What's new
  • ICMag with help from Landrace Warden and The Vault is running a NEW contest in November! You can check it here. Prizes are seeds & forum premium access. Come join in!

12/1 lighting--Any truth or banana in the tail pipe?

tokinblackguy

Active member
Came across Joe's articles in a few places as of late and wanted to get some opinions of what others think, specially if anyone has actually tried it. Seen Joe mention this method in Skunk mag, Treating yourself, and somewhere else. This is a copy and paste from TY, thoughts please?



Grow Bigger and Better,Saving 30-50% on your energy cost!

By Joe Pietri

The biggest innovator in the history of cannabis in my generation is Reinhard Delp. Not only did he invent and holder of the patent for ice water extraction, he has been building flower forcers since 1992. His new solar powered Sun-gate is the leader of the industry. He was the first to feminize seeds and sell them in Europe in the late 90’s. His process was done naturally, without the use of any chemicals.

No one is more copied but seldom matched than Mr. Delp, who to me is the top grower of our generation.

The first time he impressed me he showed me 2 plants, planted next to one another, 1 completely covered in powdery mildew, the other completely clean and beautiful.
He was developing mildew and mold resistant genetics.

In the late 90’s Reinhard brought back the gas lantern routine that you find in any college grade horticulture book, and applied it to cannabis. Cannabis needs only 13 hours to stay in growth state. The 18-6 lighting in growth pattern, actually stress your plants, that never get that much light in one-day outdoors. Cannabis is an outdoor plant. Growing indoors you should copy how it grows outdoors.

No Cannabis growing in Afghanistan gets 18 hours of light in growth pattern. Most strains today have some part Indica in their genetic pool. Even equatorial strains don’t get 18 hours of sun a day.

12-1 lighting is as follows: 12 hours lights on, 5.5 lights off, 1-hour lights on, 5.5 lights off, and repeat schedule. The 1 hour on in between off period fools the plants that stay in growth state!

Your immediate savings is 5 hours in energy costs daily, as well as your bulbs and equipment lasting longer. But how do the plants react to this lighting schedule?

You see immediate growth response from your plants, they are happy from the added rest time. By day 14 the plants tripled in size. The plants are bushy with twice as many bud sites without topping or bending, In fact, when you top and stretch your plants out, you get many more bud sites than you would have had under 18-6 using same procedure of topping and stretching plant, your growing bigger and better and faster.

So you're saving 5 hours daily in energy costs, as well as your accelerated growth pattern which also saves you time and energy and equipment use.

In the growth cycle, never use 12-12, start your flowering period at 11 hours on 13 hours off. When your are growing outdoors each day you get less and less sun light, you should copy the way the sun acts naturally in your indoor grow. So first 2 weeks of flower you go 11 on 13 off, the next 2 weeks you go down to 10.5 on 13.5 off, next 2 weeks 10 on 14 off, next two weeks 9.5 on 14.5 off and the last weeks of flower you should be at 9 hours on and 15 hours off. You’ll get bigger and better buds by copying the way the sun light works on cannabis outdoors.

Cannabis is an outdoor plant and you should copy the way it grows outdoors indoors. The only thing that 18-6, and then 12-12 do is make the energy companies rich as well as the people who sell lights and equipment, the more you use the more you spend. 12-1 is a more natural way to grow indoors and you well have the best results you have ever had and save as much as 50% in energy costs.

Something to think about for sure but would only work if you are doing your flowering plants in batches. Many growers do, so anyone want to try this and get back to us?

Might be good for folks who have smart meters hooked up. Not so likely to flag suspicious energy usage patterns and if it saves a buck so much the better.
 

Stress_test

I'm always here when I'm not someplace else
Veteran
I may just know a guy to have test this idea, he is setting up a new med room so he might like the idea of saving the 5 hrs of power usage daily.

I'll let ya know what he says and try to get some more detailed info and pics...
 

Phaeton

Speed of Dark
Veteran
I have tried that shrinking light at the end technique and it did not do any damage to the plant that was obvious, did not add anything either but probably saved $10 worth of electricity.

That flash of light at midnight to inhibit flowering sounds promising. My clones grow too fast. Take a clone when the mother goes into the budroom and by the time there is room in the room the clone has been topped three times and is still a foot and a half too high.
12 hours is less energy than 18 hours, less energy is less growth, this should slow it down some. I have a tray that should have roots in 3 more days, I will try this (I try everything) and see how healthy the plants stay.
More plant mass manufactured with less energy does not really fit with my experience, healthy, smooth, and balanced growth at a slower rate is the best of what I expect. That would be an excellent result.
If it turns out this is a pill that really does let my car run on water then I will have to reformulate everything I do, this would be interesting indeed.
 

Andyo

Active member
Veteran
night break lighting

night break lighting

yes nightbreak lighting works it been used in horticulture for years
I used it at a buddys place to keep the electic bill down .
Plants measure nights.
The uppsala plant research institute in sweden used this in many tests in the 60.s
I used to have a book with much of there research results in ,unfortunatley taken by the police .A
 

Andyo

Active member
Veteran
less growth

less growth

You will get less growth ,as light is of a quantative value.
But i still think you will benefit finacially
The 1 hour night break lighting could be done with a few cfl cool white lamps.A
 

paladin420

FACILITATOR
Veteran
I have tried that shrinking light at the end technique and it did not do any damage to the plant that was obvious, did not add anything either but probably saved $10 worth of electricity.

That flash of light at midnight to inhibit flowering sounds promising. My clones grow too fast. Take a clone when the mother goes into the budroom and by the time there is room in the room the clone has been topped three times and is still a foot and a half too high.
12 hours is less energy than 18 hours, less energy is less growth, this should slow it down some. I have a tray that should have roots in 3 more days, I will try this (I try everything) and see how healthy the plants stay.
More plant mass manufactured with less energy does not really fit with my experience, healthy, smooth, and balanced growth at a slower rate is the best of what I expect. That would be an excellent result.
If it turns out this is a pill that really does let my car run on water then I will have to reformulate everything I do, this would be interesting indeed.

Waitin to see your tests.
 

supermanlives

Active member
Veteran
well it might work. but i really doubt your bulbs and ballasts last longer with all that turning on and off. i smoke alot of weed and i can guarantee i would fuck up the schedule somehow so i wont be trying it . but would love to watch others
 
Last edited:

dankski

Member
This sounds very interesting,might give it a try.
I do now veg at 16/8 and flower with 11/13 with good results,i do need to save on power,got a pay as you go meter and its killing the pocket:tiphat:
 
Last edited:

supermanlives

Active member
Veteran
This sounds very interesting,might give it a try.
I do now veg at 16/8 and flower with 13/11 with good results,i do need to save on power,got a pay as you go meter and its killing the pocket:tiphat:

pay as you go meter? never heard of that before
 

dankski

Member
pay as you go meter? never heard of that before
Its a pre pay thing were i have to go to a local shop with a key that i charge up or pay for at the counter and go and put the key back in the meter(pay as i go)its mad expensive compered to a bill,but easier to do if you have money troubles.
 
D

DonkDBZ

12-1 lighting is as follows: 12 hours lights on, 5.5 lights off, 1-hour lights on, 5.5 lights off, and repeat schedule. The 1 hour on in between off period fools the plants that stay in growth state!

definetly works. Used to do something similar myself. But my reason was to keep my mom plants in veg and keep em from getting big. Then when I needed cuts put em back to 18/6 for a week or 2 prior.
 

señorsloth

Senior Member
Veteran
i just read the article about him in skunk magazine and he was very emphatic about it's use, apparently it's used by all legal comercial flower farmers, and it's a pretty standard thing...i have also read many places over that at least some big time growers use different light schedules to increase color and smell/flavor of strains...maybe this is the kind of thing they were talking about. i have been reading about it all day and it seems most people are looking at it as a power saving option only, i'm looking at it from another stand point, if i can get the same yields with a gradual step down as i could with 12/12 or better i'll give it a shot, i'm a firm believer that certain things about indoor growing can be pushed beyond anything natural but other things are best left as close to natural as possible. i am at week 2 of flowering, and expect another 8, so i switched my lights to 11/13, my timer is a sorta old school non digital deal, it's got the wheel on it with little plastic doodads that you click up or down in 15 minute intervals, now every saturday i'm going to click one doo dad, so that in 8 weeks i'll have gradually stepped down too 9/15...

i'm not saying that it's going to work but i am willing to test it out as i do trust the credentials of the people supporting it.
 

Phaeton

Speed of Dark
Veteran
I hate screwing up a test...

I have a higher priority UV test going and as soon as the clones got roots I put 64 watts of Reptisun 10 in the veg room to cover the test plant. All the plants now get UVB, which also has a large UVA component, a known stunter of stretch. So the plants stayed smaller.
I cut the watts to 49/square foot from 74 after the test plant was moved to bud. This does not promote growth either.
The cycle was THEN put to 12/1.
I kept some sativa vegging, which will grow too tall for the budroom no matter what. They are vegging under 12/1 instead of getting cloned and tossed as I normally treat the extra's. But with the UV on I will not be 100% on any direct cause and effect.
Dangitall.

DonkDBZ had good results, the science is there, I do expect healthy smaller plants. Patience is hard but nothing can be done but wait, and wait some more, argh.
 
Top