Light schedule variations during flowering and consequences...

Heya guys, so luckily, unluckily, been out of work while doing my first grow. But since i'm about to head back to work ...wondering what say... shutting off lights an hour early, or shutting them on an hour late will do???

I assume the variations you want to avoid are waking up plants mid-sleep...but i'm talking about letting them sleep longer, or have light a bit longer due to my schedule.

Don't have money for a timer. :)

1. there's some risk...adding light; one or two hours?...MIGHT?.. slow the flowering growth?...some strains?...MIGHT? want to go back to vegging?...(you know...growing without growing flowering buds).

2. adding dark time...is probably safer; especially..if you have strong HID lighting.

3. get a timer with your first paycheck...:thumbsup:...congrats: enjoy your grow.

4. Good Luck...:pimp:

Just get a timer :thumbsup:.
I have about 5 of them that i get from my hydro store everytime I buy a HID kit.
They sell them even in walmart, lowes, HD, most hardware stores.

I have one that is also a surge protector and has 8 outlets, 4 are timed and the other 4 are not. -$25

For the 5-20 bucks you spend on a timer it helps out in the long run, especially when growing (which in my opinion is already benifiting you), helps you save money.
:jointsmile:

@ therealribbit:

Are you in veg, or flower? Last time I flowered sativas I gave them 11 on / 13 off. Seems like where some sativas came from, the photoperiod's 11 hours long at the end of the season. (there's a link around here somewhere to an article about this idea.) I had started flower at 12/12, and I cut my "day" length back an hour mid-flower without problems and the plants did seem to like it. You do need a timer, though, or you're asking for hermies.

Dutch, I wanted to let you know Home Depot started carrying a new 4-bulb T-8 fixture (Lithonia Lighting) that's very compact. $69, I think. Anyway, you could run 2 of 'em side-by-side and have a po' man's T5x8 setup.

But what really sounds fun is rewiring one of those things with an Icecap ballast ($160, like Oldmac uses) and 'put the wood' to those fluoros. As close together as they've got those tubes spaced on that fixture, the intensity's gotta approach T5HO level. You can get T-8's by the case for like $2 a tube or so, and drive the snot out of 'em for awhile-- and change them out frequently.

Thing is, you can get 2 lights for the price of one ballast...:wtf: Anyway, you mentioned somewhere about looking at lights...:hippy:

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Dutch, I wanted to let you know Home Depot started carrying a new 4-bulb T-8 fixture (Lithonia Lighting) that's very compact. $69, I think. Anyway, you could run 2 of 'em side-by-side and have a po' man's T5x8 setup.

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Thanks for the info ...Hermie...:thumbsup:

...but, you're 2 hours too late...I just ordered a ..2ft, 4 (6500k) bulbs, HO T5 outfit..($150)..it should fit my needs well...:jointsmile:
after a lot of thought..I think this is the ideal vegging light...in a closet....with 8-10 beer cups of the strain of your choice.

HID is still the way to go for flowering.

"if you're gonna be a Bear?...be a grizzly"

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=Dutch Pimp

HID is still the way to go for flowering.

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no disrespect intended....but i'll argue that with my LED's....since flowering with them my meds are far more potent and i need it for severe neuropathic pain!:smokin::smokin:

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Originally Posted by stra8outtaWeed

no disrespect intended....but i'll argue that with my LED's....since flowering with them my meds are far more potent and i need it for severe neuropathic pain!:smokin::smokin:

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no problem...LED's are coming along, nicely...HID, CFL's, fluorescents is old school...like me..:D

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Originally Posted by Dutch Pimp

no problem...LED's are coming along, nicely...HID, CFL's, fluorescents is old school...like me..:D

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thanks...i was not trying to be confrontational at all...just opining! :thumbsup:

and to therealribbit....get a timer bro...beg borrow but don't steal!:jointsmile:

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Originally Posted by stra8outtaWeed

no disrespect intended....but i'll argue that with my LED's....since flowering with them my meds are far more potent and i need it for severe neuropathic pain!:smokin::smokin:

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No disrespect intended, but I'm not a believer. Especially since claiming they are more potent. Perhaps better than you've grown before, but potency is subjective. :jointsmile:
How's your yield in comparison?

Lmao i love that my thread got hijacked, but ....


So adding dark is a bit safer? cause that's most likely what i'd be doing, or acutally reducing light time... cause my dark period is during daylight hours..

Basically wondering if i get home an hour late to turn on lights, etc. affects that much?

*Edit ... Also, can i minimally change lighting start times by making in a couple minutes earlier each day?

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Originally Posted by therealribbit

Lmao i love that my thread got hijacked, but ....

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Awww...did we ruin the continuity of your thread...? :(
Sorry if we know each other and converse freely, but your question was answered, and there were no further questions from you.
Here is the answer again in a nutshell: (in case you can't muddle through the hijacking)
Keeping them on a strict schedule is a must. Improper or inconsistent schedules cause stress and weaken the plant.
Sure, you can dick with the lighting schedule all you want. But if you want quality and consistency, get a friggin timer and quit whining.

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Originally Posted by Rusty Trichome

No disrespect intended, but I'm not a believer. Especially since claiming they are more potent. Perhaps better than you've grown before, but potency is subjective. :jointsmile:
How's your yield in comparison?

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none taken Rusty....been growin for 6 years and smokin since i was 19 so i have a great appreciation for our fine herb. I was injurred in a bad snow skiing accident basically disentragating my T-12 vertabrea...i am incomplete spinal cord injury and i have severe nueropathic pain...most strains do not even come close to helping me with my pain so after i started using LED's i noticed that my joints burned longer and has a liquid ring of oil on the paper that devlops soon after lighting up...more so than ever before and when i can still feel the effects hours later which was not happening under the HPS grown...i smoke 24/7 to control my pain. This is the main reason i joined the forum to share my experiences as growing under HPS seemed old hat and nothing new. I have noticed that many LED grow threads stop without finishing...so i do understand your skepticism!:thumbsup:

I always ran my plants 70 days of flower to insure my meds would be as couchlock as possible just to calm the crazy burning sensations in my legs. i have only finished 3 crops of full LED and the first was 380 grams, the second was 437grams and third was 357....the third one was during some really cold weather and i sturned the exhaust fan way down to conserve the heat in the room and my plant did not transpire as much and i also overwatered them severely...so my yields are good i just am relearning that i cant pump the water to them like i did under my 1000's. The LED's i use were designed for commercial grenhouses as supplemental lighting and to be hung at 13 feet above the plants...using 3w diodes not the 1 watters in the UFO lights.

here is a few shots of my past grows under HPS!

and sorry TRR...didn't mean to hijack your thread :hippy:

on a final note Rusty T....i like your motto in your sig:jointsmile:

I wasn't implying LED was lesser-than. Was just saying that there is a subjectiveness to every gardener's claims. After all...everyone want's to produce the best. Claiming they are equal to HID's, I'd likely hesitantly agree to, but better than...? Still I'm skeptical, but it is a young science I haven't needed nor could I afford anyway.
For me, it's akin to hydro versus soil. Been doing this a while, and have smoked many hydro buds that were supposedly "killer". And likely they were...until compared to mine. :thumbsup:

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Originally Posted by Rusty Trichome

I wasn't implying LED was lesser-than. Was just saying that there is a subjectiveness to every gardener's claims. After all...everyone want's to produce the best. Claiming they are equal to HID's, I'd likely hesitantly agree to, but better than...? Still I'm skeptical, but it is a young science I haven't needed nor could I afford anyway.
For me, it's akin to hydro versus soil. Been doing this a while, and have smoked many hydro buds that were supposedly "killer". And likely they were...until compared to mine. :thumbsup:

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i think were on the same page...my friends covet my smoke when i have enough to share....i am first choice and i am always told mine is better than anything they find elswhere....and i can just say from my own pain levels that since smoking the LED bud it works better for me. Everyone is different and i will never claim "my weed is best" because everyone has different needs and wants...maybe someday we partake of each others bounty and share notes!
:smokin::jointsmile:

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Originally Posted by Rusty Trichome

Awww...did we ruin the continuity of your thread...? :(
Sorry if we know each other and converse freely, but your question was answered, and there were no further questions from you.
Here is the answer again in a nutshell: (in case you can't muddle through the hijacking)
Keeping them on a strict schedule is a must. Improper or inconsistent schedules cause stress and weaken the plant.
Sure, you can dick with the lighting schedule all you want. But if you want quality and consistency, get a friggin timer and quit whining.

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Hmm, bad side effects i guess.

Stressed ladies don't grow well. Changing their light spectrums and light rhythms is stressful.
For some strains, (especially if already stressed) one "oops" wipes away ten "atta-boys". During flowering, one trip to the smoke shop after work, or stopping by the grocery store for munchies...can and will have very negative results.

Best to do what you can to eliminate causes of stress before it becomes a problem. You'll already be tied to the plants till harvest, might as well make 'em shine. :thumbsup:

Crap i meant my response in a really sarcastic and ironic way to go in tune with your attitudey response :)

But, since i got ya talkin! Do minutes count, or are we talking about hours? i guess i'm not asking the right questions... wondering how 'strict' ...strict is

*edit...could one slowly change time by changing minute to minute every day

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Originally Posted by therealribbit

Crap i meant my response in a really sarcastic and ironic way to go in tune with your attitudey response :)

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I've been doing this a while, and flamers don't really phase me at all. Especially those that aren't any good at it. Usually sounds more like whining than flaming.
You think this is attitude...? LMAO. You haven't been around here much, have you. (this is a statement, not a question)

In my growrooms I keep to within a 15 minute timeframe. My flower room lights are set to go out at 4:45. I usually go in at around 4:30 to check temps, turn on heater, tidy-up and close-up shop. Not schedule-anal, but a rigid schedule nonetheless.

Holy crap how did you figure out i haven't been here long?

You got your answer, anything else we can do for you? :jointsmile:

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Originally Posted by Rusty Trichome

You got your answer, anything else we can do for you? :jointsmile:

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Yeah pray for me, cause almost subliminally i screwed up for first time today and plants got dark about 1 hr 25 mins late.

With California's crappy power outages, i'll be lucky if that's my biggest mistake.

You could also go to my 'first grow' thread and judge for yourself.