48 hours of dark before 12-12

i give my plants 36 hours of dark going into flowering.. ive done this through all my grows.. im my experinence it hasnt increased hermie tendencies at all... even from bad seed i havent seen any difference in the amount of males/hermies coming from the darkness period.. even from bagseed i get a 1 in 7 ratio of males or hermies to females... as far as the explosion in growth i cant say ive experienced that any more due to the darkness than i would if it didnt do a dark period.. i still have the same growth rate of 2x to 3x preflowering size... the dark period doesnt seem to stretch them at all.. but it does induce the flowering stretch a lot sooner so you do see almost all the main growth/stretch in the first week that you would normally see over the first 2 to 4 weeks.. it is nice to be able to get that out of the way earlier... and as was stated it definatly shortens over all flowering time and preflowers show sooner which means earlier sexing for non-fem seeds... imo this is a good practice to do... everyone has their own thing.. and the choice really is up to the grower... but i swear by this method and have had great results.. flowering some girls now.. about 6 weeks into it.. check my journal if you want.. links below in my sig..

sampson

I post the following quote regularly in topics involving 18/ vs 24/0 lighting. However, there is a relevent part which I have highlighted. The post was originally made by OT1.

Oldtimer1 said:

We did a lot of experiments with light times a few years back using known sat and sat dom clone lines.

With Vegging ie under hid lights.

20/4 produced the most sturdy growth and the most bulk. Best final yield, taken as 100%.
22/2 Less of both. yield 88%
18/6 Studier than 22/2 but slightly less bulk. yield 87%
24/0 Much lighter in all aspects than 18/6. Yield 79%
16/8 The weediest plants. yield 67%

Plants vegged to final pots under fluorescents at 20w per sq ft on 18/6 yield 49%

Have not tried 36 hrs dark but did try 48 hrs from 18/6 veg. The final yield was down between 15 and 20% by var the pure sats the biggest loss in final weight and caused the odd herm, [sats] it did reduce the flowering time by 5 to 8 days.

For the mum lines we have 20/4 to 12/12 gives the best crop weight and bud quality, really thats all I’m interested in.

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Source.

48 hours done and done.

the yellow growth is what grew during the dark period obviously as the lack of light means no photosynthesis...see mom i paid attention in high school!

i really think it's gone from 24/0 to me being able to determine sex in probably about 2-4 days. i'll give you an update.

please give me thoughts on this because i'm getting a lot fo conflicting opinions. some great, some not so great.

thanks

mjmaupin said:

48 hours done and done.

the yellow growth is what grew during the dark period obviously as the lack of light means no photosynthesis...see mom i paid attention in high school!

i really think it's gone from 24/0 to me being able to determine sex in probably about 2-4 days. i'll give you an update.

please give me thoughts on this because i'm getting a lot fo conflicting opinions. some great, some not so great.

thanks

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mine went the same wen my light come on after 36hr dark fully recovered now tho

anytime i pull mine out of the 36 hours of dark i always have light green/yellowish growth.. it takes a few days to darken.. but does so quickly and easily...

I have been reading some literature to find info on preflower and although there is a chance this is not true one book explained that often times larger/quicker growing plants of a strain is ussually a way to determine it is male before you decide to flower. I'll repost the book name as soon as I'm home as I have the PDF on my external HD. But that could be the reason for the rapid growth. This has me worried cuz 2 of my plants are twice as tall as the 3rd :/ im about 3 or 4 days away from switching to 12/12. Interesting Thread.

i think that holds more true during vegging than flowering though.. for instance.. i had one of my girls over triple in size during the first 3 weeks of flowering... it was ridiculous... from 2 ft to 6+ ft in 3 weeks... and she is all woman... but i have heard something about what you said about vegging plants.. that males sometimes grow faster and taller than females during veg growth.. which would make sense... in order to spread pollen they need the wind... and in order to spread their pollen far they need to be taller than their female counterparts... so growing tall and thin and above the rest of the plants makes sense to achieve what they want/need to do to survive...

That's what I figured as well. I'll get the name of that book on soon. I'd be interested to see any truth behind this as im fairly close to flowering.

ultimately there is no way to 100% accurately sex your plant until flowering unless

a) the plant is from fem seeds.. and even then you MIGHT get a hermie...

b) its a clone from a female plant

c) you have forced flowered cutting from that plant and now the sex that way

there are a few ways to sort of guess sex or at least have an idea of what plants to look at for male tendencies... but again.. if you dont know you wont know until you start flowering...

yeppers......

great thread! i think i will try a 36 hour dark period when i start to flower. it's my first grow so i won't know the differences for sure, but it looks like a majority of you agree that it could be beneficial. also thinking about changing from 18/6 to 20/4 based on Nocturn3's reference. thanks!

It is something i have been thinking about doing with my next batch as well, although i would like to point out the fact that male plants normaly grow a hell of alot faster then females so that might be the only reason she go so big and not the 48hr dark peeriod which also could have caused the stress to turn it male lol.

I will let you know how mine go i will be doing this in 3 weeks.

wow i thought this thread had died but i guess i just forgot to subscribe to it when i started it and im out of town.
303 - how would it really stress the plants? i know a dude who grew several strains in a greenhouse in alaska year round when he lived up there and he said he never had a problem with herms.
someone said that the one plant most likely grew faster because it was a male but it also showed its sex in 5 days and these seeds are came from the same bag as the other two i have which took well over two weeks to show sex so i am sure this is not the case, also the other plant i started at the same time and put right into 12-12 still isnt as big and hasent shown sex yet.
also at least 36 of dark right before harvest i think is as vital as flushing in the end as far as taste and smoke go.
so as i said before the plant that got 48 of dark went into the flowering process and bushed up more than any plant i have seen before, from my experience the growth explosion when you switch to flower hasent been anywhere near as fast or drastic as that one in the first few days at least. i really cant speak for yield because as i said before that one turned out to be a male so i cant even compare.
my plan is to do this with all my plants from now on unless i find a drastic problem with doing so. the way i see it is i smoke at least a quarter a week so even if the yield is a tad less you come out ahead in the long run

Over a decade behind.. but dont males naturally show sex before females anyhow. Regardless of light.. lol.. just browsing topics and saw this

simpsonsampson420 said:

i give my plants 36 hours of dark going into flowering.. ive done this through all my grows.. im my experinence it hasnt increased hermie tendencies at all... even from bad seed i havent seen any difference in the amount of males/hermies coming from the darkness period.. even from bagseed i get a 1 in 7 ratio of males or hermies to females... as far as the explosion in growth i cant say ive experienced that any more due to the darkness than i would if it didnt do a dark period.. i still have the same growth rate of 2x to 3x preflowering size... the dark period doesnt seem to stretch them at all.. but it does induce the flowering stretch a lot sooner so you do see almost all the main growth/stretch in the first week that you would normally see over the first 2 to 4 weeks.. it is nice to be able to get that out of the way earlier... and as was stated it definatly shortens over all flowering time and preflowers show sooner which means earlier sexing for non-fem seeds... imo this is a good practice to do... everyone has their own thing.. and the choice really is up to the grower... but i swear by this method and have had great results.. flowering some girls now.. about 6 weeks into it.. check my journal if you want.. links below in my sig..

sampson

Click to expand...

So I have this CraZY question and looking for input.....

What about; flipping Back too 12/12 After 48hrs dark NEAR end of flowering cycle? Not Before harvest but say oh 2-3weeks before harvest? Then ofcourse again at Harvest...

The reason I ask this is because, well....after having them in dark now 36hrs I'm wanting to see if I can flip lights on one last time for explosive growth. I've read certain hormones for flowering build in dark to be used by said plants during light hours....it's almost like my plant won't be able to use that 36hrs dark if I just straight chop...I'd like to see what they do utilizing those hormones built over the last 36hrs....anyone done this? Not worried about Hermie's the plants vegged for 5 months and have been in flowering now 8 weeks...ready to harvest BUT I'm super curious to know what theyed do with one last day or 2 running regular 12/12 light cycle again.....

Anyone tried this?

PurpleBudzMan said:

So I have this CraZY question and looking for input.....

What about; flipping Back too 12/12 After 48hrs dark NEAR end of flowering cycle? Not Before harvest but say oh 2-3weeks before harvest? Then ofcourse again at Harvest...

The reason I ask this is because, well....after having them in dark now 36hrs I'm wanting to see if I can flip lights on one last time for explosive growth. I've read certain hormones for flowering build in dark to be used by said plants during light hours....it's almost like my plant won't be able to use that 36hrs dark if I just straight chop...I'd like to see what they do utilizing those hormones built over the last 36hrs....anyone done this? Not worried about Hermie's the plants vegged for 5 months and have been in flowering now 8 weeks...ready to harvest BUT I'm super curious to know what theyed do with one last day or 2 running regular 12/12 light cycle again.....

Anyone tried this?

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Plenty of people have done this due to power outages.

How massive is the plant grown for 5 months before flip?

Nope_49595933949 said:

Plenty of people have done this due to power outages.

How massive is the plant grown for 5 months before flip?

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They are about 5ft.....I chopped one last week, VERY smooth, Very clear head high, very euphoric....like nothing I can buy from my plug or the dispensary. No BS ....Tropic Thunder seeds. Pheno....they came from a bag I purchased from my plug and was warned of seeds but I wanted them.

The 1 smaller plant I harvested had 14.9 grams (but it is said that tropic thunder grown inside will only produce about 1/2oz per plant) Wich is probably why it is not commonly available strain but let me tell you it is Highly worth it! This other one is larger, I've let it go further.....I'm guessing almost an oz...crazy thing is it started to "crown" I guess and main colas started growing outward almost like foxtails....this is my reasoning for wondering about going back to 12/12 after a dark period....if I can continue to flower them out or just harvest.

PurpleBudzMan said:

They are about 5ft.....I chopped one last week, VERY smooth, Very clear head high, very euphoric....like nothing I can buy from my plug or the dispensary. No BS ....Tropic Thunder seeds. Pheno....they came from a bag I purchased from my plug and was warned of seeds but I wanted them.

The 1 smaller plant I harvested had 14.9 grams (but it is said that tropic thunder grown inside will only produce about 1/2oz per plant) Wich is probably why it is not commonly available strain but let me tell you it is Highly worth it! This other one is larger, I've let it go further.....I'm guessing almost an oz...crazy thing is it started to "crown" I guess and main colas started growing outward almost like foxtails....this is my reasoning for wondering about going back to 12/12 after a dark period....if I can continue to flower them out or just harvest.

Click to expand...

Wait... The plants are 5 feet tall and you get about an ounce?

Bro science. Your just increasing the amount of shock put on the plant and encouraging hermie conditions. Pull the plant from veg and put the plant in 12 12 for about 4 to 6 hrs the first day to introduce it to the new lights. Let it have 12 of rest then it's first full 12 hr day.

ProPheT 216 said:

Bro science

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YEP... Pointless