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Nottingham, UK

My mind started to wonder the other day (always dangerous) and I got thinking about growth vs daylight

I understand that the plant builds up energy through photosynthesis throughout the day and come night time stored energy gets used for pumpkin growth. I also observe this through the tiny amount of day time growth.

To the point.....

I wonder what the optimum ratio of daylight to nightime hours would be if all over conditions were optimum.

I also wonder if we could improve on growth if say we could turn the sunlight on for 2 hours and then off for a bit for growth and carry on like that? Would take a controlled environment with artificial light mimicking day/night and the other as the experimental. I wonder if plants can switch on and off like that, if it stresses them too much.
I guess if you think of the cell growth then it must take time to reach optimim rate and on/off might retard it.

Just off loading my thoughts which are soon to be shot down with reason ;)

8/23/2011 7:56:58 AM

Owensboro, Ky.

Krazy thoughts make for krazy growths...I am amazed at the amount of world record fruits & veggies grown in Alaska!!! 22hrs of sunlight...etc!!! Maybe they don't need any nite time? PS...I also think...wow, I'm gettin a headache...that there is no substiture for natural sunlight!!! Artificial lights (no matter how good,(expensive) and well controlled, will beat sunlight)! Peace, Wayne

8/23/2011 11:16:08 PM

Rhode Island

we had a friend who at one time tried high powered grow lights over several of his plants. they were on many extra hours after nightfall. results were not impressive at all.
who knows? could have also been the seed selection, planting medium,etc,etc.hard to tell with such a small sampling.
something to be said though about those long hrs of daylite in alaska.
pap

8/27/2011 6:53:11 AM