What about moonlight?
- Thread starter sstesta
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blonddie07
Well-Known Member
100% correct. Was about to write somthing like this but found this ..
Remember guys... a plant adapts... so if it notices a time of great light... then a time of weak light.. its flowering
people are scared of "hermie" because of the stress the plant goes through when it is flowering.. you wont make a plant go hermie if you make the plant used to a weak light at the 12 hours dark... and a strong one at 12 light time.
Tom Bombodil
Active Member
ok folks, I've been having this CRAZY idea and I have to share it with someone. I've chosen you all as my victims. read on
1) There's been mention here of moon phases and their effect on the natural world. To ramble just a bit: Years back I was in Dominica and had a chat with a local on the Carib reservation about her thatch roofed house. She said that if the fronds were cut during a new moon, the 'juices' would be trapped inside; this way the roof can last for up to two years. But, if they were harvested during the full moon, then they would quickly dry out, get eaten by bugs, and last only a season or less.
2) To further ramble, a friend of mine has a saltwater aquarium in her baby's room with live coral. There's a special lighting assembly that provides warm yellow light during the day, complete darkness for part of the night, and a special pale blue "moonlight" that coral is supposed to need/do better with.
3) To the point that was made earlier, ganja grown outdoors will obviously encounter varying degrees of moonlight, and do just fine. They also take longer.
4) We are all undeniably aware that we trick, force, or otherwise manipulate some pre-existing genetic programming of the plant by way of controlling the photoperiod, or day cycle.
5) There are many ways to measure time. For instance, many non-Julian calendars (Mayan, Tibetan, Hebrew, Islamic i think) measure the LUNAR cycle, not the solar. Rather than months and years marking the revolution of the earth around the sun (marked with little black moon phases so show where the calendars coincide), I suppose one of these calendars would show dates as they mark the revolution of the moon around the earth (with little black suns to show solar events, such as completing a revolution of the sun or an eclipse event). A true "moonth" is 28 days. Women (and the men in their lives) are familiar with this type of schedule.
6) Given 1 through 5, here's the crazy idea: one of these gentle "moonlights", set to a cycle completely independent of the "daylights", in the flower room. Just like in the natural world, it would gradually phase from full (bright) to half (dim) to new (off) and back up again in a sine wave manner over a period of days. Some nights the moon would be new (off), and sometimes it would be dark at "night" becuase the moon had risen and set during the "day", while the sun was up and you couldn't really see it very well. The PERIOD is the important part. If 12/12 lighting is the natural catalyst to BEGIN flowering, what if we could use the moonphase lighting to tell the plants to HURRY THE FUCK UP? Instead of an outdoor 9 month growing season (9 lunar cycles), what if we set the timer to collapse this by a factor of 3, and make it accomplish 9 lunar cycles in 3 calendar months, or less? And, what if you could set the timer to coincide the "full" moon with planting activities, and a "new" moon for harvesting activites (see item #1).
One day I may try this, but if it leads to a bunch of hermies and I'm hurtin, you guys gotta support a brother till next harvest!
1) There's been mention here of moon phases and their effect on the natural world. To ramble just a bit: Years back I was in Dominica and had a chat with a local on the Carib reservation about her thatch roofed house. She said that if the fronds were cut during a new moon, the 'juices' would be trapped inside; this way the roof can last for up to two years. But, if they were harvested during the full moon, then they would quickly dry out, get eaten by bugs, and last only a season or less.
2) To further ramble, a friend of mine has a saltwater aquarium in her baby's room with live coral. There's a special lighting assembly that provides warm yellow light during the day, complete darkness for part of the night, and a special pale blue "moonlight" that coral is supposed to need/do better with.
3) To the point that was made earlier, ganja grown outdoors will obviously encounter varying degrees of moonlight, and do just fine. They also take longer.
4) We are all undeniably aware that we trick, force, or otherwise manipulate some pre-existing genetic programming of the plant by way of controlling the photoperiod, or day cycle.
5) There are many ways to measure time. For instance, many non-Julian calendars (Mayan, Tibetan, Hebrew, Islamic i think) measure the LUNAR cycle, not the solar. Rather than months and years marking the revolution of the earth around the sun (marked with little black moon phases so show where the calendars coincide), I suppose one of these calendars would show dates as they mark the revolution of the moon around the earth (with little black suns to show solar events, such as completing a revolution of the sun or an eclipse event). A true "moonth" is 28 days. Women (and the men in their lives) are familiar with this type of schedule.
6) Given 1 through 5, here's the crazy idea: one of these gentle "moonlights", set to a cycle completely independent of the "daylights", in the flower room. Just like in the natural world, it would gradually phase from full (bright) to half (dim) to new (off) and back up again in a sine wave manner over a period of days. Some nights the moon would be new (off), and sometimes it would be dark at "night" becuase the moon had risen and set during the "day", while the sun was up and you couldn't really see it very well. The PERIOD is the important part. If 12/12 lighting is the natural catalyst to BEGIN flowering, what if we could use the moonphase lighting to tell the plants to HURRY THE FUCK UP? Instead of an outdoor 9 month growing season (9 lunar cycles), what if we set the timer to collapse this by a factor of 3, and make it accomplish 9 lunar cycles in 3 calendar months, or less? And, what if you could set the timer to coincide the "full" moon with planting activities, and a "new" moon for harvesting activites (see item #1).
One day I may try this, but if it leads to a bunch of hermies and I'm hurtin, you guys gotta support a brother till next harvest!
Last edited:
CaptainDastardly
Member
I know this is an old thread, but it goes along with some thoughts I had when switching from outdoor to indoor growing, and I figured I could shed some light on the subject.
At the time, I was curious how much light could enter during my dark phase without messing things up, knowing that my outdoor plants must be getting some light at night if it was bright enough for me to see outside at that hour.
Anyway...
Moonlight has a color temperature of approximately 4100k...
As you can see from the chart, that color of light is useless to plants. (I found this odd, because moonlight tends to look a bit blue to me).
Even if the color range weren't useless, even a full moon is about 1/500,000th as bright as the sun...about .2 lx.
(It seems tropical mountain areas can sometimes get a whopping 1 lx from the moon)
lx is not a measure of lumens emitted, but a measure of lumens striking a surface area.
I hope this answers similar questions others might have had concerning moonlight and/or possibly safe amounts of light hitting your plants during dark time. I can't say for sure whether moonlight effects the plants or not, but if it doesn't then the above reasons explain why.
At the time, I was curious how much light could enter during my dark phase without messing things up, knowing that my outdoor plants must be getting some light at night if it was bright enough for me to see outside at that hour.
Anyway...
Moonlight has a color temperature of approximately 4100k...
As you can see from the chart, that color of light is useless to plants. (I found this odd, because moonlight tends to look a bit blue to me).
Even if the color range weren't useless, even a full moon is about 1/500,000th as bright as the sun...about .2 lx.
(It seems tropical mountain areas can sometimes get a whopping 1 lx from the moon)
lx is not a measure of lumens emitted, but a measure of lumens striking a surface area.
I hope this answers similar questions others might have had concerning moonlight and/or possibly safe amounts of light hitting your plants during dark time. I can't say for sure whether moonlight effects the plants or not, but if it doesn't then the above reasons explain why.
sivaskunk808
Member
This was a cool convo to read while haveing the same thoughts as all of you, your idea is good for imitating the 9lunar cycles in a short time period but im starting to thank that you would have to recreate the gravitational affects which the cycles have on everything and that that affect has something to do with why outdoors are able to tell when to flower regaurdless of the amount of light it recieves...But Captain Dastardlys post had something interesting init about the amount of the light that actually reaches the surface
Tom Bombodil
Active Member
So i hadnt logged in four years, to the point that i didnt even remember i had an account. Got interested in this old idea again and started doing some research. Found this thread, read my old post and for about five seconds was like ""hey, that's MY dominca story, did this guy go to the same island and have the same conversation with the same woman? ! " Before realizing that it was MY post LOLOLOLOL! ! ! Anyway, a non-update for you guys: still have not tried this experiment, have found some additional scientific data about the properties of moonlight and their effects on coral breeding cycles, thats about it. To the point made earlier about light queues versus gravitational, i definitely agree that any moon phase queues are just as likely to be gravitational in nature that the moonlight photoperiod. Unfortunately, my DIY gravity generator is on the fritz so if tphoteriod doesn't do it then this idea will need to be filed away until such time as gravity can be easily and cheaply simulated by a bunch of broke ass stoners