Do you think the cold is doing it too or its JUST the reducing hours?
For w'a is worth,,,
During my two litre coffee bag phase/craze, I conducted a similar casual experiment.
Twas winter. Every day when I put out the lights I would turn on the heater. I too wondered if cooler temperatures would ripen a plant faster.
To satisfy my curiosity I selected a plant, and repositioned her to live near the door.
All the plants, with that singular exception, would spend 'lights off' in the warm tent.
Every night I would pull that plant out of the tent and it would spend the darkness in the unheated garage. It was on the same light cycle as the other plants but it was spending nights between 5 and 10 Celsius, as opposed to the 20+ Celsius environment inside the tent.
Yes, there was bias from jump. I mostly wanted some weed to smoke ? I tried to select the one that would finish first (without intervention) As such , I was cold shouldering my most mature plant.
When I started the routine I selected the only plant that was showing a hint of non-clear chomes.
Every night I diligently per her out in the cold.
It seemed to me that the garden continued to mature at the normal rate, whereas the plant that was getting the cold treatment seemed to stop in her tracks. It no longer took water, and it did not progress to amber.
It got to the point where I was harvesting her siblings while she remained unfinished.
Dude , this was certainly not a proper scientific experiment. It's not like I had a hundred clones ,,,
or had I had a proper control group ,,,
,,,or any accurate data collection
Observation #2
End of days
Some of you have heard me use the term "Cold Storage" before.
( I am so awakenbaked I'm struggling to explain this in a coherent fashion)
on day 63 I noticed a couple of plants are done and I put them into Cold Storage.
On day 72 I noticed a couple of plants are done and I put them into Cold Storage.
On day 77 I noticed some plants are done and I put them into Cold Storage.
On day 85 I noticed some plants are done and I put them into Cold Storage,,,
I dont water them
they dont get light
3-7 °C 60%RH
now I invite you over to my cold storage room.
I ask you to tell me "which plants I put in there 2 weeks ago , and which plants I put in there yesterday? "
It honestly is very hard to spot a difference. As long as they go in there with some moisture in the soil and as long as they are not denatured by freezing, they will just hang out - indefinitely.
just about ready to submit my final answer here.
Maturation is a metabolic process. The RATE of any planty process has a pre-requisite temperature.
Really,,,
We need the wisdom of a seasoned outdoor grower or a good old conventional farmer.
I would ask them,,
"If the end of your growing season is unseasonably cool, do you have trouble getting your crops to mature?"
Could a wheat farmer or a berry farmer answer these questions?