Time to smash another mj myth -- is "TOTAL" blackness needed in 12/12?

I'm just a noob but I'm ready to question certain aspects of mj growing gospel that smell like myths to me.

...Like the one that says "total pitch-black darkness is necessary in the dark period of 12/12, or you'll stress the plant & it'll hermie".

Of course, I'm striving for as dark a cab as I can build, but I'm thinking that logically, if it's dark enough that the plant can't photosynthesize at all, that's probably dark enough.

After all, plants don't have eyes and nervous systems that are going to respond hypersensitively to any faint little glow in their grow box. And in the natural world the night sky often has moonlight & starlight. If mj was stressed by faint glows it wouldn't have survived & evolved long enough to remain here for us to love it.

I have a feeling that the "total darkness" thing grew out of a misinterpretation of the fact that they need uninterrupted (i.e. "total") darkness during the flower dark period. Like, don't turn the lights on for a half hour & get them photosynthesizing again because that "wake up" call will indeed confuse their hormones.

If I have a few small holes in my cab that leak light outwards when the growlights are on it might ruin stealth -- but that doesn't mean the small amount of light that thus gets in during the 12/12 dark period is going to ruin the plant.

There are lots of myths out there. Is "total darkness" one of them?

Took this from wikipedia:
[TABLE="class: wikitable, width: 1"]
[TR]
[TD]10[SUP]−4[/SUP] lux[/TD]
[TD]Total starlight, overcast sky[SUP][2][/SUP][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]0.002 lux[/TD]
[TD]Moonless clear night sky with airglow[SUP][2][/SUP][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]0.01 lux[/TD]
[TD]Quarter moon[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]0.27 lux[/TD]
[TD]Full moon on a clear night[SUP][2][/SUP][SUP][3][/SUP][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]1 lux[/TD]
[TD]Full moon overhead at tropical latitudes[SUP][4][/SUP][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]3.4 lux[/TD]
[TD]Dark limit of civil twilight under a clear sky[SUP][5][/SUP][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]50 lux[/TD]
[TD]Family living room[SUP][6][/SUP][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]80 lux[/TD]
[TD]Hallway/toilet[SUP][7][/SUP][SUP][8][/SUP][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]100 lux[/TD]
[TD]Very dark overcast day[SUP][2][/SUP][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]320–500 lux[/TD]
[TD]Office lighting[SUP][9][/SUP][SUP][10][/SUP][SUP][11][/SUP][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]400 lux[/TD]
[TD]Sunrise or sunset on a clear day.[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]1,000 lux[/TD]
[TD]Overcast day;[SUP][2][/SUP] typical TV studio lighting[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]10,000–25,000 lux[/TD]
[TD]Full daylight (not direct sun)[SUP][2][/SUP][/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]32,000–130,000 lux[/TD]
[TD]Direct sunlight[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

I used to think what you're saying but you'll understand the whole "total darkness" thing when you look at that chart. As you can see, the lumens from moonlight is 1 (darkness) while the lumens on the darkest of days is 100. Thus, I presume anything above say 5 lumens will wake up your plant.

Also, what you're saying is correct. Your plants will not think its daytime if just a few small spots are being hit with light.

Yes, I quite agree, complete total darkness is not necessary. There have been plenty of times I had to open the grow room for whatever reason and, while keeping the light to an absolute minimum, it did not harm my grow/s at all.

Hello
I would religiously say during the first staged set flowering time first 3-4 weeks are absolutely monumental for darkness
After the set buds your good to go
I use to work In horticultural floral Greenhouses..With some of the best around (DUTCH)
During the first 3-4 weeks it was critical to get the crops in the dark on time every time .../Pot mums...kalanchoes// Not 10 or 20 plants ..200.000 400.000 Plants Millions of $$$$ in crop
After the set flowers,,,basically when they were full flowering it didn't madder....to the growers they told me the plants wont turn back over after the buds set in
But first weeks if you didn't have crop in the black out..you could ruin the crops...Very Very Critical..In the greenhouses they would invest in huge black out equipment huge Fabric that would pull across the roof and the side walls to absolutely block out all the light 3pm 4pm during the day in the summer a 3 acre greenhouse would be COMPLETELY DARK...The growers would run around and make sure all light was out...