would like opinions on seedling light schedule

[oldmac]

Nice info there oldmac. :thumbsup:
This makes me wonder if you could help control stretch during flower by limiting it's water at lights out?

Is this one of the reasons why in ebb&flow some don't flood during lights out, but do so right before lights out?
:detective1:

It might help, but more likely you'd experience plant droop during the dark phase, which then makes the plant take longer to take off at lights on.

I can not address ebb & flow systems but know in aero that it should run durring lights out, it is a time when the plants uptake most of their water/nutes.

Granny Storm Crow recently posted on a thread about plant stretch, passed on a reference to some university that found adding alcohol to the water mix caused a plant to stay short but produced flowers equal to a regular plant.

The better way is to use a far red source just before lights on and again at lights off. I better describe it on another thread. I'll see what I can do to find it and maybe link it (I'm not computer literate) or you can seach here for it.
OM

[oldmac]

As for the scientific reason why plants DO grow at night, here you go:

[align=left]During the daytime, plants produce energy in the form of ATP and NADPH (light reactions)...during the night, these energy forms go to the dark reactions (Calvin Cycle) to fuel the production of organic molecules from CO2 collected during the day...some of these organic molecules will be stored (starch) and some will be used for plant structural growth (cellulose), and some for other organic molecules (lipids, proteins, etc).[/align]

[align=left]GTD[/align]

Again the Calvin cycle explain's what a plant is doing internally, from a chemical, hormone and transport of stored energy/nutrient perspective. If you read or look at at the picture description's you'll see that it is during photosynthesis that the plant grows, plus stores energy etc. The Calvin Theroy does not support plant grwoth during the dark phase.

One thing that is clear to me, you at least realize that plants "don't need to rest" as some claim to support the plants in veg need a dark time to rest.

People need rest but plants are 24hr factories, and in fact a case can be made that they work equally/or more at dark then during lights on. This is more true during the flowering phase where they do need a dark period to accomplish many things, such as the building up of the hormone floragen along with other chemical functions.
OM

[oldmac]

Here is more scientific data to back up plant growth at night (with references). Thanks for playing!

Biologists Identify Genes Controlling Rhythmic Plant Growth

While most people might assume that plants grow at a slow and steady rate throughout the day and night, Darwin and others found that they grow in regular nightly spurts, with plant stems elongating fastest in the hours just before dawn. See video of soybean sprout growth at: http://www.biology.ucsd.edu/scicomm/video/bigbeansprout.mov
"Plants actually grow rhythmically," said Kay. "Some plants, like sorghum, have the ability to elongate a centimeter or more each night."
Why plants have evolved mechanisms to grow rhythmically at night or in the hours just before dawn is a mystery. But a similar interplay of light sensing, plant hormones and circadian rhythms that leads to a pronounced rhythmic growth by plants during certain seasons and when shaded by other plants has a clear survival value.

GTD

This a great find by you, just last year someone who know's my interest on various light effects sent me the scientific white paper this group published.
The paper is virtually unreadable unless you have a doctorate in plant biology.
The articule does refer to dark growth, tho it occurs more during predawn and just after sunset, at both times the sky is not fully dark, tho the articule does not seem to mention it. Indoors under artifical light we have a more sudden change of light, either they are on or off. These plant genes they discovered control photochrome Pr and Pfr, which is red light and far red light, and is one of the reasons for the last three years I've been runnig far red "trigger" lights, that come on before my regular lights and go off after the main lights. It is also sotra the basis of the PAD Manual or Rauber technique. Done correctly it fools the plant with various lights, to get the plant to have contiuous growth even during a supposed lights out. I don't fully understand it, tho I have the PAD manual, since it deals with variuos light "time factors" that I have had a hard time understanding...but I will at some point.

It's also very interesting in the respect of "circadian rythms" of the plant. I have experimented with, as I know other's have with this concept. I have at times run a "20hr day" during the flowering phase to see if I could shorten flowering times. In escence you can, you get one extra day of flowering/growth every 6 calender days. So if a plant flowers normally at say 8 weeks (56 calender days) you can get it to finish in abt 47 calender days. The down side is a constantly changing of when the lights are on so tending the plants needs or even checking them changes during the course of flowering.

Good find GTD, and it does mention some dark growth, but that maybe more sunrise/sunset stem growth.
OM

[oldmac]

GreenThumbDoctor,

Now having gone thru all this, other then the post that I responded to highlighted in blue, that sorta bothered me after a long stressfull day, I do give you credit for trying to prove that plants grow in the dark. This sorta brings me back to Tikiroom's comment that maybe we are both right. I will grant you stem stretch is growth, even tho it occurs outdoors just before sunrise and at sunset. And indoors it does occur during the dark phase, since we have no gradual change of light. I have seen nothing cited that indicates roots grow during the dark phase and I would hope you could read and digest some of the articules you posted and see what I've been talking about.

BTW, it has been fun playing....I just hope you can see where I was comming from. You are not one of the pot smoking dummies of which you spoke and that is clear. Still thinking about the last entry on Pr/Pfr, I'll attach a study here that deals with it and how plant stretch can be controlled that I recently came across. Unfortunately I am working with a fairly new computer and almost all the science papers I've accumulated are still stuck in my old one, or I would have posted some during this discussion.

I'm outa piss...how you doing?
OM

[WashougalWonder]

fascinating

[budlover13]

Hey there Budlover13,

I see that you are in Cali, so it presents a logistical problem. I have recently started a "mentor" program, where I'll design and produce a grow system based on aero or aero/fog grow trays and some form of lighting set-up. I then teach the recpient how to grow using what I built and/or designed (the recpient pays for the parts used etc). This also includes cuttings or more usually plant starts so they have plant material for mom's etc.

Unless you are in a county that uses sqft/canopy to gauge size of the permitted grow and not plant count my method of SOG, put's it in the illegal catergory in a legal state.

I'm in a not mmj state in the NE, had some snow this AM, but nothing like the midwest had been hit with. I am close enought to travel to NJ and RI that have gone/going mmj. It's just too bad they seem to want to use plant counts.

My philosophy of growing indoors has been; indoors using any form of artifical lighting, the most productive way to grow is SOG. If you've seen my album showing the construction of "fogfognugen" or the thread I indroduced the first experiment run of it, each tray is 136 plants or 276 per/foggy. In the partnered grow I am envolved in there are now 2 fogfognugen's going in the same room, 1 using TI LED lights and the other PSMHs. From a legal perspective, I maintain that as long as each tray has cuts from one clone mother source then that tray is really just 1 plant with 138 branches. Biologically there is no way to prove different, tho my lawyer says that probably would not hold up in court. But I've been so illegal for so long I don't know if I care.

BTW, Willie has been a great advocate for mmj, just hope the last bust in Texas goes well for him.
OM

yes sir, Central Cali. There are plusses and minuses just as anywhere else. I tend to chuckle when I hear people from other locales speak of wishing they were in Cali like it was the land of milk and honey. Plusses are individual preferences and freedoms, imo. I love that I live in a dessert, within 30 minutes can be in the Sierras, and within 2 1/2 hours be on the Pacific Ocean. Just today, I travelled to Fresno(county seat) to exchange ideas with a friend and drop off a couple clones for him. On the way to his place, a Fresno County Sheriff's Deputy pulled alongside me at the stoplight, looked over, saw my two clones in the center console cupholder, smiled and went on his way. Unfortunately there's a LOT of drama in the county regarding MMJ.

So, according to my county laws I am allowed to have up to 5 patients under me(whose plant count I will grow and supply them with good meds). Cali Supreme Court says we are each allowed 99 plants. I plan to stay well within the limits.

I plan to run a rotating grow, I think similar to a SOG set-up, in which I will have four rooms/tents, homemade of course. I will dedicate a closet to my mothers and seedlings, 1 tent for veg, 1 tent for experimenting, and the remainder of the room dedicated to flowering. I believe that with this set-up I can harvest once a month +/-. With the amount of meds produced, we should be able to not only all be well stocked and make edibles, but also do business with a local dispensary who is, I believe, on the right side of the fight. Program for terminally ill and low-income patients to receive 1g a day/7 a wk for free. For those that aren't dirt poor, there is a sliding scale, and for those that have not time or experience to grow and are legal MMJ patients in good careers, well they end up paying the bills.

I want to have a similar set-up to theirs to be able to cover cost, but I want to drop the price of indoor medicine for our local area to $50/oz or less. The only way to achieve this is to use my set-up as an educational resource and as you do, teach a man to fish. THIS is my goal.

I will HAVE to switch from soil to hydro/aero for the simple reason of having to deal with all that dirt. If I and 5 members each dedicate 90 of our allowed 99(not saying it'll be that big) that is a total of 180 plants per harves, every month. 30 from each card in each stage of growth. Too much dirt. Obviously, I'll have to work my way up to the end goal and that will take time, but in the end, I'm sure it will be worth it to help so many people become self-sufficient.

[bigsby]

The better way is to use a far red source just before lights on and again at lights off. I better describe it on another thread. I'll see what I can do to find it and maybe link it (I'm not computer literate) or you can seach here for it.
OM

Hey OM, nice dial back on the dialogue. I appreciate all the learning that goes on here. Thanks.

Can I ask you to detail the far red effects a bit more? What lights do you use, how long do you have them on. Is the lights-on for red considered part of the 12/12 schedule or in addition? Do you run them during the veg cycle too? Or perhaps just point me in the right direction. I'm happy to read and learn. I'll also run some searches and post up anything I find.

I have a few weeks travel for work coming up but after that I'm going to start my second LED run using 2x st8s 150w 3w / diode bars. I was a bit disappointed with my first run. The plants stretched quite a bit and results reflected poor plant development. Now too be sure, this was likely due in part to my own short comings as a n00b indoor farmer. I am a recovering outdoor farmer (those were the days). I'm confident I can dial it in but looking for any strategies to help with the stretch.

Regards.

[RAINHAZE]

fascinating

Absolutely! ..glued to the seat here.

[oldmac]

Hey Bigsby, and Rainhaze and budlover13 and any lurkers,

Even tho I read and learned about 730nm far red light in relation to photochrome, I was not sure how to apply it to a grow. In talking to a neighbor who has a few acres under glass, he told me that he uses far red light as a supplemental light for certian ornamentals he grows to keep down plant stretch. He referred to them as "trigger" lights, saying that it "woke up" the plant in the AM and at the end of the day it helped to control stem stretch if the plants saw far red last. Wasn't sure he was right, I could not fine literature or anything about it. Just recently came across the pdf file I posted above, even tho it was not a trigger deal, the increased far red ratio to red confirmed at least the stretch part might be true, scientifically.

I originally used Phillips clear red incandescent party bulbs because of thier far red output. I have switch, on Dogsnova's recommendation, to GE Reveal incandescent Halogen bulbs 'cause the far red output is greater. Btw they cost abt $5 dollars for a 100w, but they make other sizes.

In my personal grow they are timed to come on abt 1/2hr before my main light comes on and then stay on abt 1/2hr after the light is on. They are programed to come on again 1/2hr before the main light goes off and stay on for an additional 1/2 hr. I still run the same 12hr photoperiod for the main light. BTW in the interest of full disclosure, during the middle of the photoperiod for 3hr (high noon) I use supplemental UVb in the form of Zilla Desert 50 UVb T5s 2' NO (usually 18w ea) but driven by an IceCap ballast to give 40w ea.

I saw that internode spacing decreased and plants where shorter, one strain that usually finished abt 18" now finished 14-16", bud weight was abt the same just a shorter more compact cola.

To put it all in perspective, The main light is a led/T5 hybred that has 420w of red Cree LEDs (240 of them) and 320w of 2' T5s VHO (8 of them) for a total of 740w. The trigger lights are 200w inc halogens (2- 100w) and the UVb is 160w (4- 40w).

Hope this does not sound too confusing.
OM

[bigsby]

Not confusing at all. I did see the bit about the Reveal lights earlier or in a different thread. So do you run an 11/13 light schedule 12/12 + 1/2 hour + 1/2 hour?

I'm going to try another run with my current setup to see if I can account for my own shortcomings but I have this tucked away for future reference in the event that I get the same results. I'd like to make this LED setup work. I have heat issues plus I like the lower power consumption. I also hate the idea of an HID burning away while I'm away from the property. It just scares me a bit.

Peace.