Switching from 24hr veg to 18hr

[Thunderbrain]

I've been growing for a long time under fluoro shoplights, both veg and flower, and the yield has been good but not great. Now I've decided it's time for a change, so I put the vegging plants under 100w cfl's (1 light per plant, going to 2 lights per plant when they go to bigger pots before flowering) and when they go to flower in 2-3 weeks they'll be under 2 Mars Hydro 600's.

I kept a few veggies under the shoplights to compare, and the ones under the cfl's are becoming bushier with more growth, so I'm hoping the end result will be worth the expense, especially when they go to flower under their new led's.

Anyway, they were getting 24hrs light under the shoplights until they went to flower. I'd like to cut that down to 18hrs and I was wondering if I could do that in the middle of the current veg cycle or if I should wait until I put new plants out to veg.

In case anyone is curious, I'm growing NL#5's that originally came from Marc Emery seeds a long time ago, and I just sprouted a couple of WW fems from Crop King for a change of pace.

 

[Kalimaki420]

Should be no problem I running 16/8 in veg and recently changed my light schedule from day to night.
I gave 24/0 some days and than switched to new time and back to 16/8 without any problem.

 

[uptheholler2]

Hey TB! Actually I have read a lot of studies concerning tomato and vegetable growing and really in everyone of them plants do not perform as well under 24 hr light cycles. The same holds true for weed. There are necessary physiological processes that occur during darkness. You will notice better growth under 18 hr light cycles and you can save the extra bucks! Best of luck in all you grow!

 

[Thunderbrain]

Thanks for your reply. I just wanted to make sure there would be no problem switching from 24 to 18 in the middle of the veg cycle.

They've been vegging for about 3 weeks now (4 full sets of nodes & leaves) I FIM'ed them a week ago, LST'd them yesterday (first time trying both... I've always topped them, but never tried these methods), and if I can change the light schedule now I will, but I don't want to shock them any more than necessary. I have to wait a few more days anyway for my new timers to get here, I just wasn't sure if it would hurt them at this point.

Maybe they'll like it.