Ah HA! You have now seen a classic example of the light saturation point in effect!
I have to ask Skunk,,,how many lumins is the lighting producing? Sounds kinda slow - 15 hrs. More then kinda! Well then you say "severely." That means that they actually reached it well before that and are struggling to "recover" from the cellular changes that the "saturation" has caused or begun...
While a Cannabis plant does not "need" a lights out time to grow. Growth is more balanced and effective when given some!
Light saturation will cause reduced effective use of the light! Photosynthesis declines as does the plants use of Co2 in a correlated way....Cells change on the peptide level to actually protect the plant from the light!
Turn out the lights - give your plant a real rest. The cells will use the time to change back to the most effective they can be...
Doc
(cool observation sd)
Personally mate, i would agree, i feel the extra benefit that i see from the 24 hour thing is from consistent heat rather than the extra light helping
when i started growing 16 hours was recommended for veg, this changed to 18 pretty quickly
i have heard that some rare types can even flower on 16 hours, i have never seen this myself
in the uk lights off temps can be 58-65f in an unheated room, with lights constantly on, the temps would be a steady 75f in the colder months
this would be my main justification for leaving the lights on all the time
i have always thought that once the leaves start drooping they would not be photosynthesizing to their maximum potential anyway
i would observe the drooping thing, mostly between weeks 3-5 of veg
when they are growing fast and spitting out new leaves daily
i have seen this under hid and low lighting , so i do not think it is the intensity
it happens when they are growing very fast
also, i forgot to mention, they perk right back up around 2 hours before the lights come back on
observing this, it is like, they are very tired from a hard days growing
they take themselves to bed early after 15 hours
they are so eager to get up the next day to start growing again
the leaves all return back to their normal positions, waiting for the light to come on
so 16 on and 6 off would be the natural pattern they seem to follow at this stage
of maximum veg growth
peace