I love seeing my plants pray. I notice they pray on demand right after watering too. I thought it was a problem, and wanted to know why its doing that, until i did my research.

All green, no yellow is all that matters during prayer, that's how you know you're grow is at its peak performance.

Like I posted above, scientific research shows its turgor pressure in the plant that makes the plant pray. This means that the leaves are getting enough energy from the light to evaporate enough water from the leaves so as to create maximum suction up through the roots, giving you maximum uptake of water and nutrients from the soil. This is an indication that all is as it should be, and the leaves are pointing toward the thing that is most important to the plant at the moment, the light.

Outdoors my plants pray regardless of temp, humidity or light intensity. Whether early morning with low light, cool temps and high humidity, intense light, 105+° and extremely low humidity or anywhere in between. Whether watered, fed or dry, at least up to the point they get wilty. VPD can have an affect below ground as much as above but I think the real deciding factor is a thriving rhizobiome. Happy roots, praying leaves.

It would be helpful to have a better understanding of what praying means, especially because it doesn't always mean the same thing. The key point -- at least when it comes to diagnosis -- is to evaluate more than the direction the leaves are pointing. It's also necessary to consider leaf color, leaf tips, VPD, soil, etc. Basically, all the growth factors matter.

LoveGrowingIt said:

It would be helpful to have a better understanding of what praying means, especially because it doesn't always mean the same thing. The key point -- at least when it comes to diagnosis -- is to evaluate more than the direction the leaves are pointing. It's also necessary to consider leaf color, leaf tips, VPD, soil, etc. Basically, all the growth factors matter.

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Absolutely.

All I can say is that in my environment with this strain, I can repeat with humidity vpd changes. Next is temp vpd changes.

Then I'll have to mimic everything again (pretty simple) with the next strain I grow and see if I can replicate it.
I'll see if I can do it in my other tents as well to collect more information faster.

I'm not a scientist, I only noticed a pattern with this strain that I can replicate every time so I'm posting what I've found publicly, I will do this in this thread for my other grows as well.

This is just a starting point, if I can keep replicating it with other strains, then I can start changing nutrients, watering practices, co2, etc and see if those alter my results with the vpd changes.

How much angle the leaves have is also important to keep track of when making these changes.

I have to stabilize and try to recreate the results before messing with the other factors or it will get messy trying to implement many changes at once.

growmie said:

I love seeing my plants pray. I notice they pray on demand right after watering too. I thought it was a problem, and wanted to know why its doing that, until i did my research.

All green, no yellow is all that matters during prayer, that's how you know you're grow is at its peak performance.

Like I posted above, scientific research shows its turgor pressure in the plant that makes the plant pray. This means that the leaves are getting enough energy from the light to evaporate enough water from the leaves so as to create maximum suction up through the roots, giving you maximum uptake of water and nutrients from the soil. This is an indication that all is as it should be, and the leaves are pointing toward the thing that is most important to the plant at the moment, the light.

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I read some of those before starting this thread.
Why I started changing transpiration rates.
All very old and not a lot of actual data and didn't see anything cannabis specific.
Did not read everything front to back though.

I've seen many theories on it but no one has tested enough to show real repeatable evidence.

Anyone has the right to follow along or not, I'm just having fun....I'm open to all comments, opinions, personal experiences with praying, and even backlash

I enjoy Garden Talk/Mr Grow It videos
Lots of good information and interviews with some of the best.

Im a pretty new grower so take what I have with a grain of salt.

But I was always under the impression that praying in the early morning or the dry out cycle is normal. But if you have praying all day long or really high praying leaves, it’s in need of more light.

Anytime I’ve had praying for more than 5 hours, I will increase by 10% and the following day they will be back to even level. Just my experience so far

Ok, after watching that video and reading all of your comments I still have questions, of course.
Before I show you a picture let me set this up, I'm growing in soil i created but didn't give time for the organic food to be ready for delivery. I used miracle grow soil to start making it so I guess they had food early on. I fed them some normal fertilizer since then till now.
I'm in week 10 with 5 wedding cake autos and 1 Alaskan Thunder Fuck auto and 4 of my WCA's are praying hard for the last week and also burnt tips and some cupping!
Why and is this stopping my girls from finishing correctly?
I'm actually realizing I don't have a really good picture.

Elvis7733 said:

Ok, after watching that video and reading all of your comments I still have questions, of course.
Before I show you a picture let me set this up, I'm growing in soil i created but didn't give time for the organic food to be ready for delivery. I used miracle grow soil to start making it so I guess they had food early on. I fed them some normal fertilizer since then till now.
I'm in week 10 with 5 wedding cake autos and 1 Alaskan Thunder Fuck auto and 4 of my WCA's are praying hard for the last week and also burnt tips and some cupping!
Why and is this stopping my girls from finishing correctly?
I'm actually realizing I don't have a really good picture.

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Over fertilized is my thoughts bad mix of it.

That’s actually a really solid observation, and you're not far off at all. Leaf "praying" is most often a response to optimal (or slightly pushed) environmental conditions, and VPD and transpiration are definitely key players in leaf angle.

When the VPD is higher (i.e., lower humidity at the leaf surface), plants transpire more to cool themselves and draw up nutrients and water. That increased turgor pressure (water pressure in the cells) can cause leaves to stand tall and "pray", which is typically a positive sign of active metabolism and healthy gas exchange.

Your point about light intensity is also valid, stronger light = warmer leaves = higher VPD = more transpiration. So yes, turning down the lights could lower leaf temps and VPD slightly, slowing transpiration and reducing the praying behavior. It doesn’t always mean they were under stress, just that the plant is adjusting to a less intense environment.

The fact that the plants getting more humidity are praying less supports this, they likely have a slightly lower VPD, so they're not pulling as hard or transpiring as much. So you're seeing the real-time physiological difference VPD can make, even with all other conditions being equal.

In short:
Yes, VPD and transpiration directly affect leaf posture.

Praying is usually a healthy response, especially when no other stress signs (like clawing, burnt tips, or bleaching) are present.

It can also be strain-specific, some strains are just more expressive in how they respond to ideal conditions.

So I'd say it's not just a coincidence, you're observing the cause and effect of microclimate differences in real time, which is actually a great sign of environmental awareness
on your part.

Elvis7733 said:

хорошая фотография.

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Auto flowers are very hardy plants, I've seen that there is a classification of varieties by difficulty in the jars. But yours look good. 4 are praying, but one is burning?

Newty said:

I've seen many theories on it but no one has tested enough to show real repeatable evidence.

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After this video I realized that I'm screwed. But I'll pretend that I'm not scared, because it's too late to pretend that I have doubts.