LIGHT DURATION TO TRIGGER FLOWERING
I looked up the daylight hours from May through September in my part of California and discovered that the most daylight hours on June 22, the longest day, is 14:50. This triggers the question-Why do plants in indoor gardens need a minimum of 18 hours of light in the vegetative stage when Mother Nature only gives you 15 to begin with? Is 18 hours of light really necessary?
I looked up the daylight hours from May through September in my part of California and discovered that the most daylight hours on June 22, the longest day, is 14:50. This triggers the question-Why do plants in indoor gardens need a minimum of 18 hours of light in the vegetative stage when Mother Nature only gives you 15 to begin with? Is 18 hours of light really necessary?
LIGHT DURATION TO TRIGGER FLOWERING
I looked up the daylight hours from May through September in my part of California and discovered that the most daylight hours on June 22, the longest day, is 14:50. This triggers the question-Why do plants in indoor gardens need a minimum of 18 hours of light in the vegetative stage when Mother Nature only gives you 15 to begin with? Is 18 hours of light really necessary? Can I start clones under 15 hours of light/9 hours of darkness and then force them to flower by increasing the dark period to 12 hours?
Claudia
The amount of uninterrupted darkness that is required to induce flowering varies by variety. Strains that flower late in the season require a longer dark period than those that flower early.
To find the length of the dark period required to trigger flowering, place the plants in a space with 17 hours of light an 7 hours of darkness. Then each day increase the dark period by 5 minutes. The earliest plants, if they are in your library, will indicate within the first six weeks. Within two months, when the dark period has increased to more than 11 hours, virtually all the plants will indicate. Since it takes the plant some time to grow flowers once it has been triggered, counting back 10 days from that date, will give you the day flowering was triggered and show you how much uninterrupted darkness the plant needed to be forced to flower.
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Soft Secrets
