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

[ran outta love]

I have been using the 12/1 for over six months now.
I do not use it to save electricity, I turn up the lights to make up for the lost time.
What this does is give slower growth. Slower and sturdier is what I was after because my veg table produces faster than the budroom.
12/1 does exactly that for me.

Yes I've definitely noticed slower growth! I attributed it to the weather getting cooler as the article claimed an accelerated growth rate. I am not after slow growing at the moment (although can understand the value for mothers and so on) so considering going back to 18/6.

 

[catman]

I do not use it to save electricity, I turn up the lights to make up for the lost time.
What this does is give slower growth. Slower and sturdier is what I was after because my veg table produces faster than the budroom.

I think you're spot on.

Just going to pull some numbers out of my ass to illustrate a point here. A plant vegged for 60 days under 50w of lighting might appear as big as a plant vegged for 30 days under 100w, but from my experiences, the older plant will produce more in the end. When I've half assed tested this out before I was almost fooled because the younger plants seem to grow much quicker than old ones for a brief period of time when moved under more lighting. Hell, the stock size of a younger plant might be bigger around, but the sturdiness that comes with age seems to be more important.

 

[OrganicOzarks]

37 days in, and they are way on the downhill. Right now i am at 10 hours on 14 hours off. They look like they could be done in 2 weeks. I will take them at least another 4 weeks. Or maybe not. Who knows

I will say without a doubt that these have swelled up faster, and are way frostier than previous runs.

 

[Hydro-Soil]

If one was limited to 1 flowering plant for every 1 immature plant and say a flowering period is 60 days, which lighting schedule produces the biggest plants above all?

Theoretically.... I would imagine something like 14/10, but then it would take a 60 day strain longer than 60 days to finish.

I'm under the impression that you're going to find 12/12 to be the closest to 'optimal' as far as time vs. yield is concerned. Individual strains/phenos may run 'optimal' with slightly different schedules... you'd have to dial them in.

I'm pretty much sold on the 12-1/11 concept...

Stay Safe!

 

[FlowerTops]

OrganicO,

That is just awesome bro! Looking forward to the final weight / comparison. Also, have you noticed differences in the smells?? Reinhard Delp claims the end smells end up closser to outdoor greenhouse quality, which I'm very curious about.

 

[OrganicOzarks]

OrganicO,

That is just awesome bro! Looking forward to the final weight / comparison. Also, have you noticed differences in the smells?? Reinhard Delp claims the end smells end up closser to outdoor greenhouse quality, which I'm very curious about.

The smell is much stronger. I am very happy that i tried this out. I am officially converted.

 

[bililuv23]

I've recently started the 12-1 lighting schedule that I read about in the latest SKUNK mag. I initially attempted the 30/30 for 12 hours for the first 2 weeks, but have reverted back to a true 12-1. I started this technique with new seedlings and initial growth seems a little slow. I just hooked up some Co2 as that may be a part of the problem, so we'll see if there are any improvements. Does anyone have a take if there will potentially be more males and should this technique be more for cuttings? I've seen an improvement in the light bill, so I'm going to stay the course.

 

[FlowerTops]

It seems like everyone who's tried this becomes converted. I'm going to finally try this for the first time in a few weeks as organicozarks progression has pushed me off the fence to go for it.

If it works well I think I'm gonna upgrade to 1000w bulbs insted of 600w which should give me even more yield for the same power.

I was always told yield suffers big time with this flowering schedule...mostly from people who had never tried it.

 

[justwatchin]

An alternative to this method that avoids early flowering and leaf mutation, is to simply add some supplemental fluoros to run the full 18 hrs, and only run your HID for 6-12 hrs. This way, your plants are getting the full 18-20 hrs of veg time in terms of hormone production/flower trigger etc, but you are still saving on your electrical bill by reducing your HID usage by a 1/3rd.

That seems like an excellent idea for those of us that use the stretch to defoliate once at 20-25days and then fold down the plant and drop the lights to get more penetration. Although the increase in budsight growth with the defoliation and folding down does seem beneficial. I will have to give the 12/1 a try


The dial down in flowering method i've found is only effective if used to finish up long running, never ending sativas with indicas it doesnt really matter that much. It is also only effective without dropping yields if used during the last 3rd of flowering. If used from the begining it drops yields. I tried it. I flower 11/13 and everything flowers just fine.

has anyone tried 6 hours on / 6 hours off / 6 hours on / 6 hours off? or 7 hours on / 5 hours off / 7 hours on / 5 hours off? or something alone those lines?

I have flowered with a 6on/12off schedule. You get something like nine flowering days one week 10flowering days the next or something like that. Kinda hard to remember the details, it was over 6yrs when I did this, but you get more flowering days in a week is what it boils down to. What I do remember are that the benefits were quicker harvest date if you have a deadline to meet, definite off timed schedule for smart meters if they are in your area, and it was very very easy to keep the area cool. I do not remeber how much it did cut the flowering time by but I remember being impressed.

I dropped this flowering time because

1) it was hard for my time schedule to keep up with watering with my time schedule.( Something that I suppose could easily I could have corrected through automatic watering methods.)

2) I got a decrease in over all yield (which I suppose could be off-set by increasing watts at on-time, and defoliating and bending the plants how you want and dropping the lights.) I just saw the decrease in yield and stopped there.

but overall it did work to decrease flowering time, just hard to do without a little automation and added work for yield.

LOL thinking about it I might try this again in a bigger room

 

[Chamba]

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.

Let's get the fact straight....Reinhard Delp sounds like a smart cookie, but he didn't invent the ice water extraction, Neville from the Cannabis College did according to R.C. Clarke...all this guy did was use this concept to produce and patent a contraption that no one uses.

and just about everything this Joe Pietri character has written online or has been quoted as saying that I've read has been super negative, divisive, aggressive, biased and or utter bullshit...if he's not boasting, he's trying to put some one down by calling them a rat.

 

[Bobby Stainless]

 

[DGSIX]

I tried the 12/1 method and I too noticed slow growth, and deformities in my plants tops along the lines of 3 leave, 2 leave, and even single blade fan leaves. Scrapped the plants and had to start with some new clones thus setting me back atleast a month for some thorough veg time. It may vary from cannabis variety to variety, but so far no good on my end.

-DG-

 

[edisonzmedicine]

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.

You say less energy is less growth, isn't growth determined by genetics? I've seen underfed kids grow to be well over 6' 250lbs.

I had a couple plants outdoors in a not so good location, maybe 7-8 hours of direct light. The strains still performed and reached the same height the breeder's info stated.

 

[edisonzmedicine]

I ran the veg schedule of 12/1 for about 2 months. Things seem to work well, especially the lower electric bill. BUt then I noticed my napalms started showing three blade fan leaves at the top. I have never seen this in this strain. I then noticed my male clones in veg started flowering. I switched back.

I may try it again...and I think it works well. The plants seemed to trigger the flowering phase faster as well. But I fear some strains don't like it.

I believe you hit the nail on the head. It is strain specific. The more vigorous and hearty the genetics, the better the 12/1 experience.

 

[Phaeton]

Almost six months have passed since I posted about testing the 12/1 on the veg table. And with the quote that close here is an update.

The plants did indeed grow slower, the indica did not like it much at all, more red helped somewhat.
The sativa loves it, grows slower, which is good because it is giving better stem diameter to leaf mass. Overall I am happy with it.
Although when some unforseen actions got the veg table behind in production I did go back to 17/7 for the more rapid growth and maturing needed at that time. Now 12/1 is back and growth has slowed again.

From clone to ready to bud:
Sativa-five weeks.
Indica-seven weeks.

Bud time is eight to eleven weeks, slow is better on the veg table.

And yes, I realize this applies only to my bagseed sativa and old school Northern Lights.

 

[gonzo`]

NICE

 

[raypack]

Why do the plants look so sad during the 1 hour?

 

[Weezard]

Think about it.
Wake me up in da middle of the night and you can bet that somebody's gonna be sad.

 

[raypack]

Yep! I feel really guilty because of that. But the flowering tent is doing so nicely because the temps don't go all wild twice a day when both lights are on. Just a small peak around "noon". I'm at a loss what to do. Will have to smoke on it.

 

[OrganicOzarks]

54 days flower

The frost level on these is noticeably more. As far as weight goes the top colas appear to be similar in size, but the lower buds are all bigger than usual. If I would have know these would not have stretched I would have vegged them another foot. However now know. I usually take these 70 days. I am thinking the end of next week will be when these get chopped.