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!