bob smith

Okay, I am in the last 2 weeks of flowering some nice Widows, decided to try the total darkness routine for a change and to observe and see what happens. My girls have been in the dark since Fri, 5 days now, they appear to have sprouted new white hairs and are not as sticky as they were before putting them in the dark. Is this all a natural reaction to the lights or lack of? Wondering if I should just throw the switches back on and go with what I know? HELP!

skitzo63

the dark period is supposed to be done after the full 8 weeks of flowering. that way the buds ripen and then the plant is stressed by lack of light. in theory, or some believe that this will stress the plant into producing more THC. some that have done it in the past swear by it, while others see no change. i had two WW grows and only gave them the final two days of darkness.

IMHO, we are growing a plant. it is best to mimic the natural habitat, and therefor mimic mother nature. last time i check i have never seen 2 weeks of complete darkness in the fall months. but once again, its a personal preference thing.

what you do wanna be leary of is mold. RH increases drastically when there is no light to burn it off, so keep your environment dry, otherwise you are gonna pay for it in the end.

good luck, and happy smokin

skitz

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bob smith

with the total darkness went like this, lights and pumps were off for 4 days, during this short period the girls sprouted a lot more white hairs and lost the stickiness that they had before shutting everything off. They are White Widow, I am not new at hydroponics by any means, just wanted to try this total darkness and see if I could get the crystals that you see in some pics of this particular strain. This is probably about our 5th or 6th WW crop and never have gotten those crystals. Anyhow lights and pump have been back on for a couple of days now and the stickiness is coming back, probably will harvest middle of next week. So all in all our experience with total darkness was not good. But you never know until you try. I am a little new at this forum, have to admit don't feel real secure here but have found it very interesting. IMHO some of you guys are making hydroponics a lot more complicated than it needs to be, but to each their own. Rock On!

jamesgang

... But I do give them 48 hours of darkness before chopping them and always will...

JG

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The JamesGang

bob smith

I would never do that. I always make sure my pump is off at least one hour before the lights go out. I have never fed my plants during dark periods. Tell ya, they were in the dark for four days with no feeding and appear to have come out of it with no apparent problems. Do you run your pump during dark periods? To each their own and whatever works for ya! Rock On!

jamesgang

... What kind of system are ya running???

JG

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The JamesGang

bob smith

my theory anyhow! LOL! Okay here goes, I have a 3 1/2 x 3 1/2 x 7 ft box. Four plants. 400w HPS, intake fan low to one side, exhaust fan on top, thermostat located high on wall of box. Walls lined with mylar. Neut. tank located bottom of box, submersable pond pump runs to manifold, splits to four lines to feed the girls. Fiberglas sink below plants drains back to neut. tank. Two aquarium aerators in tank. Light and pump on seperate timers. I have a seperate cloner which is even simpler but works great! Been doing this for 5-6 years now. Plants get about 2 1/12 ft tall before flowering, get about 6 ozs. from the 4 plants total (I'm guessing as I have never weighed the yield) but it lasts from crop to crop. My wife has rhumetoid arthritis and smoking helps her she claims. I use general hydroponics neuts. I use lava rock in the cups that the girls are in, I tried using those little round balls as a medium (can't remember what its called) but I found that as the plants grew it packed those balls real tight in the cups and created a drainage problem because of the packing so I went back to lava rock. Thats my system, pretty simple but quite effective. I'm always looking for improved methods or ways to tweak the quality. I started out with Northern Lights and grew it until the last year or so when someone turned me onto some White Widow clones and have been growing it ever since. Thats my story and I'm sticking to it. Rock On!