My 8hr flowering experiment

torontoke said:

I don't know if I'd call it courage that prompted me to try this. More like boredom and curiousity.
Now as far as your thoughts on using the saved hours for extra wattage.....that depends.
Depends most on what your lighting numbers are like now. This is just my hypothesis really and clearly I'm not a scientist or even a qualified bro scientist but from what I've seen over the years is most indoor growers go way overboard.
And 12 hours of way to many watts takes the plants over the line of diminishing return. I noticed that by the 9th hour during 12/12 that the plants begin shut down mode. I could visibly see that they couldn't or weren't taking in and processing those extra hours.
When I tired 6/18 with the 400mh it was obvious that it wasn't enough time to fill out completely to be worthwhile.
When I switched to 8/16 with the mh they filled in almost as much as I'd have gotten with 12/12. Once I switched to the led and the better spectrum and extra photons took over I doubt I'm losing anything besides hydro costs.
But every garden/space is different.
I've been tweaking this cabinet for a few years now and I'm finding limits to the amount of yield/physical growspace vs the amount of lights on.

Lots of trial error and repeating has occurred to lead me down the path I'm on now and I always recommend everyone choose their own path but at least people can choose knowing that their are options in the grow game.

Edit: oh and reducing hours speeds up the entire flower process but even dropping an hour or two the last few weeks can dramatically speed up finish. That's not just my opinion but most people who have tried playing around with cycles.

Thanks for popping in hillbill

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ttystikk said:

It would be enlightening to see you run the very same space, lights and strains 12/12 just to quantify the differences.

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torontoke said:

I contemplated this myself a few runs ago.
And it was suggested back near the beginning of the thread.
Prior to installing the qbs it almost happened a few times.
Perhaps now I'm just not as convinced that I can get any more out of this cabinet with such low wattage.
I could be way off tho
Maybe it's just that I've accepted that the yield from 8 hours is enough.
Thanks like I needed more to think about

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Rooster802 said:

I've been following this thread for a while. Don't need weight, and I'm intrigued so I took my little 32" x 32" tent and put the lights on 10/14 (ok, I'm a pussy, I'll go 8/16 if I get a decent harvest at 10/14). I don't have your experience or knowledge, just trying to find out the best way for me to grow personal use. I'm two weeks in today, and I have an OG Kush in DWC that is maturing faster and looks healthier than anything else I've run yet. But I also just switched to Jack's hydro and got my res temps under better control so who knows why? All I can say is I think for my needs a shorter light schedule is going to be work better. Thanks for writing all this shit down and not being afraid to challenge conventional wisdom. The world will always need people who aren't afraid to go against the grain, and even more difficult, publish their results in the face of overwhelming criticism. You keep doing your thing bro, you are appreciated.

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ttystikk said:

Lol what are friends for?

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torontoke said:

Lol fair enough bud

I spent the last few days out of the city doing a lot of thinking and I've got a idea.
I'm committed to this seed run I have started and I'd like to hit a few in my veg tent next round with pollen but I'll veg a plant and take 10 clones.
5 will go in my cabinet on 8/16
5 will stay in my tent but I'll swallow and put the timer on 12/12
Tent is roughly the same size
Now I just need to build another light in the next 75days.

Then there will be exact numbers to directly compare and I get the bro science diploma.

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ttystikk said:

My expectation is that the 12/12 side will yield enough more to pay for the difference in power and time vs space used, but not a lot more.

This has me thinking... Again lol

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torontoke said:

Hopefully we here back from some of the other people switching to 10 and 11 and we will really have some results to measure.
We already are kind of seeing it tho.
More and more people are switching to 10,10.5,11,11.5 without the catastrophic loses the experts warned about.

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ttystikk said:

A difference of only 5% yield would pay the extra variable costs as long as the price of the product remains high. This would not hold true if the price fell significantly.

Since I expect prices to keep falling over time, I'm placing my bets now.

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torontoke said:

Must be the dreamer in me that lives in fantasyland my man
I never think of it financially because I only grow for me. And the only thing that matters to me really is quality and turnover.
For the commercial grower or even cash croppers in general I think anything I'm doing is sort of a moot point.
If others were paying my bills I wouldn't care how much the bills were either.

I've always looked at this from a micro management angle. How much can I do with little.
How can I make that better and turn a little to a lot.
A thread on how can I make the most money growing weed would have been a lot simpler imho and I have zero interest in starting any more debates round here.
Efficiency and profitability don't always go together maybe

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torontoke said:

Ttystick I really hope you didn't think I was casting any kind of shade on growers for profit. I re read my post and it could be read from the wrong perspective.
All I meant was that I never really considered the financial side evening out after a certain wattage level.
As u said a 5% yield loss would negate any savings to a commercial grower but to a personal grower that would be a fair trade off since they probably average a certain % as extra or overage.
I'm more curious about where the actual line of diminishing return occurs because those 8hr buds didn't really leave much available space for much more.

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hillbill said:

I have only gone to 11 1/2 hours in the past for the sake of Sativa to begin or to finish flower. That did no harm from just casual observation. Plant that grow outdoors here do finish with substantially less than 12 hours of daylight and much less in the hollows.

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ttystikk said:

Nope, it's all sunny here in Philadelphia! Lol

I think the break even will change as price per unit weight changes.

I'm curious how far price would have to fall to make the short day competitive.

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torontoke said:

While the price of weed per gram will continue to plummet the cost of energy will continue to rise.
So the offset or divide might take longer to balance out.
The value of meds will fall to the point that even 12/12 growing will be hardly worth doing if profit is the goal.
Of course I'm just medicated speculating but there's a lot of if buts and coulda shoulda scenarios about to play themselves out.

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ttystikk said:

I'm thinking that shorter on times will be a good way to produce the product for less cost and that falling product prices and rising power costs will both drive operators in this direction.

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torontoke said:

I'm expecting hate emails and threats from the power companies already.

I think we are on the cusp of weed becoming worthless. Only A handful of serious smokers are going to continue growing and by then your probably right how to do it cheapest will dominate the market.
You guys have a few legal states... up here theyre talking about every adult allowed to grow 4 100cm plants.
So who's buying after that? I would say that 99% of what's grown after next July will be horse feed but quantity always seems to dictate price over quality.

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