Extended Dark Peroid To Help Finish Flowering

[ccodiane]

The most important function of trichomes is to protect the plant from insects, pathogens, and drought while living and, most importantly, to protect the seed until the following growing season. Even if the plant is not pollinated, the bracts swell and accumulate trichomes to protect the seed, whether there or not. It would then make sense that the plant would push out as many valuable trichomes as possible before senecense to protect the seed. What better way to let the plant know its at the end of the road than the end of the season, or darkness. Also, one of the most powerful degraders of THC is light, so three final days without light could not affect the potency of the plant but instead ensure no decline in potency occurs.

 

[skunkushybrid]

I think mine makes the most sense... have a read of this, posted by Your Grandfather here:
https://www.rollitup.org/grow-journals/30116-been-long-time-coming-been-13.html

(1) "For all spheres, a ray drawn perpendicular to the sphere's surface will intersect the center of the sphere, no matter what spot on the surface is picked, and the magnifying power(a) of a glass sphere is greater the smaller its size. A sphere of glass can also bring light that is heading to a focus behind it to a point within it, with freedom from two aberrations, spherial aberration and coma, but not from chromatic aberration. Chromatic aberration results when different wavelengths are focused on different planes and is the most difficult of the aberrations to correct. The human eye lens also exhibits chromatic aberration, but a yellow pigment(b) called the macula lutea in the fovea, an area at the rear of the eyeball, corrects this problem by the way it absorbs blue light."

(a)"The formula to calculate the magnifying power of a sphere is l=333/d, where l is the magnifying power and d is the diameter of the sphere expressed in mm."

(b)Interestingly, the resin exuded by drug-type flowering female marijuana plants has a yellow tint. Could this pigment work to correct chromatic aberration in the resin sphere like the macula lutea does in the fovea for the eyeball?

 

[skunkushybrid]

It makes sense that the spheres of resin are there to magnify light levels to catch as much light as they can before the sun goes down. I doubt that the moon has sufficient luminosity to make a difference.

As the light levels lower to a point where it can be considered dark, the plant responds by producing trichomes, which are not potent. we all know already that trich's need to age. This is where the protection AND encouragement of certain wildlife comes in with the cannabinisation of the trich's.

 

[ccodiane]

Can the "aging" process of the trichs occur after the plant has been harvested? An honest question. Also, the only factor required to induce flowering is the roughly 12 hour dark period, uninterrupted, for the required number of consecutive days, with the dark period actually being a period with lumens under the amount necessary for photosynthesis to occur. If the criteria are met the plant will flower. Flowering plants produce trichomes. Got it

 

[skunkushybrid]

Can the "aging" process of the trichs occur after the plant has been harvested?

This makes sense yes. Light will still age the trich's, as they downgrade through the varying cannabinoids. This is the reason we dry in the dark. The trich's will still age but at a much slower rate.

 

[Puffin Afatty]

this one required 3 bongs just to get thru...a most enjoyable read...

What I've gandered: The photo sensitive chemical induces flowering by the plant...light destroys this chemical, lowering it's concentration within the plant...that's why we cut light to 12/12...the 12/12 is just an average, different strains can have different photo periods...the question was whether the added darkness at the end of a grow helps potency, the answer seems debatable still...then the issue of sugar at the end of a grow to fatten buds, this works for me...I use floralicious plus, which I suspect contains mollases, and it certainly made a difference with fatter/heavier buds at harvest... mollases also contains minerals like sulphur which the plants can use...

With regard to dark period, I do a regeneration, so the answer is moot to me, I go from 12/12 (which I might try to change to 13/11) to 24/0 for 7 days and back to 12/12 again for another 9-10 wks...

 

[ccodiane]

How long does your original harvest take from 12/12 to harvest the first go-around, before you go to your 24.

 

[Puffin Afatty]

9-10 weeks flower @12/12 then harvest, 7 -10 days @24/0 reveg, then 9-10 weeks (re) flower @ 12/12 and harvest...etc...etc...

 

[natmoon]

Even if all the trics that are produced in the dark period are completely impotent and useless i would still do it as i reckon that it certainly does increase the amount of resin which of course adds weight but the main reason to do it for me is that i enjoy sticky resinous buds with a full flavour.

The dark period is about everything from thc to flavour,texture and smell,i bought some weed a while back from some guy and it was pathetic really,slightly damp,smelled like hay mixed with pine needles but he seemed to think it was great and has been growing and selling it for years,yet he hadn't even heard of curing it just dry it out in a box for a couple of days and sell it before he loses to much weight on it.

He now grows a lot dryer like i told him and leaves it for the dark period and cures properly as the weight he lost in water from the plant was replaced by more resin which weighs more than dry plant material alone.

He makes more money now and has happier customers so forgetting the whole tric argument i would do it for the added resin and slightly more mature hashy flavour that it seems to help bring on.

This guy who had been selling and growing for years was amazed by the differences between growing as dryly as possible and leaving for the dark period,not just in comparison to flavour but also weight and texture and stickiness.

You also reduce your chances of mould as when you put them into a dark period the medium should be very dry and then when you harvest them the bud has hardly any water in it at all and has tried to compensate by producing a lot of so called useless resinous trics that may well be not all that potent but they add weight and flavour and texture and feel lol

I dunno how many times ive said this in different ways i guess you guys just need to try it and see how it works out for you.
Have i already said flavour,resin,texture,smell,weight and feel lol

 

[skunkushybrid]

Even if all the trics that are produced in the dark period are completely impotent and useless i would still do it as i reckon that it certainly does increase the amount of resin which of course adds weight but the main reason to do it for me is that i enjoy sticky resinous buds with a full flavour.

No need to reckon, putting your plants in very low light levels for extended periods of time will do nothing to help your plant. Maybe if you did it in the middle of flower, then hit them with light. But then this assumes that the plant will keep producing trich's all the way through the low-light level period. You'll also add more weight to your bud by giving them more light during the final 3 days. EVERYBODY knows that. Light is the most important aspect to growth and development. Which is why the plant needs to create trich's in the first place.

The dark period is about everything from thc to flavour,texture and smell,i bought some weed a while back from some guy and it was pathetic really,slightly damp,smelled like hay mixed with pine needles but he seemed to think it was great and has been growing and selling it for years,yet he hadn't even heard of curing it just dry it out in a box for a couple of days and sell it before he loses to much weight on it.

He now grows a lot dryer like i told him and leaves it for the dark period and cures properly as the weight he lost in water from the plant was replaced by more resin which weighs more than dry plant material alone.

WTF are you talking about? Ah, you don't know do you... forgot about that. You just pretend. You told a guy that had been growing it and selling it for years how to do it properly did you? WE ALL KNOW TO LET A PLANT DRY OUT BEFORE FEEDING AGAIN, everyone does that. How dry would you say a DWC plant stays nat'? Ah yes, you grow in soil and can compete with a DWC grow. Yours might not look like much, but throw it on the scales and it weighs 4 or 5 times what it looks. Yeah, right.

You also reduce your chances of mould as when you put them into a dark period the medium should be very dry and then when you harvest them the bud has hardly any water in it at all and has tried to compensate by producing a lot of so called useless resinous trics that may well be not all that potent but they add weight and flavour and texture and feel lol

LOL... yeah, that's hella funny. Watching you struggle along, may not be all that potent, but add WEIGHT and FLAVOUR. Pull the other one, nat...

I dunno how many times ive said this in different ways i guess you guys just need to try it and see how it works out for you.
Have i already said flavour,resin,texture,smell,weight and feel lol

Maybe you haven't used the right words nat'... maybe that's because they don't make any sense. Try adding common sense to your claims, and you will start to see the truth.

 

[natmoon]

Maybe the truth is that you just disagree with everyone about everything unless they already have a huge knowledge base and are well known and even then you still try to disagree with them,hell you even slagged of arjan and greenhouse seeds saying he was a dumbass and didn't know what he was on about because he was dutch and everyone hates the dutch.

I dunno what your malfunction is but im pretty sure that its just plain arrogance

 

[newbud]

some great info here, i have never grown in hydro skunky but think i'm gonna try that coco stuff you have mentioned when i go to the city next month. my two cents worthback on the topic, in vege we give the plant as much light as possible for it to grow, we dont give it 15hrs a day cause we want it grow big as possible get as many nodes as we can etc... so i assume during flowering the more light we can give it the bigger and better buds it will produce. hence the use of hps instead of cfl's we want to give them maximun lumens not a half assed light source (cfl) for 9-10 weeks, in the wild they get continuous light till the cycle finishes. makes sense.

 

[newbud]

hey nat, when u starting your next grow. reeally liked those photos and all the info.
off topic i know?!!
i did leave my last little plant in dark for two days but this time gonna pluck it after the full light cycle...... unless someone can advise why i shouldnt???
peace

 

[skunkushybrid]

Maybe the truth is that you just disagree with everyone about everything unless they already have a huge knowledge base and are well known and even then you still try to disagree with them,hell you even slagged of arjan and greenhouse seeds saying he was a dumbass and didn't know what he was on about because he was dutch and everyone hates the dutch.

I dunno what your malfunction is but im pretty sure that its just plain arrogance

So what.. arjan is a dumbass... but i think i only think that because he's dutch, so what? the dutch are dumbasses...

If searching for and wanting to know the truth is arrogance, then yes I have loads of it. I didn't see anything special from your buds... where was this density, and trich' production you speak of? I didn't see any from your pic's. I reckon I could've smoked your whole plant in a day and still craved for more once the news comes on at 6pm...

You have a tendency nat', a tendency for BULLSHIT. Prove your point with common sense or logic... Let's see how your theories pan out.

 

[daddychrisg]

Wow, what a thread! I would have never thought that we would get "another" Skunk-moon throw down! Oh yeah, FDD you are my hero, this bong rip of wonderfully cured C99 topped with Honey Oil goes out to ya! Anyhow, I tried the dark period during the last few days before harvest with my last batch...The verdict..Never again! My buds actually started stretching out, fluffy they did become! On some of the buds it looked like to me that they were searching for light by sending out small un-resin ladien pods into the darkness. I don't think I am going to try that trick again with a full harvest.

 

[natmoon]

Yeah my weed is shit,everything i say is bullshit,there are no trics on my weed,i just made it all up to look hard,i am just totally dumb and i can only long to be as cool as you all are

 

[skunkushybrid]

I actually thought you might have something useful to add... but you just wanna whine like a little bitch.

No nat'... your bud is nothing special. You might have had a couple of guys telling you it was good, but that's only because they don't want to hurt your feelings, and were after free seeds. You get all excited, and talk and talk... and talk, and talk about how great it is! And then, you post some pic's... lol. The overall shots look like shit. Nice high res' pic' yes... PICTURE, but overall your results aren't worth shit. You even lie about your yield.

Show an overall pic' of your bud... without the high res'... then it just looks like a wispy piece of nothing.

Time and again you prove that you don't really know what you're talking about... which is why you have to degrade conversations in this way... steer from the point. and the point is, the truth.

You and arjan can bum each other all day long for all I care... I'm only interested in the truth. I don't care about your bullshit.

 

[daddychrisg]

LOL! Nice Nat! Where did you up load that photo from?

 

[natmoon]

OK all i did was zoom in on this normal picture that i took,its only 7 megapixels not high res,and you are still an angry dude lmfao
I like to think that i have taken a fair and balanced variety of pics including zoomed in and close up shots.
But i am sure that you will still be right and i will still be wrong

 

[daddychrisg]

Hmmm, smoking gun or just more ammo to use against you? You are just feeding the fire Nat....