So I've been vegging for about 3 months now and going to be switching to 12/12. My question is....if I have been running 18/6 from 4am-10pm, and I want to switch to 12/12 but run them at night (bc of my high temps) how do I go about switching them without stressing or shocking them. I want to run it from 8pm-8am. Any input is appreciated!
hey, few things -
no one should veg less thean 24/0. plants are classified by the way they use co2 as c3 and c4, weed is c3, which means it is absorbing co2 and continually photosynthesizing while the lights are on. and the longer the lights are on the more photons are also put out. c4 plants gather co2 at night to photosynthesize during the day. its science. and it you switch you'll notice the difference.
that said at 3 months i hope you have big plants, do you have pictures?
you should shut your lights down for 36 hours when you switch your plants. what happens in nature for most plants is that 12 hours after sun up florigen begins production. florigen is a flowering hormone that triggers and controls plant flowering. so, and i'm not a biologist, but from enough studying, to my knowledge what happens is mRNA begins production at the dark period, mRNA applies the decisions from DNA to protein synthesis, so if the DNA is female the plant transcribes mRNA from the DNA, which is then translated to a protein - florigen. therefore the 36 hour shutdown causes an instant mass build up in the plant of the hormone. there's another gene that can be created from the transcription of the mRNA but I'm unsure of whether it effects the triggering in weed. shutting down ALSO causes the plant to begin eating into its nutrient storage, and it will go through its phosphorous, by feeding with a huge phosphorous boost during the dark you signal the plant its flowering time and give it a lot of a nutrient needed heavily in flower production. I feed with bloom ultra and a touch of foxfarms open sesame at hour 18. the bloom ultra also contain nucleic acids that to my understanding increase protein synthesis. bloom ultra is crazy, to be honest doing it this way i have preflowers when i turn the lights back on. i suggest using the fox farms open sesame / beastie bloomz / cha-ching trio package during flowering.
lastly - shutting down for 36 stresses them in a good way
stress can be good, if you do just the right amount. if you feed them like i've said they'll love you for it and when they bounce back it will be with tremendous vigor. you should keep up a high phosphorous and potassium feeding during flowering, and begin adding micro nutrients, most importantly a calmag supplement. something with zinc and iron won't hurt either. don't forget about nitrogen too, but it's less vital.
good luck!
