Auto light cycle types

Never 24/0. All plants need to recover/sleep a little. I've had great success with 20/4 during veg with PP...just switching my auto's over to 20/4 (T4x4 flouro) during veg {seed through week 4-5} and 18/6 under my HID LED set up from there to harvest. From everything I can gather on auto's; they need to be warmed up for their final party under nice lights, or they may not give you everything they can. That ruderalis loves soft light when it's fresh. Hope this helps, and good luck! Ladies and Chilis look great so far! 😄

Gromie! It's relative really! 24hrs is the best for the best result for yield BUT raises costs on energy! 20/4 gives you again great yields more cost on energy! 18/6 is perfect for growth and saving energy, so I went and did 19/5 just to be on the inside of what's best! So what's best!? 19/5 if anything jump onto fastbuds website and they show the outcomes of the light schedules! I also did 24 hours but had my light at 8-10" at 25% in the first 2 weeks then upped to 50% at 12" for 2 weeks then upped to 75% for 2 weeks at 12" then for the remainder I turned up my light to 100% until the end! Which gave me full growth and saved money on energy

Technically you can run 24/0 but then you should compensate with slightly less strong lights. However, I've tried all 3 and found 18/6 the best and most cost efficient. Keeping the lights on longer won't really make the yield bigger but will rack up your electricity bill.

In nearly all contexts it will be better to have a dark period. 6 is safe... 4 may be enough too? There are benefits to a dark period. I don't think it's hammed out what is actually optimal beyond anecdotal experiences involving small sample sizes. If you find research on other soft-tissue plants, it's probably similar... like for tomatoes. The only reason i wouldn't use an 18/6 cycle is if i were using total shit lights... if squeezing out a minmum DLI for good growth requires 20-24 hours, i'd do that and forego the dark period. With any decent equipment use an 18/6 cycle or even less if the plant was stressed. My lights are powerful and i can easily go over "max" DLI in a given day, if not careful. DLI is a fancy metric to compare apples to apples under varying circumstances of lights, area of coverage and length of operation per day. It allows you to see that whether over 20 hour or 18, if you give the same DLI, you results are insiginificantly different within normal/expected deviation, all other factors remaining the same. You don't need to know the math to apply the concepts. Just know it's all directly proportional how much light you provide and hours of use and that their is a ceiling to what a plant can receive per day... This "max" varies based on environmental factors and genetics, so there is alwyas a little fine-tuning based on observing plant, but if you know the concepts and have an accurately specified light, you can more quickly find that happy zone each grow.

18/6 is optimum. Plabts NEED adequate sleep to have a properly functioning metabolism. NEVER grow a 24/0!

18/6 is my go too. I sometimes like to give them 24/0 or 20/4 as a seedlings first few weeks of its life but I don't notice a massive difference when I did it the one time. Keep the lighting height in check, this is an easy way to burn plants when they growing up and not moving the light with them. this is a voting poll on autoflower.net, grain of salt needed when reading it. https://www.autoflower.net/forums/threads/whats-the-best-lighting-cycle-for-autos-24-0-20-4-or-18-6.3691/ Good Luck!

If you want them smaller and tighter then 20/4 or you want them a little bigger 18/6. Also cheaper in the hydro at 18/6

20/4 and 18/6 is most common