Is 14 hours of darkness ok for budding?

I have 5ft plants, 3 months old, grown in a greenhouse. I have been moving into darkness for 14 hours for about a week. My question is, is this too long a time or should I shorten to 12 hours? At 14 hours they showed me the males and also some pre flowers. Any help would be appreciated.

To trigger flowering 12 hours of darkness is all that is necessary. If you give 'em another 2 more hours of light it's another 20% more food (photosynthesis) for the plants, which could translate to 20% more yield.

I know a guy that does exactly that. He only leaves his lights on for 10 hours each day. He yields about 3/4 pound per 600 watt light and he harvest 1 week early....so, it can be done yes. We grow the same strains, however I yield atleast 1/4 lb more then he does with 12/12.

What do you hope to gain from the 10/14 cycle? are you thinking its going to finish faster or something? cuz its not. like vh13 said its just giving the plant less light and their is no benefit from doing it that way. sure u could use 10/14, but the real question is why would you want to?

vh13 said:

To trigger flowering 12 hours of darkness is all that is necessary. If you give 'em another 2 more hours of light it's another 20% more food (photosynthesis) for the plants, which could translate to 20% more yield.

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ya why wouldnt you just go with 12/12, is there something stopping you?

I was thinking of budding sooner. I am new at this and was just wondering if I could push them along, but now I understand the difference in the light. Thank you.

you guys realize this is an outdoor discussion right? every single day the night/day ratio is different! your plants don't need anywhere close to 12 hours of dark to flower! in the outdoors your plant will start getting ready to flower around 15 hours of daylight, the gradual reduction of a few minutes a day gently and naturally coaxes the plants into flowering the way they have for millions of years, most decent outdoor strains start flowering mid july to mid august, wich is basically the longest part of the year, and they ripen over the next 60 days as the light gradually goes down a few minutes at a time, starting with the 15 hours that it matured at to 13 by the beginning of September (so you see many ripen and finish before they ever reach 12 hours darkness) to 10 hours at the beginning of November, though most decent outdoor plants wont flower that late...

there is no set hours of light that will dictate a plants flowering schedule, and yes you can grow a plant with 10 hours of light and it will grow stragglier, and produce less, and fluffier buds than normal but you get one extra harvest a year, wich means more overall money to a comercial grower... how do you think crappy beasters are made? thats why you can consistantly buy low quality bud that smells like hay, the hairs are still almost white(didn't naturally dry out and turn brown)few tricomes...people manipulate light and harvest times to make a lot of crappy pot for a little extra money, personally i would rather produce less good bud for less money...

if you are trying to get your plants to flower early i would stick to 12/12, basically you are imitating an indoor grow but with a much stronger light...you could probably get away with flowering with 13 or even 14 hours of light for bigger buds but you would have to shorten the daylight hours to finish ripening. flowering a plant with 10 hours of light is not good though, your bud will not be as potent as if you were to just stick with a consistent 12/12 schedule, which is widely agreed to be the best compromise between having enough light to bud decently while having enough darkness to stay in budding and to ripen on time.

to properly trigger them they need a constant 8am 8pm light and 8pm to 8am dark period and maintained for at least week after that it can be relaxed to 11 or 13 hour combination but 8 til 8 is best as it is the plants natural clock try it man what you got to loose it will flower with 8 to 8

Actually increasing thw darkness time will reduce your yiels but you wont get "hay." Youll probably get a higher resin content. At least i usually do. If you dep at 12/12 you are going to get more yield slower and you might have a little bit of a hard time getting it to fgo right into lower and can make no mistakes. This is easy with indoor but with outdoor deps i recommend that you do a little more than 12 hours. I had great result with 12.5 hours of darkness before but i think 13 hours is the way to go. You will get a much more solid turn to the bloom cycle by using a little more darkness. But dont overdo it unless your not concerned with weight. More darkness actually makes a bit better bud. If for some reason you are worried about getting it covered in time just give it more darkness that day instead of risking too much light which will confuse the plant.

Actually last year the guys who won the Emerald Cup used 10 hours of light 14 darkness

That's a 7 yr old thread

darkdestruction420 said:

What do you hope to gain from the 10/14 cycle? are you thinking its going to finish faster or something? cuz its not. like vh13 said its just giving the plant less light and their is no benefit from doing it that way. sure u could use 10/14, but the real question is why would you want to?

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Saving money on energy bill is main reason I've seen people do this.

Hello yes I'm resurrecting an old thread, who cares!!!, I've seen so many post saying you'll lose yield and shit like that...sorry but not true unless your doing 10/14 from the get go but I'm not even sure on that as most these people that comment know fuck all...IF you change it to 11/13..week 6...to 10/14 week 7 it only ups it if your plant is just not ripening, airy, or keeps shooting out new pistils...I get sick of waiting for dormant strains including indica's that just crustinate..my plants blow up with that sticky icky when I reduce the light cycle , I hit the gram per watt and them some with monster cropping. so take it from me, somebody that actually experiments with the Mary jane and doesn't go by guess work or other people's opinions.

BenGman said:

Hello yes I'm resurrecting an old thread, who cares!!!, I've seen so many post saying you'll lose yield and shit like that...sorry but not true unless your doing 10/14 from the get go but I'm not even sure on that as most these people that comment know fuck all...IF you change it to 11/13..week 6...to 10/14 week 7 it only ups it if your plant is just not ripening, airy, or keeps shooting out new pistils...I get sick of waiting for dormant strains including indica's that just crustinate..my plants blow up with that sticky icky when I reduce the light cycle , I hit the gram per watt and them some with monster cropping. so take it from me, somebody that actually experiments with the Mary jane and doesn't go by guess work or other people's opinions.

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" It only ups" It if your plant is just not ripening, airy or keeps shooting out new pistols... So basically 14 dark can give as good a yield as 12/12 if not better you think?

greenhouseguy said:

I have 5ft plants, 3 months old, grown in a greenhouse. I have been moving into darkness for 14 hours for about a week. My question is, is this too long a time or should I shorten to 12 hours? At 14 hours they showed me the males and also some pre flowers. Any help would be appreciated.

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So your growing with 10 hours light on and 14 hours light off. Nothing wrong with that , i grow all my sativa and heavy sativa leaners all like that. But for wat your growing youll probably find they go into slighly faster flower start and finish and a slight yield reduction for most comercialy avalable strains, in comparison to the same strains under 12-12. For outdoor lighting in your situation, it probably means you are going to have to manualy keep moving them for longer, till you reach the natural 10 on - 14 dark sun light cycle. You might even finish some plants by then, depending on were you are on the planet.

They did some reaserch and you should start with lots of light and end with a lot less 8-9 if i remember less light will reduce temperatures perserving more terpentines

And if you start with 14hlight at the end of grow you will have same hours as 12-12

amneziaHaze said:

They did some reaserch and you should start with lots of light and end with a lot less 8-9 if i remember less light will reduce temperatures perserving more terpentines

And if you start with 14hlight at the end of grow you will have same hours as 12-12

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Will 10/14 ... (14 dark that is) Ripen up faster? Say at least a week off usual 12/12 Finnish tim?? Any feedback appreciated

Jamich887 said:

Will 10/14 ... (14 dark that is) Ripen up faster? Say at least a week off usual 12/12 Finnish tim?? Any feedback appreciated

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Yeah roughly it will knock a bit of time off. But you also lose those 2 hours of light a day x 7days x how evermany weeks you had the plant in flower which will equate to less yield overall. It can also slightly alter bud structure too.

Can yields from lessened daylight hours be counteracted by increasing light strength/DLI to compensate? There is a post floating around where someone is talking about 7 hours of light per day of flower.

MissinThe90’sStrains said:

Can yields from lessened daylight hours be counteracted by increasing light strength/DLI to compensate? There is a post floating around where someone is talking about 7 hours of light per day of flower.

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Yeah it should do. But ther again you could use the increased light and give it those same plants for those extra hours a day and get more.