How to Lightdeprivation a 20 Weeker Sativa at 45 Deg.North ? Knowledge Wanted

[romanoweed]

I tried to find Info on all Cannabis-forums, it was pretty rare to find more than the Basics, like per Example:

• look up the specific Dailight-hours for your place.
• Ventillate the darkened GreenHouse, cool it
• even small Lightleak can prevent flowering.
• Equatorial Sativa need close to 12/12 to flower

I have a worst Case Scenario, a 20 Weeker Sativa i absoulutely want to grow, but will have probably no elictricity, also i dont wanna loose to much Summer, so..


I want every Knowledge that might ease that INSANE WORK and that INSECURITIES abit !


Good news: i am passionate and concentrated on what i doo. I have an long hunt for pure 70s Vietnames behind me, its not like i woke up and, oh lets make impossible possible.




Thanx

 

[romanoweed]

That type of Weed i plan deprivating:

First Idea: Easy said to just Deprivate from Juli till 23 September ( that is when Day/Night is 12/12), but: could i early stop Depri. at 1st September, look if the Plant will not go back to veg? And would Flowers dye off, once the Plant sadly went back to veg? Or would they continue to grow while back in Flowering???


Secound Idea: Would Dark-Greenhouse with just many Free Space provide enough Oxygen for Plants, without need of Ventillation?

 

[CowboyTed]

Last summer, I attempted to use light deprivation on a couple tropical sativas with long flowering times. I did almost exactly what you described, ending the deprivation in early September. Sadly, both plants began to re-veg, then began flowering again in early October.

One of the plants was well into flowering when it started to re-veg. The flowers started to expand, and the colas became enormous, the size of a football. They began to flower again, but several days of freezing weather killed the plants in late October.

The trichomes on the flowers, from before they started to re-veg, were generally mature, so I harvested them. They were huge, fluffy colas, but those mature trichomes were spread out on the flowers. The buds are weak for smoking, but I made hash oil, and it is plenty potent. No harm in the end, but I wish I could have kept the plants flowering without the re-veg.

I'm doing it again this year, though with short flowering strains. I'm going to continue the light deprivation all the way to the harvest. I'll do the same with sativas in the future.

 

[CowboyTed]

This is a photo of the lovely colas, about the time I stopped using light deprivation in early September. It's sad to think that I ruined those beauties.

Here is the same plant, after re-veg, on the day I harvested her. Those gigantic colas are full of air and stems, sadly.

 

[romanoweed]

So, what we see in the secound Pic is (slight brown Look) comes from the Coldness, and the Flowers seemed intact when RE-flowering, is that right?

Good to know this actually worked.

 

[star crash]

 

[troutman]

Pure Sativas could be flowered from seed. So imagine doing light deprivation for up to 5 months.
A person could start seeds May 1st and go until mid-October. Would be a lot of work though. It
would be easier to start a little early indoors and finish in a greenhouse afterwards. The goal is
to finish before the cold weather hits and ruins everything. Maybe starting in April is better.

 

[hellfire]

Get a glass greenhouse?

Light dep flower immediately from clone? Slowly go from 12/12 to 14/10? Get a heater?

 

[star crash]

If they are in pots ...you can light dep a Sativa ...control the photo-period..if you have the luxury

 

[therevverend]

I tried it with a long season Indian Sativa. The experiment ended when it hermied like a motherfucker. Cowboy Ted's experiment shows you need to go 12/12 all the way, not just until early September. There's a state licensed grower here that light deps a lot of long season stuff. Here's a link to a tour of their grow. Fun to see a commercial operation growing the long flowering stuff this far north.

https://kionathc.com/about-us/

 

[CowboyTed]

So, what we see in the secound Pic is (slight brown Look) comes from the Coldness, and the Flowers seemed intact when RE-flowering, is that right?

Good to know this actually worked.

Yes, the ragged look in the second photo was caused by freezing. The plant had just started to re-flower when it froze, so I didn't see how it reacted when re-flowering: I didn't have enough time to have a good sense for whether a reflower would have succeeded.


If I use light deprivation on a long-flowering sativa again, I will continue the light dep straight through until the natural light reaches 12/12. I will NOT stop early next time.

 

[troutman]

If I use light deprivation on a long-flowering sativa again, I will continue the light dep straight through until the natural light reaches 12/12. I will NOT stop early next time.

That will assure the plant won't go into reveg mode.

 

[romanoweed]

Yes in his Case it was showing it very clear it didnt work.

I am not making fast Conclusions, there are very few People who tried it. Namely one Person showed it didnt work with:
1: a apruppt Stop
2: a Ace Strain, i guess around a 14 Weeker NOT a photo-unsensitive Thai?
3: with no further support trough Rootbound? Or extreeme drought? I heard two Times: in Thailand many many sativas go into flower when a Droughtphase is ahead! Also in Marocco (32 LAt.), the old Landrace starts flowering in Mai when extreeme drought appears! Plants seem to tend to flowering when extreeme Difficulties appear


Also he couldnt approve the Flowers die once back in veg, and i can make out from the immense Size of Buds, they Space between each flower spread, while they did atleast not die off.


So: If we could risk the Plant going back to Veg, without Risk of total FlowerLoss, and experiment with one of the three Points above, that might eventually, possibly, who knows be it.

 

[romanoweed]

Automatic Greenhouse Idea

Everything is blacked out just not the Roof, wich is a Sheet of Transparent Foil at one End and dark Foil at the other End.


It sits on two Rolls and will roll/unroll the Darkfoil`s End.
Permanent pulling on one Roll
Strong „Motor 1“ on the other Roll.


Each Day, a Timer triggers „Motor 1“ to Pull the dark End of Foil over for 5 Minutes (minimal Timmers-setting)
later that Day a other Timer triggers „Motor 2“ wich is a Stopper that prevented the Foil from beeing pulled back. From beeing pulled back trough permanent pulling of Roll 1.


I know i know such a thing is very shitty to build without propper Tech. But its one of the simplest Methods i can imagine. I built one that had to be reinstalled at Night. Was a labil Installation, meaning a Roof fall on top of Greenhousewalls (closed it). Was triggered at 5 in Evening, had to be resetted at Moment of Choice in Night (reopened). It was an pretty easy installation. And i would do it again wouldnt i have a way bigger Grow ahead (meaning bigger Roofs)

 

[CowboyTed]

Yes in his Case it was showing it very clear it didnt work.

I am not making fast Conclusions, there are very few People who tried it. Namely one Person showed it didnt work with:
1: a abrupt Stop
2: a Ace Strain, i guess around a 14 Weeker NOT a photo-unsensitive Thai?



Also he couldn't approve the Flowers die once back in veg, and i can make out from the immense Size of Buds, they Space between each flower spread, while they did at least not die off.


So: If we could risk the Plant going back to Veg, without Risk of total Flower Loss, and experiment with one of the three Points above, that might eventually, possibly, who knows be it.

You're correct, Romanoweed. The abrupt stop to light deprivation clearly caused re-vegging. Despite the re-veg, the flowers that were growing did not die back. The trichomes on those flowers continued to mature during the re-veg.


The strain I was growing is Ace's Zamaldelica, which is a hybrid of 3 landrace strains from Malawi, Thailand and La Reunion Island. Ace describes Zamaldelica as a 11-14 week finisher. It is definitely photosensitive: very sensitive to changes in day/night lengths, as explained by Dubi, one of the breeders at ACE who participates here at ICMag.



I grew it in a greenhouse to allow 14 weeks without freeze damage. I live at 40 degrees north, and 7000 feet above sea level, so freezing weather can start as early as late September. Sadly, I had no heat source in the greenhouse, and three straight days of freezing effectively killed the plant. Despite re-vegging, I was able to harvest roughly a kilo of bud.


Here's a photo of a single bud, to show just how big they grew. This single bud weighs two grams, but most of that weight is stems that grew longer during re-veg.

Here is five gallons of fluffy bud, and that represents less than half the harvest from the Zamaldelica plant.

 

[CowboyTed]

Below is a photo showing the very simple method I used for light dep. You'll see a sheet of black plastic hanging from the ceiling of the greenhouse. In the photo it is wrapped up and tied out of the way against the wall. Each night, I slid that plastic so that it hung directly above the plant. Then I wrapped it around the plant, so that it formed a tent-like structure, surrounding the plant and the entire planter as well. The plastic hung to floor. I closed the two open ends of the tent with simple metal clips.


It worked well, and I used the same method for the other plant in the greenhouse. Each afternoon I would close up the tent around each plant, then remove the tent after dark, to avoid holding moisture inside all night.

 

[TheDarkStorm]

Some sativas dont flower properly under 12/12 ....so keep deping them till you reach 10 to 10an a half hours light an a full 13an a half to 14 hours dark an it will work....providing the temperatures an other conditions are kept within range

 

[therevverend]

I don't know about the rest of you but finding the time to light dep for 20 weeks, down to 10 hours...ouch. Once you get north of 45 degrees lat day length drops quickly after the autumn solstice. Along with lowering light intensity. I don't think you'd need to drop it past 11 depending on when you start.

I remember Cowboy Ted made a thread about his light dep idea, you might want to check it out Roman. There's a discussion about it. The consensus was to extend the light dep into September as far as possible. To avoid hermie and re-veg problems. I think if you went right up to the Autumn Solstice you'd be fine.

My idea one year was to start my long season plants outdoors in containers in mid July. By late October they were full in flowering. Then I moved them indoors and finished under an HPS. Worked great, harvested between Thanksgiving and New Year.

 

[romanoweed]

Oh, i got a Plan:
1: create Greenhousedoors, wich are able to open and close Perfectly with zero Feailure.

2: Avoid complicated selfmade Motorisation, instead buy a programmable Motorcontroller like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKdyKeeaOgo

This motors are programmable for duration current and i believe Daytime. They come with software to just easy programm at home. 12 Volt versions for Carbatteries.

Perfect. Biggest difficulty is to build a good closable Roof. But you can always use some Foelasic Foam to allow perfect Closeup. I used Aluminumfoil, glued on a Plastic, was dirtcheap and it was 100 Percent dark inside.
I forgot to paint some strechable Material wich allows for the Roof to open even further ,while securing a consistent pull , so that the Strings doesent unravel, caused by Wind per example.

I need to look if there are Motors that go back and forth? I guess.

If someone knows what i have to look for , help aprechiated.