Quote Originally Posted by herbaltivo
I am a new grower and I am using a 24/0 cycle for 6 plants with 8 100w cfl's and 1 175w MH, and my plants seem happy. I'm 18 days into vegging and I've got 4-6 nodes on all of the plants.

My 24/0 is more of a choice to keep the room warm vs. really growing fast, although the plants seem to be taking off the last week or so, as where I live it's well below freezing every night and the grow room is in a garage which is only kept at just above freezing, so I was looking for easy temperature regulation to get started, and possibly faster vegging.

Once it becomes time to flower, I will have to readdress the temperature issue, but I have a couple weeks to figure that out.

Good luck!
Being in Manitoba (-42 right now) I understand your temp issues. I just thought I would quote the book I took the info from.

" Light Cycles

The dark cycle is very inportant to palnts. Respiration(this is when plants are making energy from sugar to oxygen) Continues in dark but at a much slower pace, almost independent of available oxygen because the leaves are not making oxygen in the dark.

In the dark there is a shift from leaf production to root production as the leaves transfer excess energy down to the branches and roots. Therefore, some dark time allows for better root structures. The "Experimental Root Growth 10 Days After Cutting" graph on page 33 shows that giving plants a 24-hour light cycle is not the way to supercharge growth"

This is from "How to supercharge your garden" With the graph on page 33 this follows...

"Light period for cuttings

PLants have a free running internal bio-rhythm of 21-27 hours. In this rhythm, they need dark time. Cuttings have a built in daily rhythm that they inherit from their parent. Cuttings will root better with a 6 hours to 8 hourdark period because this is the main time when leaves and the stems transfer energy down to the root zone for storage and growth."

The chart has hours of light per day on the bottom, and length of roots in millimeters.
-@ 4hours of light the roots after ten days were only 22mm long
-@ 8 hours of light after 10 days the roots were 25 mm long
-@12 hours of light we shoot up to 40mm long
-@16 hours it peaks at 50mm
-@20 hours it drops down to 37mm
-@ 24 hours it drops down to 29mm

There is also a shitload of info regauring root to yeild ratio vs veg to yeild ratio, and draws the conclusion that at the end of the experiements the root to yeild ratio was higher

I'll see if I can find time to pick out and dig up more.