Darkness at all stages of cannabis growth

The importance of maintaining a regime of darkness for the cannabis plant

Like any plant, marijuana needs enough light to bloom properly. Give it a long sunny day or a period of artificial light and you will see how quickly and strongly they develop. But did you know that darkness is just as important for the healthy development of shrubs? This is what will be discussed below.

PHOTOSYNTHESIS CANNABIS

To understand the importance of the dark time of the day, we first need to understand the processes of respiration and photosynthesis in plants.

Photosynthesis can be broken down into three basic components:

1. Light energy
2. Carbon dioxide
3. Water

Plants need light to absorb water from the soil and carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. In this way, they produce compounds of oxygen and carbon, in order to then convert carbon into energy for development and return oxygen back to the environment.

During photosynthesis, the elements are broken down into carbon dioxide and water, and respiration significantly rearranges them. Instead of separating carbon molecules from water and carbon dioxide, plants will respire to recreate these compounds from the carbon they took in through photosynthesis and from the oxygen in the air.

Photosynthesis actively occurs only in the presence of light, which means that it can only take place during the day. However, plants can breathe both during the day and at night. Most of them will automatically save the energy they have produced during the day to continue other processes at night. This energy remains in the bushes in the form of starch. They then gradually metabolize it over the course of the night before producing even more as soon as the next day arrives.

Therefore, the night is a really important time, as there is an accumulation of starch, through the metabolism of the energy that they have soaked up during the day. However, for a plant to properly absorb this energy, it must follow a strict light cycle.

HOW DARKNESS AFFECTS CANABIS

When cultivating cannabis indoors, the grower is free to choose the lighting mode. While photoperiod strains are more susceptible and demanding in terms of daylight and dark hours, there is always a lot of controversy regarding autoflowering lighting. Some say that plants feel great when the lamps work around the clock, while others, on the contrary, argue that plants need at least 4-6 hours of rest when the lights are off.

In fact, all cannabis plants, regardless of variety and genetics, need to alternate between dark and daylight hours. Cannabis in the dark rests and strengthens the immune system. Only in the dark do certain processes of converting nutrients into energy reserves take place.

At night, auxins (growth hormones) are transported, which means that only if there is a night rest, plants can form a branched structure of a bush, on which a large number of buds will then be tied.

LIGHT MODE TO CANNABIS GROW

All plants get part of their energy through photosynthesis, and light is a necessary condition for it. In addition, hemp has two types of light receptors: red phytochromes and far red phytochromes.

• When the dark period is extended , their reaction is the basis for triggering the flowering of photoperiod cannabis. This is how the biological program of hemp plants is naturally arranged.
• As daylight hours decrease towards the end of summer, cannabis sativa and indica begin to bloom actively in order to form seeds before the onset of cold weather and ensure worthy offspring.

In the growing season, lighting modes are set to 18/6, 20/4 or 24/0 in order to prevent the phytochrome red receptors from dominating too quickly.

When the bush is already well formed and ready to bloom, the grower simply selects a mode with a shorter daylight hours, most often it is 12/12, less often 14/10.

In nature, most photoperiod cannabis varieties begin to bloom at 13-14 hours of daylight hours.

To encourage the process, some growers even put the plants in the dark for 1-2 days.

CONSEQUENCES OF VIOLATION OF THE NIGHT MODE

Although cannabis plants are hardy and hardy in their own right, light on the plantation at night is sure to stress the plants.

If there is an urgent need to do some work during the sleep of cannabis, then this should be done with the lamps turned off in the box and so that the outside light does not fall on the plants. For lighting, you can use a special green lamp that will not harm the landing.

Although photoperiod cannabis strains are much more susceptible to light conditions, autoflowers should not be assumed to survive the disruption of the night cycle unscathed. Such stresses are likely to have a negative impact on health, and hence crop yields.

Moonlight is not dangerous for cannabis, but this is the only exception. Even diffused light from a street lamp outdoors or from a phone screen indoors can be enough to interrupt a plant's nighttime sleep and cause irreparable damage.

Light hitting a cannabis plant at night can slow down flowering or prevent it from starting. It is also not uncommon for such stress to cause the appearance of a herma.

WHY SEEDS GROW IN THE DARK

To grow a cannabis bush, you first need to  germinate the seeds . To do this, most growers use the standard scheme: the seeds are soaked, placed in a damp cloth or paper and sent, as a rule, to a dark, warm place. It can be a closed cabinet or an opaque container.

There, after 1-2 days, the seed will release a root-tail, which a little later will become the basis of the root system of the future bush, and two cotyledons will appear from the shell.
 

But the seeds can germinate only in the dark. This is due to the process of seed germination in the natural environment of existence. There, seeds that ripen in autumn fall into the ground and deepen under a layer of fallen leaves and branches. It is this substrate that provides the seed with protection during the cold season and prevents light rays from reaching the grains.

With the onset of spring, the sprouts break through the top layer of soil, but only those specimens that were sheltered from frost in winter by a cover of soil survive to this point.

DARKNESS FOR THE ROOTS

Regardless of the type of cultivation, the roots should always be kept in the dark. For both soil and hydroponic cultivation, only opaque pots and grow containers are used. This is not a tribute to fashion, but a necessary requirement. The root system needs water, nutrients, air and darkness to develop.

When light hits, the process of reproduction of pathogenic flora begins, the roots rot and die.

Healthy roots that develop in a dark space are white or slightly yellowish in color

And when exposed to light, they acquire a green or brown tint due to damage by hostile organisms. The health of the root system is easy to check in a hydroponic setup, but the health of the roots in the soil can be determined by the smell of the water from the drain. If they are affected, the drainage fluid has the smell of rotten eggs.

CANNABIS CLONES NEED DARKNESS

If it is customary to use the 24/0 lighting mode to stimulate seedlings, then this scheme does not work for clones. Cannabis cuttings do not need too much light to stimulate root formation. Plants already have a sufficiently developed crown to convert light into energy. Growers most often use gentle 18/6 cool white fluorescents for clones.

The presence of a night's rest will help the cuttings not only in the formation of the root system, but also create more comfortable microclimate conditions. The 24-hour operation of the lamps overheats and dries out the surrounding air, which negatively affects the health of young cannabis. And with 18/6 mode, these problems can be avoided.

DARKNESS FOR AUTOFLOWERS

In nature, there are no places of natural growth of cannabis, where the sun would shine around the clock. Even in the far corners of Siberia, where you can find small plantations of ruderalis, the sun is not in the sky for 24 hours. Even during daytime, clouds block the rays and create periods of darkness, even though they may be short and irregular.

But in such conditions, plants manage to realize their potential and form inflorescences. So why reinvent the wheel?There is no evidence that 24/0 lighting is any more productive than 20/4 or 18/6. But when organizing a night rest for autoflowers, the grower saves on electricity, wears out lighting fixtures less and prevents overheating of the air by the radiation of lamps.

This is why most growers still agree that the optimal regimen for  autoflowering cannabis strains  is 18/6 throughout their life cycle.

WHY BUDS SHOULD DRY IN THE DARK

Every grower knows that after the harvest, it is very important that the buds are dried and stored in complete darkness.

This is due to the presence of cannabinoids in the resin. These compounds are extremely susceptible to exposure to light. When light rays hit the THC molecule, it begins to transform into simpler, non-psychoactive compounds. Since the degradation of cannabinoids occurs under the influence of light, the absence of lighting in the place of drying and storage of the crop is a guarantee of maintaining the high quality of the finished product.

If there is no separate dark room for drying, then branches hung on ropes can simply be wrapped with newspaper. But it’s better to allocate a separate dark box, pantry or cannabis drying cabinet. Dried cones are tightly packed in glass sealed jars and stored in a dark, cool place to extend the shelf life.

All information provided is for informational purposes only and is not a guide or call to action. All materials are taken from the Internet.