition to flower, then gave it 3 weeks. I then put it back to 18/6 for 4-5 days. It remained in flower but grew a lot. I pulled it out though, back to 11/13.

All I really wanted to see was if it would stunt the plant, or cause some sort of ill effect, if I accidentally set a timer wrong & didn't catch it for a few days. The plant was/is fine. I don't advise it, it was an experiment, but it seems if it's only for a short time, the plant will survive.

I just want to understand what you are saying so I can learn from what you are doing. Do you mean you plan on leaving that fully transitioned flowering plant out for 18/6 & bringing it down to 12/12? (I can tell you from experience that won't work with a photo) Or going from 12/12 up to 14/10 during the last couple weeks?

Well if your growing a strain high in hermie / nanner's then its best to keep things tight as possible in light hrs ..
normally we try to mimic mother nature so lowering lights hrs in most indoor cases people should lower lights hrs week before flowering i mean something like 14 on and 10 off then week of flipping 12 / 12
I personally like to give plants a little extra lights off usually when i flip i will set my hrs accordingly possibly giving plants extra 6 hrs of darkness ,,
In many cases growers like my self will give them 24 hrs of darkness just before flipping appears to give them a good jump start ..
then 12 /12 first week 50 / 50 veg n bloom nutes weening veg nutes off by end of second week
Usually in stretch phase plants need Nitrogen and many growers flip right into bloom starving plants of N by end of 3 - 4 th week
Goal is to keep plants healthy not deficient and what i found to work best is weening veg nutes right out at end of second week ..
here some pure power plants 5 th week nice an healthy

 

[Topofthecrop]

My opinion towards the question at hand is I would like to think raising the watts would benefit the plant in the end. I'd also like to give my opinion on the lights off for two days straight at the end of the cycle. I think it's a great idea to do that for one reason mainly and that's because I like to make sure all the nutrients, organic or non, is in the soil not in my plant so I can taste only herb. I read that sugars/nutrients retracts to the soil after a certain amount of light is deprived. I also believe the plant gets its snow cap on with in those few days. I don't know the scientific terms but I'm going with some kind of productive stress. I also feel strongly that I can't take truth of everything I read on the net...