Will flowering for 11 hours on 13 hours off speed up harvest?

well thats the question?

It can speed up the harvest but you wont have as large a yield because you will be getting less light energy overall.

Here is my understanding-

Flowering is triggered by hormones at a specific amount of time in darkness every day. 12 hours of darkness per day seems to cover most bases. Reduce this, and you run the risk of reverting back to veg, and tons of stress. 11 on/ 13 off is still 24 hours per day, flowering will not speed up, but yeild will decrease slightly. To speed up flowering time, try 10 on / 12 off. Growing days are now 2 hrs shorter per day, thats 13 days of growing in 12 real days. But, yeild will decrease. Do not decrease lights on time below 8 hours, or plants will be too stressed.

Do a search at CW and check out pH's yeild-o-rama, lots of useful information on light manipulation.

m. steelers, the plants are large enough right now so Im not worried about yeild, I just have no bud to smoke. I'm on a 400w, I'll switch to 600w in a week or so

ntstephenson? so you are saying I should flower at 10 hours on and 14 hours off? I'll try to check out CW sometime, I dont go there much

someone else said 11/13 wont speed up my harvest, just decrease yeild?

I thought thats what some people do for sativas to speed up harvest?

Plants need 12 hours of uninterrupted darkness to trigger flowering. Since an 18-hour day is only 3/4 of a full day, there might be a 25% time saving, but the part that has been cut out is six hours of light.

Plants use light to fuel photosynthesis. Through a series of chemical reactions, plants photosynthesize using light energy to convert carbon dioxide, an inert gas plants mine from air, and water into sugars. Some of the sugars are combined with nitrogen to form amino acids and other tissue building blocks. Some of the sugars are used to fuel the plant's metabolic processes. As far as green plants are concerned, you could say that light equals growth.

During flowering, lights are typically on for 12 hours of a 24-hour day, so plants receive light 50% of the time. If the lights are kept on for only six hours of an 18-hour day, the plants are receiving light during roughly 33% of the flowering period cycle. A 17% reduction in light means the growth rate will be considerably slower. Because they are still getting the same amount of darkness as on a normal 24-hour cycle, the plants will ripen in 3/4 of the time. But if the plants adjust to the new regimen, their yield would be considerably smaller than normal.

To speed up flowering you could place the plants on a 10 on/14 off schedule during the last few weeks of flowering. They would receive light 41% of the time. Another schedule that you might try would be 10 on/12 off—a 22-hour day. Under this scheme the plants would receive light about 45% of the time so their yield would be only be slightly reduced.

It might be possible to increase the yield by manipulating the light regimen. If the plants were placed under a 14 on/12 off or a 16 on/12 off lighting program, they would receive light 54% and 57% of the time, respectively, so their growing time each day would increase 8% and 14% respectively, but the daily cycle would also increase. Although they would take longer to ripen, they would have both a higher gross yield and a higher yield in relation to the time spent in flowering.

11 on / 13 off will not decrease flowering time.

10 on / 14 off will not decrease flowering time.

1. In order to flower, you have to have 12 hours of uninterrupted darkness, do not change this.

2. To decrease flowering time, decrease lights on time only, do not increase lights off time. The goal is to create a day for the plants that is less than 24 hours, thus speeding up flowering time for the plants. 10/12 off will save two hours a day, or in other words, the plants will go through thirteen days of growing in twelve days.

3. Minimum recommended daylight time is eight hours. If you do 8 on / 12 off, thats a 20 hour day, 4 hours saved. The plant will go through seven days of growing every six days. But, as Fredster pointed out, the plants will only be receiving 2/3 the light they would have received at 12/12, therefor one would expect a 1/3 reduction in harvest. A 56 day strain would flower in 48 real days. (7 plant days for every 6 real days).

Does this make sense now? You will not be able to use a cheap analog timer for your lights, you will need to purchase a more expensive digital one that allows you to set many different on/off times, or you would need to reprogram your analog timer every day. Your plants will not have 24 hour days, if they do, you are not changing the flowering schedule, only the amount of light received by the plant. For example lets say flowering begins at midnight on monday with 8on/12off :
Mon 12 AM -- lights on
Mon 8 AM --- lights off
Mon 8 PM --- lights on
Tue 4 AM --- lights off
Tue 4 PM --- lights on
Wed 12 AM -- lights off
Wed 12 PM -- lights on
Wed 8 PM --- lights off
Thu 4 AM --- lights on
etc........

Bottom line, if your plants still have a 24 hour day, you are not affecting flowering time, do not decrease lights on below eight hours, do not change lights off.

NTS

Ok guys thanks for the info, I guess my idea is flawed So I should just stick to 12/12 then? cause I just have the regular timex 24 hour day timer

Well I'm gonna go back to 12/12 then.

peace

Perhaps I should have clarified, I said that you would need a more expensive digital timer. This does not mean that they are very high priced, just more costly than the analog. They should be around twenty bucks at your local hardware store. Make sure that you purchase one that is rated for the correct amps for everything that you will plug into it. If you don't know how many amps you need, play it safe and go with 15 amps.

I however would not be willing to give up a third of my harvest to save 8 to 10 days in flower though. Your patience will be rewarded.

Just found this old thread here.

i was kinda wondering about this myself, have a couple of times, i see the problem with the timer, a new system has to be made for trying out light cycle manipulation.

but wouldnt it kinda make sense to shorten the light cycle, running 11 / 11 , making the plant ripen faster, with less power usage

I've heard of doing this near the end of flowering to finish them off.. but never considered doing it the entire flower term... I think you'd get a quicker finish, but yield would be hit...

There aren't many corners that can be cut, and still be successful.. without some sort of loss

I did an experiment a while back experimenting with the circadian cycle. I changed the 24 hour day to an 18 hour day. 12 off 6 on.

The plants flowered and matured in about 45 days but the yield was definitely way less.

It was a fun experiment but I am 12/12 with my regular grows.

Google "circadian rhythm" for more info.

I have not experienced a drop in yield under 11on/13off in the second half of flowering that would be woth mentioning, but I know one thing for sure:
Under 11/13 you will see genetic expressions you'll never see under 12/12.
Mostly smell, taste and effect.
So that's it for me, not going back to 12/12. 11/13 for the second half or flowering ;-)

Something else to give a thought: You could cut the "normal day" short by leaving the standard 24h day. Photsynthesis f.ex. peaks at 6h of light and then decreases. In short, the plant can't use the full effect of 18h of light...
CC

some full runs with some different test would be exciting. with an 11 / 11 cycle i would figure there would be some loss in yield, but that would have to compared to savings on cutting the cycles shorter.

in theory it would be possible to make 60 days flowering time done in 55 days by "shortening" a 24 period to a 22. But would it be worth it in the loss of yield?

Im not saying one is better, just thinking who decided on the mandatory 12/12, and is there a better more efficient way we have yet to discover?

I am gonna google that, thx for the info, on another note got my electrician working on the timer solution, should be easily fixable with a relay similar to the ones made to switch on big heaters for central heat

If you want to try it, you'll need a special timer that will allow the programming of at least 24 events.

Here was the timing I used on my first Circadian experiment.

Event 1: ON - Sunday: Noon (12 PM)
Event 2: OFF – Sunday: 2 PM

Event 3: ON – Monday: 2 AM
Event 4: OFF – Monday: 4 AM

Event 5: ON – Monday: 4 PM
Event 6: OFF – Monday: 6 PM

Event 7: ON – Tuesday: 6 AM
Event 8: OFF – Tuesday: 8 AM

Event 9: ON – Tuesday: 8 PM
Event 10: OFF – Tuesday: 10 PM

Event 11: ON – Wednesday: 10 AM
Event 12: OFF – Wednesday: Noon (12 PM)

Event 13: ON – Thursday: Midnight (12 AM)
Event 14: OFF – Thursday: 2 AM

Event 15: ON – Thursday: 2 PM
Event 16: OFF – Thursday: 4 PM

Event 17: ON – Friday: 4 AM
Event 18: OFF – Friday: 6 AM

Event 19: ON – Friday: 6 PM
Event 20: OFF – Friday: 8 PM

Event 21: ON – Saturday: 8 AM
Event 22: OFF – Saturday: 10 AM

Event 23: ON – Saturday: 10 PM
Event 24: Off – Sunday: Midnight (12 AM)

This one was based on 14 hour day. 12 hours off and only 2 hours of light. In order to provide the plants with more than 2 hours Photosynthesis, I added a blue LED light that encouraged photosynthesis during the dark hours but did not interfere with the flowering schedule. This schedule runs about a month of plant days for every 17 real days.

Results were as expected. I don't recall the exact days to maturity but it was just about exactly one month.

Yield sucked but it was a cool enough experiment that I did it a second time with longer light hours.

The first experiment resulted in a lot of hermies. However, the second run of the same clone had none.

Cool, running 2 / 12 as you tried out seems fairly extreme compared to tweaking the 12 / 12 , to 11, og 13 or whatever, but still pretty interesting experiments you got going on there.

Ive been told that a relay something like this, should be able to turn on and off after a certain set of hours, fx 11 on 11 off 11 on and so on

https://brodersencontrols.com/products/timers-digital-a-electronic

got my electrician working on putting one together for me

Going 11/13 is still a 24 hour day and is not going to shorten maturing time. It will only lessen yield. My plants went through an entire biological day in 14 hours. There's quite a difference between the 2 methods.

12/12 for the critical cycle is meat and potatoes. Variance from that never really seems to do any good. And, usually results in something bad.

DJ Short has said use 11 on 13 off to see more sativa traits, it mirrors the equator more.

On the equator, the sun is up for 12 hours and down for 12 hours.

I find 13 hours ON 11 OFF to be the better time set. I've been using it for years. All strains flower properly and they receive more light, so the harvest is better. I never had problems with this set.

I've been using 11-on/13-off for the past year. 1,000watt - MH six months, HPS six months.

Seems to work best with HPS.