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My Experiment w/ the 12/1 Light Schedule

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    My Experiment w/ the 12/1 Light Schedule

    Apologies for the long read. I have two grows going. Two Purple Haze/Malawi and four Malawi. Both are Sativa’s from Ace Seeds. The Purple Haze plants are in the 2x4x7’11” tent under the HLG 350 Rspec. The Malawi plants are in the 4x4x7’11” tent under the HLG Scorpion Rspec. After the last attempt to grow 100% sativa indoors where my plants grew into the light, I’ve tried to understand how/why that happened, along with accepting that I was not paying close enough attention to the details.

    Thanks to input from sativa growers on this forum I learned that swings in temperature and humidity, (depending on the cultivar) sometimes even a couple of degrees can cause the plant to produce wide node spacing and weak stems. My plants fit that description. I’m convinced the 8-10 degree swings I was allowing weren’t good. Another factor is I allowed too much veg time. Because of germination/seedling issues, I had three plants about a week younger than one, and that led me to veg them all for about 5 weeks. Even if I had limited the veg period to 4 weeks, I think it would have been too much. In flower, the 12/12 light schedule may have contributed to the leggy plants I had.


    Google also led me to the 12/1 light schedule and grow strategy. GWE’s article on the subject led to some threads and google took over from there. The 12/1 or as some call it, the Gas Lantern light schedule has been around for a loooong time. The 12/1 schedule I’m using in both tents for the current grow has been in service from first light at germination. Lights on 12 hours, off 5 ½ hours, on one hour, off 5 ½ hours, repeat for entirety of vegetative period. In this case I flipped the lights to flower after about a 3 week veg period.

    I’m using this light schedule in both tents for the flower period. First two weeks 11 hours on 13 hours off. Then reduce by one half hour every 2 weeks. Eventually working down to 9/15 during the last weeks of flower.
    Some say that using the 12/1 light schedule will diminish yields and make the plants grow slower. If that’s true I haven’t noticed it. I’m using it to experiment and see if it helps control the plant height. I’m curious to see if the stretch is less dramatic with this light schedule.

    One thing I have noticed is the lung room is not heating up like it does when I’m using an 18/6 schedule. Less heat is making it easier to control the atmosphere. These girls are looking pretty and healthy. I like the color and the node spacing is good with strong lateral branching. I’ve not seen lateral branching like this in previous grows. The leaf tips are showing just the slightest burn. I think the light schedule is helping there as I have not changed the feed schedule or strength of the nutrient solution. I can’t speak to the yields yet but fingers crossed things continue to go well.
    Auto/Photo Tent: Gorilla 2x4x7'11" HLG 350R, Infinity 4" w/Carbon Filter, Coco 50/50 perlite
    Autopot system
    : 1 Purple Haze/Malawi 100% Sativa Ace Seeds
    Photo Tent: Gorilla 4x4x7'11" HLG Scorpion R, Infinity 6” w/Carbon Filter, Coco 50/50 perlite, Autopot system: 2 Purple Haze/Malawi & 2 Malawi 100% Sativa Ace seeds
    Nutrients: CX Horticulture - full line for both tents

    #2
    Thanks for posting golfnrl. I may just try this light schedule on my next grow. I struggle a bit with temps at the end of my “day” so this may be the solution for my next round starting up next month. I’m going 3 or 4 Strawberry Gorilla aitos and an OGKush photo That I’ll veg indoors, then flower outside. They look happy and healthy. I’m following your grow for sure.
    I’m curious about watching the sunrise and sunset here locally and when the days hit 12/12 putting the photos outside. Might be a bad idea but I’m gonna try it (unless someone has experience here and tells me not to!) Cheers! Looking forward to your ladies maturation.
    Current Grow - 5 Tangie-matics from FastBuds
    Equipment
    AC Infinity (UIS Controller 69 Pro - WIFI)
    2x4x6 Tent
    6” ACI Cloudline Pro Inline fan / Carbon Filter (Port 1)
    4.5L Cloudforge Humidifier T3 (Port 3)
    6” Cloudray oscillating (Port 4)
    Light: Spider Farmer
    SF-2000 200w (Port 2)

    Containers:
    AC Infinity Fabric Pots
    3 – 5gal
    2 – 3gal

    Medium:
    Soil – Fox Farm Ocean Forest
    Perlite
    Earth Worm Castings

    Nutrients:
    Fox Farm
    Grow Big 6-4-4
    Tiger Bloom 2-8-4
    Big Bloom Plant Food 0-0.5-0.7
    BushDoctor Cal Mag 1-0-0

    Neptune Harvest
    Seaweed Plant Food 0-0-1

    Comment


      #3
      I apologize to anyone following this thread. I lost track of it.

      If I had to do this over again, I wouldn't do it. The reason being I had some doubt that the plant's root ball would not have time to fully develop. My thought is that translates to smaller stalks, stems, and branches. That is how these plants grew. I don't mean that they were stunted or anything, in fact, they looked really good, but the stalks and stems weren't as thick as I would like. I was also disappointed that I didn't experience the ability to control the height to the degree I had hoped. The 12/1 light schedule did not really slow down the stretch or affect the yield. After harvest I looked at the roots. They were healthy and white in color. The root ball wasn't as dense as I've seen in other grows. Although I did harvest a good amount of some decent smoke. All in all it was was fun to do but didn't accomplish what I wanted.
      Auto/Photo Tent: Gorilla 2x4x7'11" HLG 350R, Infinity 4" w/Carbon Filter, Coco 50/50 perlite
      Autopot system
      : 1 Purple Haze/Malawi 100% Sativa Ace Seeds
      Photo Tent: Gorilla 4x4x7'11" HLG Scorpion R, Infinity 6” w/Carbon Filter, Coco 50/50 perlite, Autopot system: 2 Purple Haze/Malawi & 2 Malawi 100% Sativa Ace seeds
      Nutrients: CX Horticulture - full line for both tents

      Comment

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