The bro-science behind 48h lights out before harvest

I used to read a bunch of stuff of how they smell more and do all this extra jazz but it boiled down to. no light = no energy = nothing happening in term of ripeness. side note on the terpenes, that attribute of the plant smelling more was only true as the air temps in the tent dropped so the terps filled more of the air vs being sucked out in a carbon filter with lights on. Terps are only replenished when the plant has energy and lights are on. I used to give my plants 48hrs darkness but it does nothing. I just chop them the next light cycle but dry them in the dark once I plucked off all the stuff I need to. I keep RH aorund 60% and temps as low as I can, extractor fan only comes on when RH gets to high. Also dr bruce bugbee is not on this site, I'm sure he has some videos about this that would be worth a watch. Good Luck!

it's not something you can tell with your eyes, unelss observeing all the trichomes and comparing aerial density and testing for potency... large samples with a control group to compare... until then, it's just some bro science. If you have a habit of believing in things on faith alone, this is a technique for you :P Flowering is a long process... Nothing profound is going to happen in 48 hours even if it has a measurable effect... it will be a small effect if any at all..

Lights off for 48 is a final stressor. Anything longer and profile starts to suffer from it. The point is to trigger last minute defenses to slightly enhance potency. I have seen a scientific study a guy did and it did provide almost 2 percent increases with 48 of dark. Plus a better overall profile of bud.