Gradual darkness before harvest.

[stonedSay10]

Any thoughts on gradual increase of dark period before harvest for autoflower?
I’m thinking of using different light schedule during the last 2-3 week, 24/0, 20/4, 18/6 and maybe 2 days of total darkness before harvest. My reasoning behind it, is to stimulate increase in resin production due to temperature drop and maybe less exposure to light. Am I just overthinking and need to just let it grow at consistent time schedule until the end?

 

[JP1]

Total darkness is highly debated. I haven't found it to make a difference really, so I gave up on it. But if you do go with darkness, make sure you can handle the humidity since you don't need any mold or rot to build up the last couple of days and the humidity will spike. There are studies about decreased light at end of life being beneficial, but I'd just dim the lights gradually instead of playing with the hours

 

[stonedSay10]

Total darkness is highly debated. I haven't found it to make a difference really, so I gave up on it. But if you do go with darkness, make sure you can handle the humidity since you don't need any mold or rot to build up the last couple of days and the humidity will spike. There are studies about decreased light at end of life being beneficial, but I'd just dim the lights gradually instead of playing with the hours

Unfortunately, my light doesn’t have a dimmer, so I thought to compensate for the lack of dimmer I could decrease DLI with changes in light schedule or, if space permits, light distance.

 

[GreenBean]

I played with it before. Actually did it again on my recent grow which is linked in my signature below.

It's all subjective but I think it added some frost, or hastened the ripening a little? Hard to tell I suppose. Another factor for me was to save a little electricity at the end of the grow as they don't need as much light. I slowly dialed back from 18/6 to 17/7, 16/8 down to 12/12 and then a few days of darkness.

Again, dunno if it does anything. But if nothing else, it does help me prepare to chop. If you can manage humidity without the lights on, as mentioned above, I don't think it hurts anything.

 

[TrichomeAssassin]

A long time ago I tried the dark tent before harvest and found it to be of "no great shakes". I put that in the same category as water only the last two week in soil. Nope! Like almost all consumer forums, there is a deep and systemic amount of band wagon behavior.

 

[stonedSay10]

I played with it before. Actually did it again on my recent grow which is linked in my signature below.

It's all subjective but I think it added some frost, or hastened the ripening a little? Hard to tell I suppose. Another factor for me was to save a little electricity at the end of the grow as they don't need as much light. I slowly dialed back from 18/6 to 17/7, 16/8 down to 12/12 and then a few days of darkness.

Again, dunno if it does anything. But if nothing else, it does help me prepare to chop. If you can manage humidity without the lights on, as mentioned above, I don't think it hurts anything.

Very nice grow journal, it looks like it was a lot of effort. Thanks for sharing. I guess I'll git it a try, but in my case I'll start from 24 and go down to 18, if all goes as planned. Currently I'm on 4th week on 24/0 and she's looking great.
And as per JP1's experience, I most likely skip on prolong darkness, but I'll see what the humidity will be like before the chop.

 

[GreenBean]

Very nice grow journal, it looks like it was a lot of effort. Thanks for sharing. I guess I'll git it a try, but in my case I'll start from 24 and go down to 18, if all goes as planned. Currently I'm on 4th week on 24/0 and she's looking great.
And as per JP1's experience, I most likely skip on prolong darkness, but I'll see what the humidity will be like before the chop.

Thanks. Part of the entire experience is to have fun. And to have fun sometimes I like to play around. Topping/not topping. Different light schedules, pot sizes. Whatever. Sometimes playing around with Bro Science just to see what happens is fun too. And maybe you learn stuff along the way that makes the "production" portion of your process more efficient. Whether that entails trying any Bro Science stuff out or not.

One of the things I have learned is that I don't need to blast my plants with 1200 PPFD the entire grow to get a heavy harvest. Or run 24/7. So why waste the electricity.

Or that I don't find fertigating my coco grows up till the final day to have any benefits. So why waste the nutes the last week? I'm not talking about a "flush". Although I guess that may be a side effect. I don't think flushing does anything beneficial btw.

So is that Bro Science? Dunno. Not necessarily I guess. Maybe I tried some things that are Bro Science just to see what happens? Maybe it's all BS or maybe some of it is rooted in some grain of truth?

 

[logangrowgan2020]

My best understanding is that lower temps, drier air, and less light intensity the last couple weeks before harvest lead to more trichome production/frostier pot.

Have heard from countless people that a couple days of flat darkness before chop doesn't make a discernable difference.

 

[Shizznit]

I’ve known home growers that have done it and neither them nor myself could tell of any real difference. Heard of doing ice water last 2 days or going to dry stress watering(lack of water) and so many other things. In the end all you can do is give it some thought and if you feel it makes sense to you then give it a try. Best of luck

 

[Slater]

Watch this video with Dr Bruce Bugee, skip to 36min for the scientific answer to the darkness before harvest practice.

Also this whole video is a must watch, dripping with knowledge