Photo Period and Budding Problems

Hey guys im new the forums and happy to find a good community. So i have some questions I have been growing and I have a sativa plant that is about 3 months growing now. What happened is i let it grow on 24 hours of light on flouresant bulbs 60w total. Then when i thought it was tall enough put it to 12 hours of light under those bulbs. After 2 months of vegitative growth and 1 month of flowering i did not get any flowers nor bud. I have many calyxs on the nodes between branch and stem but the plant ended up loosing about half of its bottum leaves. I bought a nice 100w HPS light and have all my lights on this plant now totalling 400w. The plant is as of now back on 24 hours of light to regenerate. Am I doing the right thing putting it back on 24 hours of light and trying to get alot of growth back. I also gave it nitrogen to help growth. The top has grown alot of healthy leaves since it has been on the 24 hours in the past couple days. How long should i wait to put it back on 12/12 i want some bud lol.

You messed up switching after one month. Those calyxes would have begun to multiply rapidly. Sativas take 3-4, sometimes 5 months to flower.

You really should have been patient. You're not going to force the plant any more than it wants to.

This may have caused undue stress which may cause it to turn hermaphroditic. :(

Sativas require patience and lots of lights. The plant will probably hermie on you, but switch it back to 12/12 and let it finish.

Ok ill switch back to 12/12 i have some new seeds starting out but they were given to me so well have to see if their indica or sativa. Whats a great site to buy from thats safe guys?

Quit dicking around with the light schedule.

Personally, I'd put 'em under an 18/6 schedule, and leave 'em there for a couple/few weeks to recover from this abuse. If you keep switching, and not allowing acclimation to the new schedule, they'll turn bad on ya. Never put a suffering plant into flowering. If you keep it vegging for the next couple of weeks (barring any further abuse) the chances of hermaphrodites diminishes.

Although it is possible to grow plants under a 24/0 schedule, it isn't optimal, and it can do more harm than good for a suffering plant.

If you are going to offer 400w of light, it would be a much better plan to get a 400w HPS. It can be effectively used throughout the growth and flowering stages. Provides many, many more lumens, and the usable light penetrates deeper. If it is a sativa dominate, the 400w HPS will be necessary. Your existing lights will not penetrate the canopy very deep, nor do they have the lumens of an HPS.

alright man thanks, i never changed it back to 12/12 so its been on vegatative for about a week now. My HPS is a bad one from home depot at 70 watts ><. Ill have to purchase a 600w HPS soon.

I know I didn't just hear more about lumens.

Light and Plants

LUMENS HAVE NOT, CAN NOT, AND NEVER WILL MATTER TO A PLANT.

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Originally Posted by khyberkitsune

I know I didn't just hear more about lumens.

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Yup, sure did. Lumens are an accepted (lighting industry-wide) term for more power output in (and around) the visible range. Strangely enough, they refer to the lumens (a quantity of color output) in the very same bulbs we use in our gardens, so I don't see the need to confuse the issue with unnecessary bullshit.

You seem to rely heavily on graphs...I want to see the graphs that show the spikes, and witness for myself that more lumens do not affect the infra red and uyltra violet wavelengths at all. I want to see that vertical step up into the visible range. Or does the graph show the bell-shaped sloping increase across nieghboring spectrums? In other words, if you add visible energy, it tends to affect the outer edges as well.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but don't more lumens equate to more light and deeper penetration anyway? Why offer full spectrum at all? Why not just stay at the infra red or ultra violet (non-visible to humans) wavelengths? Perhaps because growth isn't the only thing the plants need? Stuff like energy for maintaining disease resistance and healing, energy for bulking-up and storing nutrients and minerals, energy for proper metabolism...? Or are all these things provided in abundance solely by the unseen? How many chlorophyll's are there, and what is their function? I believe we already discussed in another thread, that chlorophyll B absorbs in the green-yellow range. (a hint why some of us like the full spectrum)

I do not mind being corrected if proven wrong, but if you wish to correct my postings, I suggest you add your knowledge and insight, not just a link and a rather uninformative statement. Otherwise, you look like a copy-n-paste lackey. And ya never know...I might be teachable.