Growroom Power Outage

Dear Dan,
I’m a new grower and live on an island that was just affected by the blizzard. We had a power outage for over 24 hours. Power is restored now, however temps got down to 37 degrees at one point. I’ve been vegging my ladies 18/6, but now my cycles all messed up. The ladies have been vegging for over a month, so should I use that glitch in the light cycle to shock them into flower? Or should I just pick up vegging them where I left off? My concerns are temperature and photoperiod stress, as well as the possibility of them turning hermaphroditic if I continue vegging them. I need your expertise, please. I should probably mention I’m using a t-5 bank and soil (Ocean Forest) medium.  — Brian

Dear Brian,
A 24-hour power outage shouldn’t cause you too many problems, and at least the temperature didn’t go below freezing during that time. You might want to go with your gut and start the flowering process by changing your light cycle to 12 hours on/12 hours off per day, or you could continue vegetative growth by keeping the 18 on/6 off light cycle you’ve been using. It’s far more important not to interrupt the dark cycle with light than it is to interrupt the daytime with darkness, so you should be in the clear as far as photoperiod.

The short period of cold temperatures may shock your plants, but as long as you’re back to warmer temps and they loved through it, there won’t be too many repercussions. A prolonged frost could have been devastating but it looks like you dodged the bullet by not exposing them to cold for too long. Good luck!

Have a grow question? Ask away at deardanko@hightimes.com