Man the main airpump line was laying on the bottom of the tent this morning. Got it hooked back up and more air in. They were still looking good though. I didn't get as much time this morning to work on it and hang the red light. If my light goes off of it's 18/6 at 10am this morning, and is set to go back on at 4pm, if i left that happen and turned it back off at 6pm and then set it to start the 12/12 at 9pm with the light going on would those 2 hours of light mess things up? Or should i let it veg another day and turn off at 9am tomorrow morning and leave off for 12 hrs coming on at 9pm tomorrow night?
In cases like this, i just leave the lights off for additional time to 'set' it up for the 12/12. In my 3rd grow i believe i left the lights off for 24 hrs before i started 12/12. Kinda like a way to really tell your plants its that time of the season to start flowering. Its perfectly safe
Plants are looking good. The stretch during the dark period is serious. They all popped a few inches! Drank like 2+ gallons of water easy too. Day 2 has started with a little LST and a full res water change to ~50% of the transition week strength mix. Also lowered the lights down last night to about 15" from the 18" it was at. The info sheet on the lights says 12-18" for flower so I figured only 12 hours of light vs 18 I might as well move a little closer. Not sure if I should leave the lights more at veg height or flower height during the transition?
So in this case, you have some options. Its absolutely better to get your lights as close as possible to the plants during flowering, or at least after the stretch. The further your lights are, the more stretch you will get so you can use this to your advantage. Same being said for keeping them close. For example, if you have ample space and you feel your plants just arent very tall as you want, you could raise your light to induce more stretching. However if your space is limited, you could put them closer to encourage tighter node spacing and more compact/shorter plants. One thing is certain though, once stretch is over (21 days in flower) you absolutely want the lights as close as possible to encourage the best bud growth. The closer the light is to buds, the more umol's it gets. A plant can use i believe up to 1200 umol's without the addition of co2. The further the light is from plants tops, the less umol's its getting. This is why the top buds are always the biggest (aside from being a main stem vs side shoots), because they are receiving the best amount of umol's as they are closest to the light. Now whats good about your grow area and lights is you have perfect light coverage, that is to say your plants aren't outside directly under the light which means you are getting 'perfect light coverage'. The umol's from the light falls off incredibly quickly the further outside from directly under light, so you're golden in that case. Your buds will recieve the best light coverage they can get so its just about now getting the light as close as you can without burning the tops of leave/buds from having the light too close. Fans blowing on top of canopy definitely help immensenly so you can have the light closer. 12" is what you will want to try around day 21 to 25, when you're sure the stretch is done. From that point on you will want to keep a very close eye on the upper leaves to make sure they arent being nuked from light heat or intensity. if the leaves start turning crunchy or are all showing weird issues, leaf taco'ing up/inwards, thats a good sign the light needs to be backed off a bit.
Im not sure where you heard to do defoliation at f-day 8, but ive never heard of that even once. You usually do not want to do much if any defoliation during stretch UNLESS your aim is to stunt the stretching cause you're limited on Vertical space. The norm has always been to do a heavy defoliation a day or 2 before flip (day for hydro, 2-3 days for soil), and then by the time stretch is over on day 21 you do another final heavy defoliation. Throughout the remainder of flowering you can just do a couple to a few leaves every 2 or 3 days, if need be. Usually tucking leaves is done for those that dont want to cut more off.
Just the hydroguard has been enough to combat root rot in my case, plus adds the beneficials.
