What's the best light cycle for veg?
Everyone knows that you need light to grow marijuana plants, growers know the importance of choosing good marijuana grow lights. but how many people understand how lighting affects the plant’s growth? I’ll talk about what's the best light cycle for veg.
The most important part of growing cannabis is getting a favorable yield that brings smiles and profit when it’s time to harvest. Growing cannabis, however, can sometimes be challenging for beginners. The success of your marijuana grow frequently depends on one crucial factor: lighting.
Lighting is crucial when you are growing your cannabis, whether indoor or outdoor. The light cycle you use for flowering cannabis directly correlates to a crop’s quality and overall yield. Yes, you need light to grow your cannabis, and most importantly, you need to know the best light cycle in different stage.
veg is a stage where your plants are growing. This stage is very vital for the success and health of your cannabis plant. At this stage, the stems and leaves of the marijuana plants start growing larger and taller. However, also at this stage, the cannabis plant doesn’t produce any buds and you will have to control the shape and size of your plant. That is where the cannabis light cycle comes in: the light for your plants can be manipulated at this stage to yield better growth. The more lighting your cannabis plant receives, the better their growth and future yield.
Many growers advocate the use of an 18/6 light schedule (18 hours on, six hours off) while plants are in veg. However, this may not be the most beneficial light schedule. Switching to a series of 6/2 light pattern (six hours on, two hours off) may increase plant growth while also potentially creating a more stable controlled environment.
While this new schedule may sound risky, it actually comes with a number of benefits. Pro test is effective, my grow light is ufo led grow light, I actually according to this lighting cycle, and my girls are good.
Cannabis is a short-day plant, meaning it will only flower when exposed to long periods of darkness and short periods of light. For cannabis to flower, there must be at least 12 hours of continuous darkness. This allows for the use of a series of shorter light schedules while the plant is in veg—as long as the plant receives less than 12 hours of continuous darkness, it will stay in veg.
So what benefits of a 6/2 Light Schedule?
There is a lot of research that suggests cannabis plants can only process a certain amount of light per day. After that level has been reached, the plant can no longer absorb light and any additional light is essentially wasted.
By breaking the light cycle into multiple six-hour periods, the plant can rest and process the light it has received. When the lights come back on two hours later, the plant will be ready to process additional light, allowing you to get the most plant growth out of every minute your lights are on.
At a biological level, cannabis’s inability to grow more once it has received a certain amount of light can be attributed to the way the plant processes carbon dioxide (CO2). A majority of the mass accumulated in cannabis is associated with the amount of CO2 found inside plant cells.
While under light, cannabis tries to prevent CO2 from leaving its cells by cutting off transpiration. However, this prevents new CO2 from entering the cell, blocking new growth. When the lights are turned off and no photosynthesis is occurring, the plant can absorb new CO2 into its cells.
Additionally, when plants are exposed to 18 straight hours of intense light, they become stressed. Signs of stress, including droopy or curled leaves, will usually appear toward the end of the light cycle. While some stress can be beneficial to plant growth, too much stress can cause harm to your plants and prevent them from reaching maximum growth potential.
There are a whole lot of benefits to growing your own cannabis. However, you can only get the best harvest and therefore the most benefit from homegrown cannabis by knowing the various light cycles involved during the planting and growing of your crop.
Take more time to know more! Good luck to you!
By the way, I placed an order with ECO Farm 240 watt quantum board recently, I will also take 6/2 light pattern, wish all of us have a good haverst.
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