For how long should you shorten the day cycle to trick plants into thinking it's winter?

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Download
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Location: Adelaide, Australia

For how long should you shorten the day cycle to trick plants into thinking it's winter?

Post by Download »

Previously to trick plants into thinking it's winter, I've run the lights for 8hr/day for a month or so and then turned it up to 12 hr/day again. This usually gets the summer growers going but the fact it takes a month is a bit annoying.

The month is mostly a guestimate on my part. I wondering if anyone knows a faster cycle?

Over the last week I ran the lights for 4 hr/day and turned it back to 12 hr/day this morning. We'll see what happens, but I was hoping to get other people's thoughts.
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One Windowsill
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Re: For how long should you shorten the day cycle to trick plants into thinking it's winter?

Post by One Windowsill »

That will depend on the type of plants, they vary a lot.
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7george
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Re: For how long should you shorten the day cycle to trick plants into thinking it's winter?

Post by 7george »

Cacti are slow to react so be patient, a month is nothing in geologic scale...
Not sure about day/night cycles but prolonged low temperature can trick plants thinking that is spring twice with an interval of ±3 months but it really depends on species. Tropicals is easier to trigger and these from cooler north(south) habitats usually just wait for the right times to come that are embedded in their genetic code.
If your cacti mess in your job just forget about the job.
°C = (°F - 32)/1.8
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ohugal
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Re: For how long should you shorten the day cycle to trick plants into thinking it's winter?

Post by ohugal »

@Download: How do you achieve lowering the temperature? It seems essential to your experiment, no?
Location
Antwerp, Belgium
temperate, maritime climate with mild winters and cool summers
hardiness zone 8a
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