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ive read that for the first 3 days of your 12/12 cycle that you should give the plant 3 days of complete darkness before re introducing light. this somehow sets the internal clock of the plant to let it know to start flowering more efficiently or something. does anyone know?
Myth or fact? Who knows for sure, but it's total BS in my opinion, unless someone can show me some real proof or evidence for once. Plants need a couple things to thrive, and one of them is light. In my humble opinion that's just 3 days that you are depriving it of something the plant needs to help it grow. And even if it happens to be beneficial, does it outweigh the benefit of three days of proper light?
It's supposed to trigger flowering quickly by temporarily peaking levels of florigen, inducing the formation of sexual characteristics.
Will you see flowers a couple of days earlier? Yeah, probably...
Will you still be ahead by a couple of days at the end of the cycle? Less likely...
Will you see the same final weight? Probabley not...
Can be a useful trick to spot your boys quickly, though.
so should i do it or should i re introduce a regular 12 hour light session?
I think rhizome is saying that if you do the light trick, you may be able to spot males a couple days earlier than normal, and you do this at the cost of a slightly smaller yield. So... are you trying to weed out males? If not, then there is no need. Just go to 12/12.
Im with opie yutts on this one.Ive tried that whole darkness thing but it wasnt three days it was only 24 hours of complete darkness and then go back to 12/12 but it didnt do anything different then when you just go straight to 12/12
I have heard of leaving the lights off for 3 days right before harvest not when you enter the Flowering cycle. The supposed advantage to this is the plant knows it's life cycle is ending and increases resin production trying to attract pollen.
I don't see any advantage to turning the lights off that long to start flowering. It just doesn't make any sense.