New Grower Benefits of 24/0 ?

[Milky]

Just wondering if there are any benefits of running the lights at 24/0?
Faster maturity and similar yield but in a shorter amount of time?
Winter is coming and I´ll be drawing fresh air from outside so I´d like to finish up a bit earlier.

 

[Mr Piggy]

People on site used to experiment with light times and came to the conclusion that autos benefit most from 20/4. They never noticed much difference between 20/4 and 24/0. So save yourself some bill money and give the plants a little rest too.

 

[AndyBotwin]

I personally have not seen any better results from 24/0, and if anything, growth is worse. I ran 20/4 last time and did not see an improvement, so now I'm back to 18/6 which is what I have run during my best grows.

 

[Grey Bear]

I grow on 24/0
I think I get better yields using it.
However, that is an anecdotal observation, not an empirically derived conclusion.
I don't have the 3 to 5 years it would take to do a conclusive study, not to mention funding.
Most Autoflower strains probably do have an optimal dark period, but determining that means years of study with just that strain. And you would need to have "optimal" defined.
This has been done with some crops that thrive in short dark period environments.

Also on 24/0 there is no regular dip or spike in power usage other than normal, so just looks like we are heavy appliance and AC users, not an uncommon thing where I reside.
Just in case someone that cared was looking.

 

[Magic]

Something I'd like to point out, a short dark period when it comes to actual daylight hours is 8-9 hours. That's in the best places to grow outdoors. I want to get to the bottom of this once and for all

 

[gbd]

I tried 24/0 for about half the life of my current Mephisto grows and will never use it again. I had the same thoughts of faster growth, maturation and higher yield but noticed the growth was slower than when I had used 20/4. Also the plants never looked as happy and never raised their leaves to show they were having a good time. In fact I noticed almost no leaf movement that one would expect. When I switched to 20/4 they started raising their leaves good morning at lights on and waving goodnight/lowering before lights out.

 

[Magic]

Canna plants are C4 plants. This I know, C4 plants do not "need" a dark period. But one thing about this no dark period is unnatural to any place the canna plant is native. That being said, They will grow under 24 hours of light but it will be unnatural, and anything unnatural will cause stress.

OK let's look at Cali,Oregon, and Colorado neither one of these states get more that 16 hours of sunlight each day per year. So this is my question why do we give more that 16 hours of light to our plants when anything over this would be unnatural to the plant?

 

[pop22]

I read just recently that more than 18hours of light is nothing more than a waste of electricity. very little is gained by running 24/0. Also, there ARE metabolic processes that are carried out during dark periods more efficiently.

 

[thetreeman]

It wouldnt surprise me if light intensity had something to do with this also. Maybe there is only so much energy a plant can absorb/process in a 24 hour period. Using high intensity LED's, you could 'fill the tank' much faster than if you were using lower intensity CFL's for example. Under a lower intensity light, the plants might benefit more from 24/0 because they may never 'fill the tank' so to speak, and use the energy as fast as it is absorbed. Using a more intense or spectrum specific light, the tank might fill fast, and then the plant may need time to process the energy absorbed and convert it into growth, etc. So maybe the best light cycle depends on the intensity and spectrum and Im sure to a degree, the specific genetics of the plant being grown.

 

[Dazed]

Canna plants are C4 plants. This I know, C4 plants do not "need" a dark period. But one thing about this no dark period is unnatural to any place the canna plant is native. That being said, They will grow under 24 hours of light but it will be unnatural, and anything unnatural will cause stress.

OK let's look at Cali,Oregon, and Colorado neither one of these states get more that 16 hours of sunlight each day per year. So this is my question why do we give more that 16 hours of light to our plants when anything over this would be unnatural to the plant?

I hear this, seems to me that anything "unnatural" will have some kind of detrimental effect. When people clone or top plants, they always expect a period of time for the plant to recover, with auto's that not good.