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Lighting

I

Imthatguytim

New member
Im growing for the 1st time and right now i have the lights set on 250w for 24/7 since they basically started about 6 wks ago from seeds. I’ve read so many different durations im not sure if i should switch to 18/6! Can anybody help me out on this?
 
Everyone has to speak from experience because there's no data on "what's the optimum light schedule". If there is, please, someone, share the scientific evidence. It's all observation and no science. Some people will claim the plants need "rest" so don't have your lights on 24 hours. But that is an anthropomorphic claim. I go with 18/6 in veg to save money.
 
Some people also use 20/4. Right now I have my photos and autos on 20/4. I had them on all the time but decided I didn't like my electric bill as high as I usually am, so I cut 4 hours off. Like PeterMatanzas mentioned, it's kind of personal preference because there's not a lot of data on it yet. For example, I've tried 18/6 too and I feel like I get just a little more growth from the extra 2 hours of light. I actually thought about experimenting with adding time on the flower cycle to see if I got bigger yields. Can't add too much obviously, but isn't it only 10.5 hours of uninterrupted darkness to flower? That means you should be able to safely add another hour of light in my mind. Something I may look into once I get my grows all set up again after I move. For now they're set on 12/12 and 20/4.
 
Photoperiod strains like defined hours of light. Autoflower strains can go 24/0 the whole cycle or 20/4 or 18/6 etc. Photos in Vegetative period like 18/6 in my opinion. When the plant is big enough you change the lighting to 12/12 so that they start to produce flowers (Bloom period). In nature, Cannabis typically blooms late in the season (late summer) when the sun sets sooner each day. The reduction in light tells the plant to produce bigger, denser flowers or "buds" "nugs" etc.

Autolowers don't need this and can generally produce well before photoperiods...that was one of the reasons they were created that way...takes less time to produce healthy fay buds!!
 
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