First attempt at a 24-hour "Martian Method"

[Dogznova]

What you are seeing with the tips of the plants turning is related a conbination of plant reponses to spectrums. Blue light destroys auxin and the auxin causes plant cells to expand, but blue light destroying the auxin causes the cells to stink, which causes the plant to turn towards Blue light. A similar effect occurs from increased Far Red to Red ratios, which cause the cells on the opposite side of the stem from the radiation source to expand.
What you are seeing is a response to the segregation of the Blue, Red and Far Red spectrums compared to time as the plant changes from one spectrum responce to another. Without the Blue responce in PAD (Red Inc.'s) the plant isn't as strongly guided towards the radiation source and it wanders a bit due to the increase in auxin in the expanding cells on the sources side of the stems. Plants do this in Natural Darkness, both SID and SOD, and the only reason it seems odd to you is that you wouldn't likely notice this in Natural Darkness where it's harder to make such observations. Interesting how how PAD teaches stuff that was always there but we just don't notice it in more "Natural" environments..

This explains it nicely.. Thanks

"Should we start turning the red inc's off just before this happens or is this one of the effects of having increased far red?" If you can't stand to see it, but the Far Red:Red ratio would actually be higher when this happens in the dark when you wouldn't notice it so much..

Oh ya I can stand to see it. I just wanted to make sure it wasn't some funky thing happening to the girls. I like it..:thumbsup:

I'd say watch your stem elongation for the final decision. And by stem elongation I mean the internode distance more than the overall stem height increase, because you get more growth from PAD compared to SID..

Defiantly will watch internode distance

If I was getting more nodes with the same exact amount of early flower stretch, I'd consider it an advantage..

Me too..

[salmayo]

Here is 14 days using this new light schedule and my DIY form of
the "Martian Method".

The 24 hour schedule we currently are using.....

10 hours of 400w 2K HPS (our blue light source)

4 hours of 100w Red Inc's - 4/25w red inc party bulbs (our PAD
light source)

1 hour of 120w BlackLight Inc's - 2/60w blacklight inc bulbs. A
form of SOD (standard outdoor darkness) w/AD dynamics

9 hours of SID (standard indoor darkness)

Dog, I've been squinting at those pictures trying to gauge the progress of the tips in terms of morphology. And something to watch for is small popcorn type bud development if you have overshot the equivalent SID length (~12hrs).

The Dark timing schedule you're using suggests that you need a Red Inc. Time Factor of about 2.5 to 3.5 to hit a 12 hour equivalent total SID target. BUT, Red Inc.'s move pretty fast (fairly low Time Factor) and I think that you're probably overshooting a 12 hour equivalent SID Darkness duration.

So I would be looking at the plants for signs that they are responding to what THEY percieve as more like a 11/13 type SID schedule, which would produce tiny buds that would finish up and slow growth as if ready to harvest, even though the plants could support more yield the genetics on the clock will tell it that it's finished since it percieves the clock signals as telling it that the season is over and it's time to put everything into protecting the seeds (pods) which gives good potency rather that yeild at this early stage.

If you get the feeling that this is happening, I would drop the hour of Blacklights (since they don't photosynthesize anyway) and watch for improved growth (it should get you pretty close), and then if you want to adjust it more, just vary the regular SID time to fine tune it in.

My personal game is to push how much SID I can swap for PAD (Red Inc. in your case here) to see how much extra photosynthesis and improved growth I can get in, but it's you world in your garden (we each are Masters in our own realms).

Time to practice and exercise those Grow Master Brain muscles.

Take Care, Sal.

[salmayo]

hey just read this thread, I'm not going to pretend I understand it all.

Had an idea though, how about this..

Instead of dealing with a '24' hour based cycle, why not take this one step further and 'divide by' - change the cycle time, say by a reducing factor of 24x.

e.g. 30 minutes light + far red + red, 10 minutes SID 20 minutes martian night, this is just an example I know those figures aren't right.


Has anyone ever tried anything like that or is this just a whacked out idea? :]

Peace,
Denial

Things like this will result in veg type growth, since flowering does require more dark time on the plants genetic clock.

Take Care, Sal.

[Dogznova]

Dog, I've been squinting at those pictures trying to gauge the progress of the tips in terms of morphology. And something to watch for is small popcorn type bud development if you have overshot the equivalent SID length (~12hrs)..

Yes... In those pic's there are no popcorn buds yet. Under a standard 12/12 there would be at the 14 day mark.

The Dark timing schedule you're using suggests that you need a Red Inc. Time Factor of about 2.5 to 3.5 to hit a 12 hour equivalent total SID target. BUT, Red Inc.'s move pretty fast (fairly low Time Factor) and I think that you're probably overshooting a 12 hour equivalent SID Darkness duration.

So I would be looking at the plants for signs that they are responding to what THEY percieve as more like a 11/13 type SID schedule, which would produce tiny buds that would finish up and slow growth as if ready to harvest, even though the plants could support more yield the genetics on the clock will tell it that it's finished since it percieves the clock signals as telling it that the season is over and it's time to put everything into protecting the seeds (pods) which gives good potency rather that yeild at this early stage..

It dose seem like it's on a 11/13 type of SID schedule. But since we did not veg the girls for the extra two weeks (like we normally do).. This type of flowering schedule worked great for us in the first two weeks and the extra growth was what the girls needed IMO. We will cut down the Red Inc's (on time) to 3.5 hours after week two with the next batch. The next batch will also only get two weeks of veg time under the T5's. Tonight I will get my uncle right on switching the red inc's on time since were kind of a week late on this thought.

Tomarrow is the end of week 3 .

If you get the feeling that this is happening, I would drop the hour of Blacklights (since they don't photosynthesize anyway) and watch for improved growth (it should get you pretty close), and then if you want to adjust it more, just vary the regular SID time to fine tune it in..

Yes, we will get rid of the blacklights and put the red inc's on for 3.5 hours. By the way the blacklights looked cool as hell when they were on. :thumbsup:. I think 3 to 3.5 will be the sweet spot for this strain.

My personal game is to push how much SID I can swap for PAD (Red Inc. in your case here) to see how much extra photosynthesis and improved growth I can get in, but it's you world in your garden (we each are Masters in our own realms)

This is a game I will someday learn...

More pic's tomorrow. I talked to my uncle yesterday and he said that the girls were starting to get popcorn buds. We shall see.


Sal thanks for your help. :rasta:

[denialisback]

Things like this will result in veg type growth, since flowering does require more dark time on the plants genetic clock.

Take Care, Sal.

hey salmayo, firstly thanks for taking me seriously, it's quite a mad hat idea..

secondly, ahh I see, so its the plants genetic clock. I've been looking into a way of changing that, not something for this thread I guess, I've started another "new strain flowering 2 weeks" if people are interested. The basic aim would be to change the plants natural cycle. I guess this is something that can only be accomplished genetically not photosynthetically as such :-)

Peace,
denial

[Dogznova]

Here is 21 days using our first 24 hour "Martian Method" schedule. 10 hours HPS, 4 hours PAD, 1 hour blacklights, 9 hours SID.

The first pic is under the 400w HPS. The second pic is using an old white CFL light. The third pic is a group shot under the CFL.

The new "Martian Method" 24 hour schedule will be.....

10 hours 400w 2K HPS (our blue light source)

3.5 hours 126w 4/25w red inc party bulbs 2/13w red cfl's (PAD light source)

10.5 hours SID (standard indoor darkness)

We pulled the blacklights and added two 13w red cfl's in there place. We also took away some PAD light (on time), as noted above. The girls are doing ok but as you can see in the pic's the small spots from my uncle's impressive foliar feeding program are now bigger and the leaf wrinkle is still there. I'm glad I got him to stop spraying. It looks to me like his spray mixture was too strong. Ether he didn't mix it properly or the solution he used was bad, I'm not sure. I would think in about 5 or 6 weeks from now we will hardly be able to see it's effects. I hope.... LOL

The girls are starting to get small popcorn buds. I tried to take close up pic's of this for ya Sal so you don't have to squint. To my eyes the girls are actually looking about 3 or 4 days ahead of our "standard" 16 week schedule at this point. I'm counting our first two weeks of this "Martian Method" grow as veg time. So to me these girls have only been flowering 1 week and already are showing the start of popcorn buds. The girls are 30 inches tall now and pretty much have stopped growing in height at this point. They were 6 inches or so when we put them in the tubs. The growth has been great so far.

The next batch my uncle and I will use a 400w MH light for the first two weeks then switch to a HPS for the rest of the flowering duration. I still want to overshoot our 12 hour of equivalent SID Darkness duration and keep the girls in the veg/flower mode for the first two weeks like we did this time. The reason for this is our clones are only getting 2 weeks of T5 veg time (in 16oz cups). We can make up for the missing 2 weeks of veg time using this type of overshoot Martian schedule for 2 weeks. Then my uncle can bring down our PAD "on time" after the growth we want has been achieved. Somewhere between 25 and 30 inches. He is going to start a new batch of "Tub O Clones" next weekend.

More pic's soon of the "Tub O Clones" "SOG" "Martian Method" extravaganza.

[farredeyed]

Whats up Dog, this site kind of "quit working" for me for a while.. it's cool to see you guys are still going at it and it sounds like you've all been tuning this system in better too. I still don't quite get it all but I love seeing healthy plants!

[Dogznova]

Hay farred good to see ya back. Ya the site went down for about a month.

There is some "trick" stuff one can do with PAD lights. I think Mother and I have just scratched the surface. Stay tuned Sal promises quite the ending to this adventure.

[farredeyed]

I've been hooked.. I hope Sal the best with his publishing, I'm already ready alread to just buy the damn book!

[denialisback]

I've been hooked.. I hope Sal the best with his publishing, I'm already ready alread to just buy the damn book!

me too, great idea, looking forward to seeing the end game (harvest!)


Peace,
Denial