New Grower Benefits of 24/0 ?

[Wait what?]

It's a living thing and it needs darkness, Yin/yang, same as people. I ran my autos 20/4 and saw vigorous response to 18/6 when it began flowering. Went back to 20/4 a week later, but in hindsight, should have kept it that way to test the idea of a little extra darkness for photos in flower

 

[Dazed]

It's a living thing and it needs darkness, Yin/yang, same as people. I ran my autos 20/4 and saw vigorous response to 18/6 when it began flowering. Went back to 20/4 a week later, but in hindsight, should have kept it that way to test the idea of a little extra darkness for photos in flower

18/6 all the way for me, I see more growth after dark period.

 

[Heavily Medicated]

I think a short dark period would be benificial to getting the autos to begin flowering. All autos have regular photoperiod genes in there background, be it recessive or not. If I recall correctly, photoperiod plants actually are responding to the length of darkness, not the length of light to induce flowering. The longer nights trigger the flowering response, not the shorter days. This would lend some credibility to the possibilty that a short dark period may help the autos begin flowering a little earlier. Just a thought.

 

[evol]

Yes photoperiods do respond to dark by producing phytochrome which in return signals them to flower. I am quite sure autos produce it as well because erratic light schedules can cause hermaphroditism in autos.

 

[Kozminski]

It can also depend on the genetics. I have some Spyder that does very well under 24/0. But I also like sativa autos and super autos, and those seem to do a lot better with some darkness at night, like 18/6. So I run my photos on veg at 18/6 and grow my autos in there as well. Then I can make the most use of the space and the plants seem happy. Maybe the Spyder s don't finish quite as fast as if they were 24/0, but they still do just fine, and with the variety of different strains that I grow, everyone seems happy under 18/6. But that just my preference, and I haven't done any real scientific comparison, just the notes in my head from past grows.

 

[Grey Bear]

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.

That is why you can't just paint all autoflowers with the same light demands.
Strain will play a significant part in a plants lighting requirements , just like their nutrient demands.
Most of us try to get as close to one particular system or style as we can because it is simpler.

 

[faded187]

24/0.... because im scared of the dark. that's why.

 

[Grey Bear]

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.

Un-natural? and detrimental?

Let's think about this.

In my case.

I grow hybridized (by man) plants in a manmade plastic bucket, bathed in a manmade nutrient solution, under manmade lights, in a manmade room, with a manmade climate.
Depending on ones perspective, that is the epitome of un-natural.
Is it detrimental? Take a look at my grows, they are at least fair.

When you plant the seed where you want it to grow, that is not natural. You intervened in it's distribution, you water it, that is un-natural, if you prepare the soil, that is un-natural.
How much interference is acceptable before it is "un-natural"?

 

[Milky]

Thanks for contributing! I like this subject!

When you say growth is worse I understand that the framework will not develop as much since the stretch mostly occurs at lights out like with mushrooms for example but does this mean less flowers as well? The plants look smaller for sure but what about bud sites and the size of the colas?

For stealth it would be a very good idea running the lights at 24/0.

Leaves chasing the light in the morning and waving goodnight is like if you eat breakfast the same time for a month and then suddenly skip breakfast or decide to fast that day, your tummy will go all funny and your brain too as it´s controlled by hormones. Now I don´t know if plants work the same way but the seem to know what time to wake up and go to bed after a while.

Just because is a plant receives a certain x amount of light in a day in nature doesn´t have to mean it´s optimal. Humans evolved due to cooking food and the making energy more accessible to the body and brain. I guess by using a powerful high intensity light you could get away with less light hours which is similar to humans (raw/cooked food).

It makes sense that auto are sensitive to the photoperiod as they are not 100% ruderalis, but not as sensitive as photos. I guess it´s strain related as well.

 

[Dazed]

I can only speak from my own experiences but I found it's not only stretch that occurs during lights out, pistol and trich production seem more prevalent after lights out period-to me anyway.