New Grower Darkness, Darkness...

[wwwillie]

Darkness, darkness, be my pillow
Take my head and let me sleep
In the coolness of your shadow
In the silence of your deep


Darkness, darkness, hide my yearning
For the things I cannot be
Keep my mind from constant turning
Toward the things I cannot see now
Things I cannot see now
Things I cannot see


Darkness, darkness, long and lonesome
Ease the day that brings me pain
I have felt the edge of sadness
I have known the depth of fear

Darkness, darkness, be my blanket
Cover me with the endless night
Take away, take away the pain of knowing
Fill the emptiness of right now
Emptiness of right now, now, now
Emptiness of right now

Thought I would start off with a nifty poem, actually lyrics to the song Darkness, Darkness by The Youngbloods, Ol' Jesse Colin Young lived one town over from me growing up.

OK so what is this thread about? It is about a question and an opportunity to try and answer it! It was asked in the LHT if a period of darkness before harvesting would improve the outcome in anyway, more and juicier(?) trichomes, better potency or flavor, or just no difference at all. I have read in more than one place that it is best to harvest at the end of their dark period, this being due to the circulation and drawing of sugars into the flowers is at it's lowest and has yet to start in the light of a new day, thus keeping the flowers better tasting and all. At least that is my understanding of it.

What I have available currently is two tents with at least one plant in common. The plants are all from my recent cloning experiments, and yes they are PHOTOs and not autos. I hope to do something similar next auto harvest. Both tents have a Barney's Farm LSD plant in them cloned from the same parent. They are in the same soil and type of pot and have been fed on fairly similar schedules of nutrients and supplements. The only real difference is the lighting, one tent has a 600 and the other a 400 watt HPS lamp in them. The 400 is a fair amount closer to the plants. That's it for what I have, seems like to good an opportunity to pass up for this experiment!

Here is what I plan to do. The harvest will take place on Sunday 1/4. One tent will be on its normal schedule which will have it light up at 7:00 AM so I will start the harvest at 7:00 AM. The other tent will have it's lighting shut down Friday, it's normal time to light up is 7:00 PM so it will be dark from Friday morning at 7:00 when the lights go out until harvest on Sunday at 7:00 AM that should give me 48 hours of dark for that tent. I will choose two buds from each plant and take as good a set of pictures as I can of them. Then these same buds will be photographed again on Sunday morning just before cutting. I will save them both in their own special place for drying and curing. We'll be able to check out the pictures and hopefully I'll be able to get a few folks together and see if anybody can notice anything once they have dried and cured a bit.

Open to suggestions and criticism is welcomed.

 

[Magic]

Bout time someone set out to prove or disprove this theory. I will be watching. My theory darkness can produce more tri coverage but I don't think it does a anything for potency. :Sharing One:

 

[F.N.]

I have always picked first thing in the morning with my outdoor it was at its stinkiest and stickiest

 

[JM]

.... and read this:
https://www.autoflower.org/f73/photosynthesis-what-do-plants-do-night-11938.html



happy new year!

 

[steelrat]

I think it's a myth, let's throw some logic at it (I haven't read JMs link yet because i'm drunk and it's a lot of text right now, so i hope i'm not doubling up).

Some Logic (Drunk logic so please poke holes as i'm no botanist, but i'm also Aspergic so i'll read this one 3 times for spelling/grammar/logic checking before i post it, though i don't for my casual posts) :

1. All growers can get highly-similar results with 24 hour lighting, 20 hours or 18 (not counting photos) when all other factors are constant.
2. Point 1 implies that the amount of light, and therefore the amount of darkness received, has little to no effect on the final outcome, within a defined range (18-24 hours).

So why would an extended dark period do anything ?

We know that light destroys THC and that drying and curing are Deeds Done In Darkness ;+}

We also know that warm air holds more moisture than cold air, and that when that warm air is cooled the moisture is released.

So what large changes are there in the growspace over a 48-hour period of darkness ?

1. No light, the air is cooler and therefore drier.
2. The moisture-content of the cooled air settles on the surface of every object that's in contact with it, this includes the plant (and your hygrometer, let's discuss that one!).
3. The settled moisture evaporates and escapes the equation.

So the conditions are similar to a drying box, or a cigar humidor.

So, perhaps, those freshly-flushed plants having 48 hours of darkness, is almost like a pre-drying ?


Happy New Year Lovelies

steely x x x <3

 

[steelrat]

Man you gotta luv scientists, this excerpt from an article about a study, wich no-doubt cost someone, somewhere money, ultimately says that plants do well with extra light, but that a 5% difference in humidity makes little to no difference, i had to read the fucker three times :

http://science.howstuffworks.com/dictionary/meteorological-terms/humidity-info.htm

We should form a People's Science Foundation, for The Completely Untrained, and investigate things we couldn't figure out by reading books already written on the subject!

Seriously!

Plants like more light ? No Way?

A small percentage difference in humidity makes very little difference? No way !

Damn i wish i had a PHD and got paid to research The Bloody Obvious !!!

Oooh shit i'm ranting ;+}

 

[steelrat]

Great post JM some dead links tho.

 

[JM]

doh! i give up...

 

[JM]

did ya really think jm would give up? :brow:

https://farmacyseeds.net/forums/showthread.php/7920-Photosynthesis-and-what-do-plants-do-at-night

 

[wwwillie]

Wow thanks guys!
JM it looks like I have some reading to do! That's great because I did not really have a place to start.
Steely, I know Slippery Jim would be proud! Thanks again!!