Would a camera flashing every hour disrupt the flowering stage of a photo plant?

[azorahai]

I have an old smartphone inside my grow space taking photos of my plants every hour so I can track their development, and I recently flipped the light schedule to 12/12h in order to begin flowering my photoperiod plants. I know that light leaks can cause the plants to re-veg (i.e. stop producing flowers), so it's important to seal the grow space as best as I can, but would a <1 second flash from my camera every 1 hour disrupt them as well?

Thanks!

[9fingerleafs]

Very good question. ID say no, i grow outdoors and the moon shines very hard. I got a window sending indirect light outside, the neighbor has a cfl light bulb that sometimes leaves on during the night and lights my tallest colas, i have no hermie issues

[TOKABIGONE]

There are as many opinions on this subject as there are growers. I have been looking into the subject a bit lately under a post "What about the moon". There is also info online, most all is very ambiguous. Intensity, duration and frequency are just some factors involved. A flash is short but is also intense and an hour is not really frequent. I'm inclined to say Maybe, Probably....Sorry but I think you're on your own on this one. Good Luck?

[CaptainWiese91]

Take the pictures without flash and when the light is on? You should still be able to look at the growth is developing

[azorahai]

That would probably be the safest route, but I really wanted to track their development between light cycles as well.

[CaptainWiese91]

If You take a picture in the morning just when the light are on, or you take a picture 3-4 hours before lights are on, won’t make a big difference in my opinion.

Take a picture at the time when the lights are turned on. And so on the following days, would give you the same result

[Farmbuck]

I only use my camera flash when the lights are on.

So following what others have to say.

[DaGreenBlazer]

Personally i would say it's not a good idea - how much disruption it would cause would be individual to that plant, tho either way a camera flash every hour in a dark tent is certainly a risk as it'd would be way too bright and way too frequent.

In relation to how it's affected and also with the moon question; firstly plants don't need absolute darkness to flower; it's more related to the relative contrast between their ambient light and ambient darkness levels - in 9fingerleafs example above, the moon, the neighbours lights, etc are consistently present when the sun goes down so although the relative difference between light & dark may be small, the plant can calculate those luminosities as being part of it's ambient darkness whilst it's counting down to the sun rising and activating it's wake up - certainly if 9fingerleafs went out and randomly started shining high powered lights on it at night then he'd soon see issues too.

The trouble is almost because we've brought plants indoors - our tents and rooms allow us to create absolute blackness at night time, so the relative contrast between light & dark will be alot bigger and thus the smallest luminosity will register alot louder, interrupt it's countdown and incorrectly wake it up.

[9fingerleafs]

Very good point, also run veg 24/0 so never seen darkness before flowering

[kingfish]

I got this of the Rollitup forum
Mar 1, 2014

• #12

Plants are sensitive to changes in light much more than just the ambient level of light. The reason light leaks that are less bright than moonlight can cause problems is because the plant getting the leak was previously in 100% darkness, so 100% darkness to whatever amount of light that leaks in is a big change. In outdoor plants, the ambient level of moonlight is what they are accustomed to during their dark period, so they are less sensitive to light leaks as light leaking onto them causes a smaller percentage change even if the leak has more light in terms of lux. Sorry if my phrasing sucks, my brain is sorta off today. But yeah, my point was, plants respond more to the percentage change of light than to the actual amount of light.

[MrMagic]

I would be inclined to adjust the camera shutter speed to be open as long as possible when it takes the shot. Most smartphones I believe you can adjust the shutter speed in the camera settings

[azorahai]

Unfortunately, the smartphone camera isn't that good, they photos would still be really dark and super grainy.

[azorahai]

I got this of the Rollitup forum
Mar 1, 2014

• #12

Plants are sensitive to changes in light much more than just the ambient level of light. The reason light leaks that are less bright than moonlight can cause problems is because the plant getting the leak was previously in 100% darkness, so 100% darkness to whatever amount of light that leaks in is a big change. In outdoor plants, the ambient level of moonlight is what they are accustomed to during their dark period, so they are less sensitive to light leaks as light leaking onto them causes a smaller percentage change even if the leak has more light in terms of lux. Sorry if my phrasing sucks, my brain is sorta off today. But yeah, my point was, plants respond more to the percentage change of light than to the actual amount of light.

That makes intuitive sense, but when you think about the conditions that outdoor plants are subjected to, such as random lights from the neighbors as 9fingerleafs mentioned, or car headlights from the street, etc., maybe this isn't as obvious as it may seem. I'm thinking that the process which re-vegs photoperiod plants isn't simply "triggered" by a light event, but rather depends on this differential between dark and light periods, i.e. by constant illumination past some threshold defined by the conditions the plant is growing in.

I would love to hear more feedback from the community, but in the meantime I'll keep the camera on throughout both periods and regularly check if they are indeed still producing flowers. In my case, I just switched to flowering, so if they don't start showing signs of bud development soon, I'll probably stop taking photos during night time. Of course, I'll let you know what I find.

[dilvish]

A millisecond flash every hour should not affect the grow. Sustained light would.

[azorahai]

That's what I'm thinking. However, as they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so I'll keep it flashing every hour until I have enough evidence that it does or does not disrupt the flowering stage of my plants. As usual, I'll try to keep the community posted.

[azorahai]

UPDATE: the plants are clearly beginning to flower, even as they are flashed every hour during their dark period. Thank you for you help!

[JeffInCanada]

Great!...We want to see your final video when it is complete!!