Hydroponic light cycles and digital light timers

Posted by adairsawyer on September 26th, 2013

Hydroponics is as much about nutrient solution and growth medium as it is about light. Overall, hydroponics aims to create ideal conditions for the plants. It might be counterintuitive, but the plants do not really like being exposed to light twenty four hours a day seven days a week. Plants evolved to prosper in a day – light cycle, and if you want your hydroponic garden to grow, be healthy, and provide you with a good harvest, you should not only give enough light to your plants, but also offer sufficient nap time for them, ideally using a digital outlet timer and a digital light timer in your system.

Plants require oxygen to break down carbohydrates, and while during the day time they utilize the oxygen they produces during photosynthesis, at night, when the sun is down and photosynthesis is impossible, they consume oxygen from outside. They’ve adapted to function differently during different hours, and if you break that cycle, your plant won’t be as healthy and might die. That’s why you need to use a digital light timer, and ideally a digital outlet timer, too, to regulate the cycles of the plants. And while certain plants can thrive when they are under the light during their vegetative phase, even they can suffer from all-time light in their flowering phase. Not to mention that unless you have a digital light timer and a digital outlet timer shutting down your equipment from time to time, it can overheat, causing all sorts of problems. All of this makes it extremely important to give the plants some rest and turn off the lamps and pumps from time to time.

Of course, you can do it manually, turning the lights and pumps on and off by hand. But did you know that plants will suffer from uneven light cycles? Unless you have a digital light timer and a digital outlet timer you will have to pull the plug at the exact same time, day after day. You don’t need to be told that it’s tedious, inconvenient, and time-consuming, because it obviously is. And if you have to regularly go on business trips, you’ll have to ask someone to spend their time keeping the plants on their light cycles, which is a chore.

That’s why you need digital timers to observe the cycles of your plants without interrupting them. Keep in mind that some plants that live far north and also several others are used to being in the polar day. Hence, they will enjoy a 24 hour cycle during their vegetation stage, and 12 hours of light, 12 hours of darkness when they are flowering. Some plants can even be kept at a vegetative state forever if you set your digital light timer and digital outlet timer on a 24 or 18 hour light cycle. Then you can trigger flowering by starting the 12 light hours, 12 dark hours, which simulates the days getting shorter, so the plant thinks the fall is here. 

Overall, possibly the most foolproof way of growing the plants is to set the timers to have lights on for 16-18 hours, followed by 8-6 hours of darkness. Then when it’s time to flower, switch to a 12/12 hour cycle.

Did you know that plants need different proportion of light to dark hours depending on if they are in the vegetative or flowering stage? Get a digital light timer and a digital outlet timer to regulate the cycles of your plants and get the best result possible.