ATP or Adenosine Triphosphate, a key regulator for the Photosynthetic
process and main energy-transfer molecule in the cell is only created in the off-cycle...
This is incorrect.
When your plant is working on
what is called "cellular respiration."
Cellular respiration occurs in all living cells - all the time unless frozen solid.
It is a light independent reaction
meaning it happens
independently of light, not in the exclusion of light, it has never been thought of as exclusive to light it was called the dark reaction because it occurred at night as well as day whereas carbon fixation [light reaction] didn't.
at night when the plant isn't burning energy.....
The plant is burning energy all the time, cells respire -all the time. You have made the same mistake that all closet horticulturists do and think that photosynthesis is the processing of food, oddly enough the word photosynthesis means creating food, it is respiration that burns it. They are two distinct reactions that people always manage to think of as one in plants. Photosynthesis is like us getting groceries into the fridge, respiration is going to the fridge and eating the groceries and using the energy for 'growth'.
It's not as if your plant is only processing the foods you give it during
the On Cycle... Your plant has important tasks it must do during the off
cycle..
But yea sure, all these closet horticulturalists seem to know
how a plants metabolism and their physiology works better than
Melvin Calvin So go ahead and veg for 24 hours a day
It is a nice large picture of the calvin cycle showing a process dependent on light and shows nothing that needs dark .