2 strains
@best_hydro, thnaks for reading and catch this unusual specific detail!
They are automatics genetics, so day/night is not used to trigger the flowering.
Usually I can see most of the indoor growers with auto-flowering works with 20/4 or 18/6 all along, from vegetative to harvest, some even doing 24/0.
In my situation, for this tent and what happened, I started at 18/6 as usual and expected to stay like this.
I was not in a rush to harvesrt qiuckly this time and I have this belief that plants needs rest and metabolism is doing balanced complementary functions during night and day.
It might be more weeks than 20 or 24 (would have to test it). So, maybe it's also less weight, but I do think the final result has an increased quality, especially for taste.
My RDWC is 45cm height, my tent is 160cm, the wondefull LUMATEK lamp allows me to hang it at the very top of the tent, and take around 10cms which let me a useful growing height of 160-45-10=105, if you take out the recommended 25cm from lamp to plant, it leaves 80cms for max plant height!
So, what happened? between weeks 4 and 5, they streched A LOT! The main reason is the genetic, mostly stiva and also both strain are XL and the breeder said they can reach 120cms... and they are right!!! I'm not familiar with LST or other tecnics to anticipate and drive the shape of the plant so they stay shorter... will have to learn and work on that matter for sure. Other specific factors related to my setup or decision could be:
1. I didn't have a fan until week 4, whiche helped for the next point but already missed to get the branch moving and get stronger rather than longer.
2. I changed the heating system to use ceramic lamps (165W) instead of bathroom heater 1000W throwing very hot aire from the tent intake. That's perfect, but I putted them hung at the top. Then I was forced to move them after running out of space and I'm now sure it's way better, they are at the bottom, and the FAN it moving produced heat from bottom to top and I have more homogenity
3. the number of plants in a 60x60 tent... with an efficient RDWC... so they compete for light, going tall to not be in the shadow of the neighbour!
As a result, at wwek 5, the lamp was at top max height and few preflowers already touching it!!! It's not too hot, except that a pair of them where crispy as already in contact.
I was working at 75%, 150W over 200W. Also a belief/intuition, I thought even if temperature is as it is, to avoid light stress because I can't respect the 25cms and light excess is also an issue.
That's when I decided to lower the intensity to 100W, 50%.
I reduced the day light to 16/8 at this moment too, thinking they would stretch less.
I also soft bind and tie secondary branches, between them or to the opposite corners of tent structure.
Look in week 6, the 53 second video, growdiaries.com/diaries/200921-red-gorilla-girl-xl-auto-tropicanna-poison-xl-auto-grow-journal-by-kannamar/week/1139007
And finally, the preflowers of the central branch the had touched the lamp and were burned, I was concerned it can make them sick, that's when I decided to cut what was crispy, thinking that it will also send a message to the plant too... please stop stretching!!!!!
And then I searched what problems can induced this cut and found out I've just performed a known tecnic FIM, said to be low stress and have exactly the effect I thought to change the distribution of hormones and make secondary branch growering better while maintaing the central shorter and the bud fatter. EXCEPT I did that lately but I do believe it had the expected effect.
Anyway, back to your question. So 16/8 from week 5.
When I entered the rippening fase I lowered them to 14/8, a bit for the same reasons, avoid light excess and buds burn and also to simulate the decreasing light time in autumn, I know that's kind of esoterism.
Maybe acting on this reduction is just slowering maturation, which looking at trichomas evolution can be a fact, still very few ambars.
Today I'm about to flush, empty tank and add water across the clay to wash, 3 times 10L, until I get 0.1 to 0.2EC, emptying the tank each 10L. Then I will prepare 10 L with water and Flash Clean 3ml/L only.
And, I will set day/light to 12/12 and reduced by 2h till monday to achieve 8/16, then 48h of total black night and harvest wednesday morning.
I hope this helps you.
Sorry for this probably overcharged detailed answer, but thanks to your question I had a chance to solve my debt for debuting the diary end of week five, and I can wrap up what has occured.
I will tag some pics in their comments to point at the buds I preformed the FIM, you can't miss them, they are monstruous, bigger and the shape is quite chaotic.
Best view and understanding of chaos are pics in the week 9, growdiaries.com/diaries/200921-red-gorilla-girl-xl-auto-tropicanna-poison-xl-auto-grow-journal-by-kannamar/week/1139025
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