Switching to flower cycle and changing regular light cycle times

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desiBud420

New Member
Hi 420,

I want to move my ladies in veg from 18/6 to 12/12, but synchronized with the suns actual cycle outside. These aren't autos, nor do I plan to move them into the sun.

I just need to shift 1.5 hours backward from my original start time thats 7am, to 5:30am (1.5 hours shift). I want to implement this as soon as i figure out whether my ladies will stress and herm from this time shift backwards while switching over to 12/12 for flowering.

This is the DIY tent Ive made. I could only attain this kind of setup with the things i could find locally. Car sunshades (with what seems like mylar type material) lined all around the sides of the plants. A thick brown plastic sheet covering both sides, another black sheet and a baige sheet over that. Before and after below.

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Photo_30-11-2015_8_05_30_pm.jpg


The mild light/glow comes from the left side of this picture. TO minimize that and synchronize with the suns light cycle outisde I was hoping to minimize any chances my ladies might get some light seeping through the tents weak spots (which are mainly on areas above the sunscreen), through the plastic and cotton sheets. It will be minimal, but I dont want to chance anything that might stress them even a tiny bit and send them into herm-mode.

This is whats going on side at the moment: a TOP'd, and 'healing' Crown Royale (from a dropped hot light incident 3 weeks ago), a FIMmed Black Indica, and a late start, TOP'd Bubblegummer. The rest are just side experiments I have going on with dates, wolfberries and something I thought was a Venusflytrap online, but ended up not being one and something else. No clue what it is. ANd one wild male I recovered from some trashed soil I was experimenting germinations a few weeks back. Found it growing outside and moved it back in. SUch versatile plants, they kickback from the least expected.

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Any solid advice on shifting times when entering flowering would be highly appreciated. I have my doubts that the ladies might feel that the initial start time has gone off by 1.5 hours after 3 months, and not sure how they might react. If anyone has any experience some input would be great!
Just finished reading posts and Doc Bud's groovy bud washing routine (and some bud Top'ing techniques) that Im itching to fool around with near harvest time in flowering.

Cheerio!
 
You can just put them into 12/12 and set the time schedule however you want -you won't have any problem. I've had erratic schedules in the veg room for years as I come and go in there at all hours. I've never had a problem as they are not so fussy during the veg period. Do whatever you want with the transition to 12/12. They won't care at all.


As for flowering, once they are in the flowering room I avoid all light leaks and keep to that 12 hour schedule. However, there are many power outages here so it's not all in my control. I use digital timers so that even if there are power outages, the basic framework of on/off times stays as consistent as possible. Despite the power interruptions over the last six years or so, the plants haven't shown any problems so they're obviously able to forgive some lighting weirdness .
The times I've caused hermies (nanners) it was always from light leaks during the dark period- Indicator lights on power bars and electrical devices. Definitely keep the dark period consistent. Also I got one strain that just grew nanners every cycle regardless. I'm pretty sure that the seeds for that strain were from a hermie though.
 
Weaselcracker said:
You can just put them into 12/12 and set the time schedule however you want -you won't have any problem. I've had erratic schedules in the veg room for years as I come and go in there at all hours. I've never had a problem as they are not so fussy during the veg period. Do whatever you want with the transition to 12/12. They won't care at all.


As for flowering, once they are in the flowering room I avoid all light leaks and keep to that 12 hour schedule. However, there are many power outages here so it's not all in my control. I use digital timers so that even if there are power outages, the basic framework of on/off times stays as consistent as possible. Despite the power interruptions over the last six years or so, the plants haven't shown any problems so they're obviously able to forgive some lighting weirdness .
The times I've caused hermies (nanners) it was always from light leaks during the dark period- Indicator lights on power bars and electrical devices. Definitely keep the dark period consistent. Also I got one strain that just grew nanners every cycle regardless. I'm pretty sure that the seeds for that strain were from a hermie though.
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Hi WC,

THank you for your post and input yet again. I am really relieved about the transition factor. By the sound of it, with all those erratic power interruptions I could have sworn you're around my area, but I guess this is something thats becoming more common around the globe. I have an hours power interrution after every 2 hours, 3-4 times a day. I have a 6W LED unit that kicks in 1 second after the electricity goes for that hour in the day. At night a generator powers our house so I dont loose that much energy per hour during the generator phase.

Thanks a heap! I'll surely try to kill all lights of any kind. THis is my first grow, into 3rd month from a damaged CR and if they turn hermie I'll have a shitty new year indeed. Had these plants been mine Id have veg'd a little longer but im being pushed to flowering by 'the owner' of these ladies. I'm just a humble smoker turned grower trying my hand at growing.

Thanks and have a great week ahead!

cheers..
 
Wow desi you do have it rough with the power supply. :(
I don't have it nearly that bad- here it's just storms mostly that bring down trees on the lines.
I don't have the wisdom/experience to say how that's going to work out for you in flowering, I was mostly just addressing the transition period. Hopefully what you're doing with the led will keep them stable. I wonder if it would be better if there was no 1 second wait of darkness before the emergency led came on ?

I don't know if the info in the following two paragraphs is actually true (lol), but in my experience there are two types of hermies. This is how I think things work based on the last six years of indoor growing, with quite a few misguided grow attempts before that. Take it with a grain of salt. I haven't tried to actually do any research on the topic and always do things the hard way.

First there are what I call 'true' hermaphrodites. These grow balls as well as pistils and will show up around the time the plant sexes or begins flowering. I tend to think of them as genetically hermie from the get-go and not caused by stress, though I could be wrong. I've never personally seen a hermie with balls show up later in flowering, though I have missed spotting them early in flowering and got lots of seeds for punishment. Hermies with balls have ( I think) male and female DNA and so the seeds can be either male or female.

'Nanners' are a hermie trait that show up later in flowering and can be stress induced, as well as genetic. The nanners, little yellow flowers which are not contained in a 'pollen sac' ie 'ball', grow on female plants later in budding- usually showing up about 2/3 of the way through flowering. Nanners don't produce huge amounts of pollen like the flowers from balls do. The seed produced from nanners has no male DNA and is therefore feminized (I think) , though it might be prone to growing plants that also produce nanners.

For over two years I grew the strain I mentioned which always popped out a few nanners later in flowering. I would usually get maybe one or two nanners on each large bud and I would pick them off. They didn't keep on coming after I removed them. I'd get seeds but not an overwhelming number. It kind of sucked having to inspect the buds and dig out nanners but it was manageable.
I think if you get hermies caused by the light schedule it will most likely be in the form of nanners and I think you'll be able to still get plenty of good bud if you do.
 
You may simply extend the darkness hours to synchronize your lighting schedule with the day light. You must have complete darkness to flower your cannabis plants properly. You my consider constructing a wooden 2"x4" frame surrounded by car reflector shades taped light tight with aluminum foil tape (used for air ducting) with a small fan circulating airflow to build an enclosure for your plants.
 
if you are concerned about power loss during the day then have your light cycle be when the generator is on, I have my light cycle at night because i work in the day and like to play with the girls so 5pm its morning 5 am its nighttime for me
 
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