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Come someone take the liberty and explain the is me?

Bennyweed1

Active member
Veteran
This is the query I face.

I don’t comprehend how plants can tell the variance from simulated darkness and natural darkness. Let me elaborate on what I am enquiring here.

How can a plants tell the difference from a light seepage inside of a grow tent from the luminescent glow of the moon at night? Is it natural selection? Does the plant know it is in captivity? Every single night in the wild plants are not in complete darkness. How can plants really know the difference?

And I am not speaking about a colossal light leak as if you’re shinning a million candle watt spot light into the tent, but rather a small restrained glow analogous to the moon?
 

Nunsacred

Active member
The wavelengths of light bouncing around outside at night are completely different to a feint glow from a light indoors leaking into your veg cab.

UV and far red and all that.
Is your question more specifically about why indoor plants don't manage light leaks as well as outdoor plants cope with moonlight?
The answer is probably very complex and has more to do with the senescence of the plants and their eccentricities of gene expression control than light perception.
 

MadBuddhaAbuser

Kush, Sour Diesel, Puday boys
Veteran
A full moon only produces about .02 footcandles of light. whatever light leak is coming in is more than that, even if it seems comparable to you.
 

stihgnobevoli

Active member
Veteran
the plants have photosensitive cells in their leaves and stem. when there is X amount of light it knows its day when there isn't its night.
 

El Toker

Member
The difference in sensitivity to moonlight compared with sunlight is because the sun is 500,000 times brighter than the moon.

As I understand it, the plants don't have specialised cells for detecting light like animals, the light sensitive compound "phytochrome" is distributed across all the cells in the leaf and stem.

Phytochrome is continually being made in the cells and breaks down very quickly on exposure to light. If there's no light for twelve hours then the phytochrome levels build up to a point where it starts a process that initiates flowering.

This is a process that has been well understood and documented by scientists since the 1960s. It is the only reason that cannabis plants require a dark period, although that doesn't stop some stoners coming up with weird and wonderful theories like:

  • keeping the plant in darkness for the last few days before harvest boosts THC production,
  • THC is only made during the dark period,
    (or my personal favourite)
  • roots only grow during dark periods
 

kumplocke

Member
Moonlight is sunlight bouncing off the moon, indirect light has far fewer lumens, I don't know exactly but I can imagine it is almost nothing.
 

FoCo(No.Co)

Barned
Veteran
The difference in sensitivity to moonlight compared with sunlight is because the sun is 500,000 times brighter than the moon.

As I understand it, the plants don't have specialised cells for detecting light like animals, the light sensitive compound "phytochrome" is distributed across all the cells in the leaf and stem.

Phytochrome is continually being made in the cells and breaks down very quickly on exposure to light. If there's no light for twelve hours then the phytochrome levels build up to a point where it starts a process that initiates flowering.

This is a process that has been well understood and documented by scientists since the 1960s. It is the only reason that cannabis plants require a dark period, although that doesn't stop some stoners coming up with weird and wonderful theories like:

  • keeping the plant in darkness for the last few days before harvest boosts THC production,
  • THC is only made during the dark period,
    (or my personal favourite)
  • roots only grow during dark periods

Great post, El Toker! I learned something.
 

Hydro-Soil

Active member
Veteran
IMO... hermies from light leaks have more to do with the difference between the spot getting the light leak and the rest of the plant.

I'll bet.... if you put a night-shade over your plants with just a pinhole facing the moon... you'd get hermies on the spot of the plant it's shining on.

Stay Safe! :blowbubbles:
 

stihgnobevoli

Active member
Veteran
no auttoflower. regular plants from seed. some of my moms are over 6 months old, and aren't flowering, some are, some are fresher moms only a month or two old, a couple are from seed. i dunno why they started flowering. i would say cuz rootbound but theyre all rootbound but only some are flowering. some just regular preflower like you expect. some full on flower.

picture.php


this plant is like 4-5 inches tall. 2-3 month old mom. only thing they all have in common for certain is that the lights are 24/0.
 

noreason

Natural born Grower
ICMag Donor
Veteran
I can't explain how a plant give response to several form and quantity of light, but regarding the flowering, there should be a protein called Flowering Locus T (FT) that is responsable for flower formation. The synthesis of this protein has to be activated by a gene called COSTANS, active in leave's tissues and sensitive to light and its duration during the day.

It would be nice to full understand how all this works in a ganja plant :wave:
 

paper thorn

Active member
Veteran
no auttoflower. regular plants from seed. some of my moms are over 6 months old, and aren't flowering, some are, some are fresher moms only a month or two old, a couple are from seed. i dunno why they started flowering. i would say cuz rootbound but theyre all rootbound but only some are flowering. some just regular preflower like you expect. some full on flower.

View Image

this plant is like 4-5 inches tall. 2-3 month old mom. only thing they all have in common for certain is that the lights are 24/0.
I had a c99 and a pk start flowering in my veg room. Took months before they were right again. Maybe a deficiency can cause it since the light cycle was 18/6?
 

DoobieDuck

Senior Member
ICMag Donor
Veteran
.. i dunno why they started flowering. i would say cuz rootbound but theyre all rootbound but only some are flowering. some just regular preflower like you expect. some full on flower.

I have some issues going on now that have plants flowering out of the norm. Most of those I have are root bound. Peeps in my thread told me that the root bound ones were under stress thus causing pre-mature flowering..hope it goes well or gets better for you..DD
 
S

SeaMaiden

Yes, IME the more bound the roots the more quickly they'll flower.

An example would be the Longbottom Leaf I ran that a friend created (also called Kush Cleaner by some others). Amazingly homogenous in phenotypes and I got 9 females out of 10 beans, which was completely unexpected. That meant that I didn't have room for them in my outdoor planters, so I quickly created 5gal hempy buckets for them. Those plants flowered a full month before those in the planter.
I had a c99 and a pk start flowering in my veg room. Took months before they were right again. Maybe a deficiency can cause it since the light cycle was 18/6?
What care have you been giving the roots? IME, they need to be cut back regularly in order to prevent generative phase from beginning (flowering).


To the OP, I'm not so sure that the plants can tell much difference between the lights that occur at night (moonlight, street lights, porch lights, etc) except by the wavelength (quality?) and intensity. As mentioned above, moonlight is fairly dim, however, I think a few of us have seen UNSTABLE GENETICS either go full hermie or simply start popping nanners when exposed to, say, a single LED. And that's what I think the issue is--genetic--not the light itself.

Run rock solid genetics and hermies just don't happen. Run questionable and you never know what you'll get.
 

stihgnobevoli

Active member
Veteran
i suppose maybe the deficiency thing you mentioned might be most probable. i sometimes just feed my veg plants from the same bottle i feed the ones in flower. low nitrogen maybe caused them to go into flower? my oldest most rootbound mom is surprisingly not flowering any more than the preflowers she has always shown.

i would say maybe since i took all my clones after they sexed. but like i said some are flowering some are not, some are moms some from seed. at any rate doesn't bother me none, they still give up clones and those clones start flowering as soon as i put them in 12/12.

i was just being a devils advocate to the notion that plants only flower when lights are 12/12.
 

stihgnobevoli

Active member
Veteran
man you guys are hilarious. hey look a 4 month old 3 inch mother plant in a 2 inch pot under 13 watts of cfl. lets all laugh because we think this is a plant in full flower under 1000watts of lights. hehehawhaw.

anyway when you finish reading the rest of the thread to know what this picture is about. holla back. till then laugh it up. /hardmode out

i would actually appreciate it if someone recognized my skills instead of always laughing because i don't grow plants to look pretty.
 
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