Interrupting lighting for your plants during any phase of growth can prompt disastrous changes. Plants do have circadian rhythms. Therefore, they react distinctively to light.
A lot of different perspectives may interfere with your plants. For example, kids playing around the grow room might turn the lights off by mistake or mess with the lighting system. On some occasions, a power blackout or issue in your space may also hamper the lighting.
A few people try to manipulate the marijuana plants to bloom by interrupting the lighting system. This may work for a while, but it might be damaging to your plant in the long run.
At the point when lights are interrupted, you need to fix this issue ASAP. If you don’t do that, you will end up affecting the yield of your plant.
In this article, we will talk about with you the impacts of blooming light cycle interference and how to manage it in case it occurs.
Extra Hours of Light During Flowering Cycle
During the flowering phase, cannabis plants need more hours in the dark. If the minimum of 12 hours of darkness in your grow room is interrupted with light, your plant stops blooming—light interference winds down the flowering signal.
Also, if the light is turned on and off during the flowering season, it prompts plant stress which causes seedy and bisexual buds.
The light interference is not something that must be taken seriously. Indeed, even a tiny leak of light through your grow room cracks, vents, or door, can cause issues.
So at all costs, try not to intrude on your dark hours. At the point when your plant begins blooming, do not let kids play around your grow room. Also, ensure that your lighting setup is appropriately installed and it does not turn on automatically.
Test your room for any light interruptions. To test this, you need to shut yourself in the grow room. Check whether there is any light getting in your grow room through cracks, vents, or some other opening.
When you track down any opening that is letting in light, fix it up. Close all holes that bring in light to your grow room.
Additional Hours of Light During Flowering Cycle
An interruption to light that could leave your plants in darkness for a long time may damage the plants.
We have discussed that the minimum hours are 12 hours, and the most prolonged darkness hours can be around 24 hours. Hence, when you notice a power interruption that causes darkness in your grow room, we suggest that you don’t turn the lights on right away.
Allow your plants to stay in darkness for 24 hours. Time and turn on the lights at the pre-set lighting hours.
For example, plant darkness hours for your plant runs from 6.00 PM to 6.00 AM, and you notice the lights are still off at 9.00 AM, do not turn on the lights right away. Let the plants stay in darkness until the next day at 6.00 PM.
Turning the lights on after interruption of darkness will stress your plants. Furthermore, it will affect the budding and blooming process as well.
The ‘Actual’ Flowering Light Cycle
Before we get into issues and solutions of light cycle interruption during flowering, how about we understand what the ‘genuine’ flowering light cycle is. It will assist us in quantifying the number of issues one might have created during the process.
Grow lights need an exact variation of grow light intensity and the light hours. If we divide flowering into various sub-stages, it will be something like-
Transition> First Buds> Growth of Buds> Buds Ripen
Let us now discuss the best light cycle for flowering at various stages-
Stage 1 – Transition Period: 12-10/12-14 Hours of L/D
This is when plants transition from vegetative to flowering stage, and the light cycle needs to be 12-14 hours every day.
In simple terms, it is the initial few weeks of the flowering stage while plants go into moving from vegetative. The plants are as yet growing. Thus, the light cycle will not vary much from what it was during the vegetative process.
Stage 2 – Spotting the First Buds: 10-8/14-16 Hours of L/D
This stage is also called ‘First Buds .’ This is when you will see the first flower growing up (only for female plants).
The light/dark cycle should be around 10-8 hours and 14-16 hours, respectively.
It takes the entire third and fourth week to get done with the process, and you might even see some hairy pistils. The growth will eventually slow down, and that is also when you slow down the amount of light and steadily increase the darkness.
Stage 3 – Growth of Buds: 6/18 Hours of L/D
Now, this is the stage that we call the actual ‘blossoming stage.’ The buds can be seen growing up and maturing with time, and the best light/dark cycle would be 6 hours of light and 18 hours of darkness.
Why? Well, that is due to the fact that flowers grow up due to the build-up of Florigen (a flowering hormone). Also, after a lot of different experiments, it has been proven to build up when it is dark.
Stage 4 – Buds Ripen: 6-0/18-24 Hours of L/D
At this last stage, nearly everything about flowering is done and dusted. Along these lines, there is no compelling reason to change the light/darkness cycle to an extreme extent. You can keep the lights for 6 hours and the darkness for 18 hours.
As per the situation, a few growers choose to give a continuous 24-48 hours of darkness to initiate the riping cycle.
Why Do Light Cycles Gets Interrupted?
First thing first, light cycles do not get interrupted themselves. There are some purposeful or mistakenly done reasons behind that.
Who do we say it is ‘Intentional’? All things considered, it is an essential indoor growing 101 that some growers trigger to instigate fast flowering or stay in the vegetative stage by controlling the light cycles.
Furthermore, if done correctly, it might seem like no problem at all.
We are worried about the unintentional and accidental scenarios of light cycle interruptions, especially in the flowering phase.
Here are a couple of reasons that are the reason behind extra light during the flowering phase:
Case 1: Long Interruptions (4 hours or more)
- You forgot to put on/off the lights.
- The dial-up timer did not work as expected.
- There is an unexpected leak in the vent or around a door.
Case 2: Quick Interruptions (Few minutes to 4 hours)
- Light wore out, and you did not bother noticing.
- Power interruptions due to dangers like winter storms and so on.
- Unexpected leaks in the light cycle for some time.
As you can see in the rundown, we have figured them out in two distinct ways. For apparent reasons, the effects and cycle of recovery are different in both cases.
Light Cycle Is interrupted During Flowering: Issues and Remedies
As we mentioned before, the interruption of a light cycle during flowering would significantly affect the whole process. The same thing happens in other phases of plant development as well.
Here are some specific issues that light interruptions will cause in a Vegetative Stage.
Plants Go Back to Vegetative Stage When Exposed with Excess Light
At the point when you interrupt a dark cycle by providing excessive light, you affect the bloom development. Excess exposure to light will imply that less Florigen is being created in the plant. Therefore, the flowers don’t grow.
Simultaneously, excess light facilitates photosynthesis. It will make the plant to develop its leaves and keep growing. In a couple of days, your cannabis will re-vegetate.
This issue is usually seen in the early phases of plant development.
Solution: If you notice that your lights were on for a long time than needed, you can solve this issue. You should simply leave your plant in the dark for a long time. This will incite the overproduction of Florigen. Your plant will, hence, reverse the vegetative stage and begin blooming again.
Leave the plant in the dark for about 24 hours if you have exposed your plants to light for over 16 hours.
When the 24 hours are completed, restart the regular cycle. Contingent upon the stage on which your plant is at, offer significant lighting hours.
Buds Mature Faster
Another impact of light interruption is the maturity of the buds. It may seem like something worth celebrating, but again, do not disrupt the basic flowering process.
A few growers, sadly, let the plant stay in darkness for it to bloom. At the point when this is done, the flowers grow too quickly. It ends up affecting the yield.
Solution: Ensure that you keep a balance between the light and darkness hours.
Gender Changes
At the point when the light activity of your grow room is interrupted, things might get out of control. In case lights are being turned on every now and then, it confounds the plant. Thus, your cannabis creates gaunt buds that eventually transform into bisexual ones.
The abrupt change in the light disturbs the plant from growing as male or female. The light intensity is also another reason for this stress. At the point when your plant experiences overheating or thermal pressure, it creates bisexual buds.
Solution: Get a lighting setup with the right light intensity and wattage for your plants. Also, make sure you try not to turn on and off lights in your grow room.
Lighting Setups That Work Best In These Situations:
The initial phase in guaranteeing that your plant flowering light cycle will not be interrupted is ensuring that you get an ideal lighting setup for your to grow room.
You will discover lights of different kinds. Be that as it may, not every grow light you will find in the market is suitable for your plant. in this case, we suggest that you get the best lighting that will give your plant the most extreme yield.
LED Grow Lights
LED grow lights come in two distinct sorts – T5 and CFL. T5 are intended for huge grow tents. For a smaller tent, we recommend you get your hands on a CFL.
With all conditions dealt with, you can expect to grow 0.25 grams of buds with every Watt. Thus, it means that if you use 1000W light, you will get 0.5 lbs of yield. Moreover, this is not a good yield given all the expenses you might incur.
High-Intensity Discharge (HID) Light
HID Lights give better yield as compared to fluorescent lights. They come in three kinds – Metal Halide (MH), High-Pressure Sodium (HPS) and Ceramic Metal Halide (CMH).
Notwithstanding, to get the best out of these lights, you need to equip them with hoods or reflectors.
Yet, one of the issues that you should manage here is heat. Whenever you have installed the lights, you need to use cooling techniques for your tent. Or else, your plants will be damaged, and they will not generate a yield that you expected.
Whenever you have cooled your grow tent, you will get the most extreme yield with this light.
With a proper setup of HD light, you can get 1 gram of buds per Watt. In a tiny space, you would get an overall yield of about 2.5 lbs.
Be that as it may, you need to manage your light as your plants grow to accomplish this. Use MH lights at the vegetative stage, and when your plant begins blooming, put on the HPS lights. This technique would boost the total yield you will get from your 4×4 grow tent.
LED or HPS, What is the Best Lighting for Flowering Plants?
Now, you may be wondering about which light to use for your yield. At the point when you look at the two lights, LED lighting is pocket-friendly. LED bulbs consume less energy as compared to HPS lights. You also will not incur the expenses of cooling down the grow room/ tent.
Then again, HPS gives plants a higher yield. But, it leads to the issue of the expense you will incur with the HPS lights. You will have to install a cooling system in your grow room or tent. Furthermore, if you don’t cool it properly, you might end up getting a much lower yield.
Not to forget, HPS lights consume more energy.
In this way, to get the most extreme yield from your grow room/ tent, you should use both the lighting setups in a balance. This will give you harmony between the yields and cost.
Light and darkness are fundamental in the blooming period of weed. Both should be provided in the right amount and duration. In case that is not done, the impacts will be unfavourable, and you will not get the yield you want to have.
Make sure to follow the light cycle recommendation we have talked about in this article. Your plants will flower and generate the most excellent yields.
Half a pound for a 1000w led grow lamp, that’s hilarious 😂