An experiment in regards to stray light and light cycle interuption...

I am going to be conducting a little experiment over the next few months. The basis for my experiment will be how much light is needed in order to interupt, stress and revert the flowering plants back into veg growth.

The reason I am doing this is because I always see posters asking about absolute darkness and flowering. i have also seen it stated in various books that grow area MUST be kept completely dark.

Is COMPLETE darkness needed or is it just another optimization factor that is ultimately enhancing rather than critically dependent?

Why must we have complete darkness when plants have grown in the wild for thousands of years with all types of natural/artificial light pollution during their dark periods i.e. moon, stars, man made light pollution?

How long does the period of exposure have to be in order to induce this reversion? Does a a short exposure just stress the plant and possiblly induce hermaphrodism or does even a short exposure cause a reversion and if so what is this time frame?

Is this exposure rate, if indeed applicable, variable according to strain and stabilty?

these are some of the question I am hoping to answer. I will be conducting these experiments on clones so we take away the variablity that would come from different plants of the same strain. I will also be using and extremely stable strain. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated as I am leaning towards an Afghan #1 strain since it has been around a long time and very stable.

I would also like to know if there are any people that have relatively good light meters. I would like people to take measurments of the outside light on various conditioned nights i.e. cloudy nights, clear etc. I would like to get a sample of the conditons from various parts of the world since the enviroment in one place could drastically differ in another i.e. cambodia's summer is not like south africas summer. Once I ascertain the data from various growers I could then avg them out by categories and come up with a baseline. This baseline would be a point in which Mj plants that grow in the wild would still be able to sustain a flowering cycle in. I am aware that this could be a strain dependent factor, but we will start here and them elaborate as time goes by.

Clones would then be subjected to various amounts of induced lighting exposure during dark periods of flowering. I am also taking into account that a possibility might be that direct light ray exposure or non-direct light ray exposure could also be a factor on whether reversion is obtained or not.

Any further suggestions on how the epxeriment should be laid out are welcomed. I think we could learn some valuable info from this. If anyone is aware of something equateable to this being conducted on MJ plants then please direct me towards it. I will then try to branch off of the info found from their experiments or will conduct nothing at all if a position either way has enough supporting evidence. thanks:thumbsup:

does no one find this experiment interestring enough or am I treading on a redundant matter that no one cares about?:confused:

Way to go man- It's awesome when people actually try to experiment with shit. So, Kudos.

I'm very interested to see what you find. Good Luck!!

It's very interesting, but a complicated set of questions, so hard to respond to.

One additional piece of information I would like to toss into the mix- What is the light spectrum of the various sources of light pollution? For example, say a plant grown in a highway median gets exposed to car headlights all night, what does it do? Flower normally? Go herm? Fail to set bud? Compared to a plant grown at the edge of a parking lot with light from a distant HPS...

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Originally Posted by stinkyattic

It's very interesting, but a complicated set of questions, so hard to respond to.

One additional piece of information I would like to toss into the mix- What is the light spectrum of the various sources of light pollution? For example, say a plant grown in a highway median gets exposed to car headlights all night, what does it do? Flower normally? Go herm? Fail to set bud? Compared to a plant grown at the edge of a parking lot with light from a distant HPS...

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Your 100% correct. I have thought of this, but didn't lay out every possible question due to length of the post. Point is that we have to start somewheres and as we narrow our conclusion possibilities down, more experiments will have to be conducted. I figured if I could get the ball rolling we could have other satellite experiments conducted that could either support or weaken certain hypothesis.

In regards to your point...I approached the thought this way: Plants absorb almost all of the spectrums of light except green. Now what spectrum is responsible for reversion or stressing has to be determined at some time.

For anyone reading this post, PLEASE do not think this is something that will be accomplished in just a month or two. Hopefully with the help of some other growers, ascertaining necessary data will help accelerate the experiments. This is why I asked if anyone, from anywhere, could help with with the light measurements of your area. This data might not be applicable at this moment, but at some time it will.

If anyone would like to help and has questions on how to proceed please post on here and if need be we can correspond through email or IM. :thumbsup:

I'm working on interrupted and irregular light cycles right now, if that helps any.

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Originally Posted by kingjustin

I'm working on interrupted and irregular light cycles right now, if that helps any.

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Without a doubt! Let's touch base and see where your at. I could then possibly refine my direction if you can provide some data that would be applicable.
Send me your email and we can converse over that medium. Once I get started I can post some updates on this board
:thumbsup:

night-time film exposures can be shot in as little as 15 seconds (moonlight, clear night) or 20-30 minutes (just starlight) that's not a lot of light, the light at night renders few colors and contains little "usefull" light for plant growth. This perhaps explains the "effect" of night-light has on things; There are a few flowers that only bloom at night, but that is regulated by hormones, not the light directly.

would be very interesting but i feel there area few factors that will still nto be covered, things like the strain, i mean some strains may be more prone to light stress then others and the amoutn of light you're going to let it, lets say you measure it in hours of light exposure, one plant may change at the one hour mark but it's too hard to get an exact measurement i mean minute wise you know?

Interesting though

GG23

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Originally Posted by 4x5

night-time film exposures can be shot in as little as 15 seconds (moonlight, clear night) or 20-30 minutes (just starlight) that's not a lot of light, the light at night renders few colors and contains little "usefull" light for plant growth. This perhaps explains the "effect" of night-light has on things; There are a few flowers that only bloom at night, but that is regulated by hormones, not the light directly.

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Thats the whole point of this experiment. Is it an omittance of particular wavelengths or is it an intensity variable. So far no one that I have come across has been able to scientificallt explain why on perfect, bright moon lit nights, the MJ plant does not revert back to a veg state. There are some nights I can clearly see that someone is whereing a red, blue green etc shirt. If certain frequencies are omitted then what could possibly br causing this? is it frequency dependent? Is it as you hypothesized that various spectrums are omitted? Or is it that the frequencies aren't omitted, but not in adequate intensity?


The fact that it only takes a few seconds to get a light reading is why I am asking for help from various people around the world or atleast different regions in the US.

Well what I'm getting at is that the " light" present at night, is simply not sufficeint for growth, from an intensity stand point; not to mention the exact moment of 'reverting' to veg state will surely be hard to "pin-down" your study seems to require more than a simple life cycle. Here, get an electronic flash, fire it once just at 1 plant, twice at another, three times at the next, all in darkness obvoiusly. any change within 2 days would certainly rule out wavelegth (since the stress would effectively pause growth), modern electronic flashes are between 5500-7000k at upto 50k lumens (whats in my camera box) (more than enough to cause 'stress') next set of plants test with a lantern type light turn it on and leave it for a few more hours each night, that would put the margin of error at upto 3-7days, but you'd figure out how much "ambient" light causes veg. Of course these ideas can be "tailored" to your experiment. :stoned: or just leave it in veg at 18/6 and flower of 12/12 and grow bug fat buds :stoned:

I have found that even breif periods of full blown HPS / MH lighting does not retard the growth of flower.

It takes a few days, not a few moments.

Methyl, my email is [email protected].

So far my first gen. seedlings have developed with fair predictability. When it came time to shoot out a second set of leaves, however, the growth process was extremely slow. I've still got a ways to go, but I think this could be the forerunner to a very interesting plant.

I also noted that the plants that had a very irregular light cycle seem to stretch more towards the "soft white" CFL's I have instead of the cool whites.

If you were to get this up and running with many people giving results, you would have to have abotu 2 groups for each par because you want to have that rule out any possible environmental factors not associated with the experiment. If two people esting the same thing come out with the same/similar result then you know only the light or time had a factor in the results

GG23

Seems like everyone involved in the experiment would have to be growing the same strain as well as well as using the same exact equipment---i.e., the same pots, the same ferts, the same soil, the same type of lights, etc...

The only difference can be the schedule right?

Maybe I am reading this wrong, but in order for an experiment to work you have to control ALL variables other than the one you are testing.

Sorry, if I am being redundant or this is not helpful at all... :smokin:

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Originally Posted by Binzhoubum

Seems like everyone involved in the experiment would have to be growing the same strain as well as well as using the same exact equipment---i.e., the same pots, the same ferts, the same soil, the same type of lights, etc...

The only difference can be the schedule right?

Maybe I am reading this wrong, but in order for an experiment to work you have to control ALL variables other than the one you are testing.

Sorry, if I am being redundant or this is not helpful at all... :smokin:

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This is why this type of accurate experimentation will take several gens unless one has physical/legal room to have a large grow. As with conducting most studies you cannot control all things at once. Sometimes yo have to systematically eliminate certain variables and then proceed to the next step. The need for an identical/parallel study, in concertion with what I am doing, is not something that can have adequate quality control.

Having been a Research & Development chemist for several years, I have a proficient understanding of method development and experimentaion setup. Since we are diecting this towards photo interuption and floral reversion I do not feel we need to control things such as exact same pots, same water etc. I say this because we know that they are not the known stimuli for floral reversion. Keep in mind though that in the controlled enviroment that I provide these things will be constant. I just do not feel that it woould be a prerequisite if a comparable study is conducted at another time by someone else.

I think the best info outside contributors could provide would be the light sampling that I ask for. Other than that, the actual stimuli's will be provided by myself and I will ask for feedback prior to each one being conducted for constructive feedback.

PS KingJustin - I am not sure I will be able to use your data for my purposes at this time, but it could prove usefull at a later time once we have established a good set point:thumbsup: . Please send all corespondance to: [email protected] Please do not email me till you have an accumulation of info since I will be saving these and tons of little emails could prove more problematic in regards to organizing.

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Originally Posted by GrowinGreen23

If you were to get this up and running with many people giving results, you would have to have abotu 2 groups for each par because you want to have that rule out any possible environmental factors not associated with the experiment. If two people esting the same thing come out with the same/similar result then you know only the light or time had a factor in the results

GG23

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In order to get satellite experiements going I must first establish a hypothesis and obtain a baseline first. I do not expect for everyone to be conducting their own interuption experiments and supplying me with data....not at this juncture anyways. I will conduct experimentation and provide supporting evidence one way or the other. It will be at this time that we will have to eliminate other variables and this is where other people can do some work off of the established baseline. :thumbsup: