Temperature and Internodal Spacing

At my age, there is little that is more stimulating than finding a new wrinkle (pun intended) in something I have been doing for decades. Almost unintentionally, the White Widow grow I have going has been with no more than 2-3 degrees C. variation over any given 24 hour period, if that. Mostly less, I think. They are veging, so the lights are going 24/7. These girls are coming up on 4 weeks from seed, have 6-7 sets of true leaves, and are 3-4 inches tall!! That’s right, folks, the spacing is 1/8 of an inch, if that much, given they were 1 1-2 to 2 inches from media to Cotyldons. To me this is mind-bofggling. Talk aboutlk about compact plants (Sativa dominant, no less). Talk about your even canopy. If any one has had a problem with overly leggy plants, I have the answer for you. Temperaturew control. The best thing about this is, as we are ‘demi-gods’ of the indoors, this demonstrates how taking that responsibility seriously can render seriously good effects on our loved ones.

Peace

Good to hear from you Jodie. Welcome back.

I myself have been going back to the books on cannabis. Since you said you are visiting California you might want to look into getting a copy of the book Marijuana Botany by Robert Connell Clarke, from my understanding it was his University of Berkeley college botany thesis and as a major publication is a favorite among the California growers for knowledge, it was my first “growing bible”, lol. Much of my recent studies have been beyond this book as it does not have a lot of detailed information on ruderalis growing.

Something to think about, I have learned all cannabis, indicas, sativas or ruderalis are all C3 plants, which is why we don’t supplement CO2 during the dark period, and this means they do not need a dark or rest period at all during the vegetative period. I can hear Latewood grumbling now, lol. But they just don’t need it and actually quite a bit of stretch can occur during the dark period or be stimulated by the dark period. So, not only can you get about 33% faster growth with 24/0 lighting (in contrast to a 16/8) during the vegetative growth period, you will notice tighter internodes as well. I’m not entirely sure temp variation has a lot to do with it. However I have learned ruderalis, not only preferring slightly colder temperatures than others, they do not like significant temperature variations, and likely would do best under 24/0 light the entire life cycle, maybe with only some dark period added, with very little temp variation during the dark, to help them finish at the end. So likely the running the lights on 24 hours a day 7 days a week is why you are noticing the tight internodal spacing more than anything else, as well as your blue light spectrum. Yeah for LEDs again!

Mac’,

 I'm always here, but I prefer to only chime in when I think I have something significant to contribute.  Now...Ahem...I have, for the time being, sworn off the Autos.  I really don't know what I was thinking, I guess it was just something new to me.  But, if one is in a hurry, one could just 12/12 from seedling/clone.  They seem to me to be overly temperamental (no re-potting, no training to speak of, no time to recover from an accident for other SNAFU, no cloning, and so forth, on and on).  So I am back with a vengence on good old photo-period Cannabis.  I am sooooo anxious to get some OG Kush at the end of this month!  
 The 'they need a nap time' stuff just kills me.  Everyone who claims that offers no scienticfic basis for it, merely anecdotal war stories.  I'm here to tell everyone I'm calling bulls#$t on that old wives tale.  They are not animals, or reptiles, or other higher life form.  They are a plant, and the science says 'leave the damn lights on' if you are interested in maximizing your efforts.  'nuf said.  You want to argue, bring me some scientific factoids.  
So, I can't think of any other variable that has brought about this tightly spaced internodal thing.  I have never in my growing carrer so tightly controled the temps.  86 F. is my target temp, because I have no heat issues to deal with.  Yet another reason to be using L.E.D.s.  I was always, always in dank basement environs before.  I mean, Mac - it's like a frickin' dream!!!  I have never even seen bud porn wth such bushy charactertistics.  We may have to disagree to not agree on this point.  I will say that I don't remeber having small girls under this many lumens before.  Always under the old, regular floresents until they were approx. 6-8 inches high (pre T5 days, you know, the Stone Ages), and then under the M.H.'s.  Prehaps having so much light so early on is what brough this about.  I only know I will be carefully trying to recreate this next time, and every time after.  I really, really feel like I am 'back in the saddle again'.  ;-)  
Thirdly,  I ended up raising my Pro-Grow 260 up to about 40 " after the burn incident,  blue spectrum only, until they had about three sets of true leaves.  Then both spectums, and lowered it about 6 inches a day, until now I am at approx. 20".  I think any lower than that and the overlap from the diodes wouldn't be good enough.  )Obviously, the first couple of sets of leaves have a more tender constitution).  Not only no burn problems, but they are, and I mean this, they are the absolute healthiest babies I have ever personally grown.  I finally have my Coco methodology dialed in.  Sweet loving jesus, I love that stuff!!  Best of all, it ani't dirty to work with, or clean up.
Thanks for the heads-up on the book.  I was doing a phone interview with the A.C.L.U. in San Fran yesterday, and I told the girl I was super anxious to get to Oakland, to openly commune with other growers.  N.L.T. October.   I will definitely get a copy of that book, and subsume it.  
You are dead on about the dark period stretch in veg.  So, if you desire leggy, high, spindly, airy plants, by all means, let them go 'nighty-night' each night.  
L.E.D's - Dude, why would any body be using anything else??  (No need to let the equipment cool down occationally).  Having brusrt many a hot bulb with an errant drop of water in the past, I LOVE working around them, I can tell you.  Love them. 

Peace

Since you say you always do the 24/0 during veg and that rules out that being the cause of the significantly better result, I’ll agree with you that it was not that, alone anyway. I think you confirmed the LED being the biggest reason most likely, being able to get it real real close at a young age under the blue likely contributed a lot to keeping them short, as well as the LED having much better penetration than any of the other lights except for maybe the Metal-Halide, but then you could never get that as close because of heat. Again, Yeah for LEDs!

The dark/rest thing, though, although cannabis does not suck up and store CO2 overnight like C4 plants, they do do some important biological processes even in the dark and I think it does still have use in certain situations to help an ailing plant. As well as of course 12 hours needed for flowering in non-autos or more darkness for finishing and trying to get some of the chlorophyll out at the very end.

Also I agree, so far anyway, in your opinion with autos, they do seem to need to be treated much differently than what us old school growers are used too, or even those of us that started by trying to grow with street weed seeds, and those – having come from being grow outdoors in southern mexico, like it kinda hot, very different than autos. And the autos do seem a little more fragile with temps to me. I will continue to experiment with them though and reserve my final judgement until maybe I get a better handle on fully growing one out someday, lol. But yeah they won’t do you much good if you can’t get them to survive all the way until through flower. Right now I’m thinking they are best for a very cool indoor grow or for more northern latitudes than we in the south west.

Well, my opinions are just that - my opinions. Really just observations. I long, long ago stopped trying to sway others to my way of thinking. Never really works unless it is one of those all-too-rare interactions with someone who has the ability to think critically. In that instance one may have a true meeting of the minds, and a sharing of ideas. But attempting to get everyone to support this idea or that idea, much as a political campaign, is a sport for the young. I certainly beleive they (Ruderalis) have a place in the larger scheme of things, just not in my room, a this particular time. Ya know, it could be that I am such a hyper-active kid. I like to fiddle around, experiement, play. And I am such that I will defineitly go back to them sometime in the future, because not having been successful with them will be a niggling, impossible to rid myself of little gremilin in the back of my very crowded mind. For the present, I am going to do White Widow and O.G. Kush over and over and over, until Iknow them like a Jazz standard. That is to say, backwards and forwards and upside down and right side up. In sickness and in health, until by burning in a paper, us do part. :wink: Practise, indeed, moves one closer to perfection (although one may never arrive. Such is the Human Condition. Doesn’t mean we can’t try and get as close as possible, just for shits and giggles).

I hear ya, yeah I am not going to try again with the autos until the cooler months or until I get my central air conditioning fixed, running evaporative/swamp cooler house cooling only right now, and so they have no place in my grow room either, not until I can keep the temps well below 75F, averages are around 85F to 88*F right now.

Mac’,

I both strip water leaves and supercrop.  I can't get to the darn stem, even with a small pair of plyers.  So, I'm going to 14/10 today, to get some room to work!!  Nice problem to have.  They have around 8 sets now.  When I get a bit of stretch, I can separte the branches, and end up with a super bushy plant that may need minimal support.

Yeah, lol, I guess it is a good problem to have.

Mac’,

Doing reading/research today.  Why, oh lord tell me why, is it that people who post replies (mostly) can not express themselves without relying on the most crude and vulgar vocabularies, and why, oh lord tell me why, no one PROOF READS what they write???  I proof read emails.  I proofread checks.  I proofread shopping lists.  I feel it must be a reflection, in part, on the education apparatus in this gawd forsaken country.  Maybe it is just me, but when I write, I am trying to express an idea that was important enought to cause me to address my keyboard.  Cursing and mispwelllingsa interupt the thought process, and hinder wider understanding.  
I feel better now.......

I know the feeling, lol.

I think it is a mass conspiracy of foreigners using Voice recognition software. Hah hah :smiley:

'wood,

  Having tried my best to master a couple of different languages, and never getting beyond the pedestrian chit chat level, I have all sympathys with the English as a secong language crowd.  It's the Ameri-kens that goad me.  
  I really need, and look forwartd to getting, language rec.  But I need a Windows machine.  Ain't no such amimal worth using on Linux.   My hands are pretty bad, and it would be so cool to do a rough fraft speaking, and clean it up.  
  In my attempt to get a reasonable amount of internodal space, I have gone to 14/10, raised my LED up to 40", and created a 10 degree f. temp differencial at night.  I've been thinking a lot about just how much energy is created with those lights.  What I think was deceptive to my eyes for a long time is the fact that it is rather bright, and ALL the light energy is usable (i.e. very high P.A.R., as Ii understand that term).  That and the lack of heat under the lamp takes some getting used to.  I freakin' love mine.  I know the light intensity is part of my too-tight space thingy.

Yes, P.A.R. is kinda similar to FLUX, but is not based on how our eyes see “candle power” brightness – which requires the green light part of the spectrum. I don’t use that term often only because it is one more thing for most new people to get confused by, lol.