Why does light deprivation increase bud quality

[TychoMonolyth]

Light deprivation was used to increase crop production. It was initially called Black Boxing and would allow a grower to produce a crop in early summer.

Why is it associated with increased quality?
Does it really?
If it does increase quality, why and how does it do that?

Personally, I think it's bullshit that it increases bud quality. Still, I'm open to being corrected.

 

[Cvh]

I have always been under the impression that light deprivation was used to trigger early flowering in photoperiod strains.

Maybe because of earlier flowering this way, the plants mature during the better summer months instead of rotten fall months and that way increase the quality? Dunno.

 

[Maple_Flail]

the sun is closer to the planet in the beginning of the season, and farther during the fall.

so for light dep, if you do your homework you are looking at a quick harvest with larger than average yeilds due to the increased solar intensity apposed to end of season where the sun is working its way back to its closest point.

its just before the middle of january for the closest point to the earth and middle of july for the farthest.

so early season sun is close moving away, end of season sun is farther moving closer..

 

[TychoMonolyth]

the sun is closer to the planet in the beginning of the season, and farther during the fall.

so for light dep, if you do your homework you are looking at a quick harvest with larger than average yeilds due to the increased solar intensity apposed to end of season where the sun is working its way back to its closest point.

its just before the middle of january for the closest point to the earth and middle of july for the farthest.

so early season sun is close moving away, end of season sun is farther moving closer..

Ah.. Makes sense now. So to add to that, as the angle increases, red wavelength continues, but blue will get diffused. So along with less intensity, less spectrum as well?

I stand corrected.

 

[BlackBart]

CVH Nailed it ! Its all about the suns intensity in the earlier months of flower .

 

[TakenByTheSky]

the sun is closer to the planet in the beginning of the season, and farther during the fall.

so for light dep, if you do your homework you are looking at a quick harvest with larger than average yeilds due to the increased solar intensity apposed to end of season where the sun is working its way back to its closest point.

its just before the middle of january for the closest point to the earth and middle of july for the farthest.

so early season sun is close moving away, end of season sun is farther moving closer..

Great post, I've never thought about it that way, but it definitely makes sense as light deep buds I see online always look as good as indoor.

Another advantage at least to doing it here in the North East is that the weather gets super shitty and unpredictable at the end of the season, I've gotten a month of rain in the last month and ruined and entire summers worth of work with dark and grey shitty days with no sun.

 

[El Timbo]

the sun is closer to the planet in the beginning of the season, and farther during the fall.

so for light dep, if you do your homework you are looking at a quick harvest with larger than average yeilds due to the increased solar intensity apposed to end of season where the sun is working its way back to its closest point.

its just before the middle of january for the closest point to the earth and middle of july for the farthest.

so early season sun is close moving away, end of season sun is farther moving closer..

You seem to be contradicting your own point - the sun may be closer in January but in the northern hemisphere this is a month with low sun intensity due to the tilt in the earth's axis.

I use light deprivation all year to get 4 harvests - Jan, April, July, Oct for example. The July harvest will receive the most hours of direct sunlight per 12 hour "day" and stronger sunlight due to the angle of the Sun, caused by the tilt (despite it being further away than in January).

 

[Snook]

It's all good but I'm having touch of vertigo..

up is down and down is up?
It was all good until post#7... not sayin anyone is wrong.



"Duh... which way did he go?"

 

[prune]

and of course, you can't discount the better weather at the height of the season as opposed to Fall's cloudy and cooler climate.

 

[big315smooth]

i always thought it was better being most deps are in greenhouse. figure the plant being outta some of the elements made for sexier/finer bud

 

[subrob]

Sooooo, not to be the "ole grouchy fuck" or the "context police", but after reading the thread so far, one could conclude that light dep does not increase quality, rather, letting the plant flower naturally decreases quality.
Doesn't seem like a big deal, but some newb reads this thread and goes on IG and spreads the idea to an army of newbs, etc etc.
Just sayin...and I haven't had my morning smoke yet, my brain could be misfiring.

 

[El Timbo]

Sooooo, not to be the "ole grouchy fuck" or the "context police", but after reading the thread so far, one could conclude that light dep does not increase quality, rather, letting the plant flower naturally decreases quality.

I wouldn't say that as I haven't done both with the same clone to compare. I do it for the convenience of harvesting 4x a year.

 

[Sunshineinabag]

Light deprivation was used to increase crop production. It was initially called Black Boxing and would allow a grower to produce a crop in early summer.

Why is it associated with increased quality?
Does it really?
If it does increase quality, why and how does it do that?

Personally, I think it's bullshit that it increases bud quality. Still, I'm open to being corrected.

canna growers have to be jack of all masters of none at the trades.....even solar spectrums! Ya know that ball of fusion we got is pretty fuken awesome! well cept when one of its flares knocked out power to montreal back in the day...lmaop

 

[TychoMonolyth]

canna growers have to be jack of all masters of none at the trades.....even solar spectrums! Ya know that ball of fusion we got is pretty fuken awesome! well cept when one of its flares knocked out power to montreal back in the day...lmaop

lol.

You mean the whole eastern seaboard? That time? I thought it was UFOs.

On Light Deprivation increasing bud quality;
I vote for stronger/more full spectrum light on flowers in July, as opposed to typical outdoor end of September/October results.

After all, you can get October outdoor results growing indoor with small shitty lights.

 

[MindEater]

Tarped outdoor vs greenhouse deps, that's your quality difference. Controlled greenhouse = all the advantage of indoor with none of the disadvantage of outdoor.

 

[Maple_Flail]

You seem to be contradicting your own point - the sun may be closer in January but in the northern hemisphere this is a month with low sun intensity due to the tilt in the earth's axis.

I use light deprivation all year to get 4 harvests - Jan, April, July, Oct for example. The July harvest will receive the most hours of direct sunlight per 12 hour "day" and stronger sunlight due to the angle of the Sun, caused by the tilt (despite it being further away than in January).

Sorry should have prefaced that with, Growing in Canada 43* lat and up.. Thought processes was fitting two crops in the outdoor season and few have year round green houses up this way.

I'm not talking about growing in january.. i'm talking a bloom period of end of may to mid july vs August to october
up here, end of may to middle of july is noticablly warmer, higher UV intensities.

how do your april and october harvests compar?

 

[El Timbo]

i'm talking a bloom period of end of may to mid july vs August to october
up here, end of may to middle of july is noticablly warmer, higher UV intensities.

its just before the middle of january for the closest point to the earth and middle of july for the farthest.

.

So it's warmer in July despite the Sun being further away than it is in October.

 

[TychoMonolyth]

So it's warmer in July despite the Sun being further away than it is in October.

It's all in the angle of attack.
That's why is winter in Australia when it summer up here, and vice versa.

 

[therevverend]

I'd like to see a scientific paper of some kind, it rings true but it's speculation. In my area the warmest months with the most intense sun are late July-early September. Every year and especially last year, I'm amazed at how much my plants produce, how much weight and frost they put on, with basically no hot days after September 30th. Some of them don't finish until October 23, that's 3 weeks at temperatures around 60 degrees F and lots of clouds.

It's lead to the theory that they store energy during the intense heat in the last part of summer then turn the energy into flowers the last couple weeks of their life. This is also why they don't need to be fed the last 2-4 weeks.

Of course in sunny California or east of the mountains here in Washington where it's 75-80 degrees F the buds get huge and dripping with resin, without all the PM and boytritis problems. Even northern California gets it's share of cool wet weather in September however. If my theory is correct the May-mid June weather is what makes or breaks the light dep crop and I'm not convinced it's more intense then the light in August.

That said, when I saw a big eastern Washington light dep crop I couldn't believe my eyes. It's an arid desert, in late June the temperature was 95 degrees F, not a drop of humidity. The plants were only 4 feet high because they stuck scraggy barely rooted clones in the ground, vegged them for two weeks, then started the light dep. But the buds were insane, intensely stinky and covered in resin only 4 weeks into flowering. The sun was insanely intense and high in the sky, I felt sick and dizzy after 10 minutes out in it. I need to go back there in late September to compare but it made an impression.

Which brings up one more point. A huge fully mature long season ganja plant is probably going to be superior to a much smaller plant. Much bigger factory pumping out the bigger buds and resin.

My eastern Washington buddy described his light dep as 'growing indoors outdoors'. He was using indoor type soil mix, fertilizers, growing indoor size plants and getting indoor quality results. It sounds better then it is; indoor growing is bound by limitations. I'll still take a long season plant in the ground over a light dep one. The further north you go the more it swings in favor of light dep. Especially if you're above 45 or 50 degrees N (or below 45 degrees S-if there's any land down there?), you get that ridiculous high northern sun.

I wonder if anyone has tried a double light dep in the Arctic? One field on the first 12 hours (0:00-12:00) and another on the second 12 (12:00-24:00)! Sounds like a fun experiment..

 

[TychoMonolyth]

Might be a good experiment in Alberta where the sun sets so late in the summer. I was in Calgary for a while and we were playing football at 10pm. We could have played until 10:30-11.