How should plant light cycles align with natural light cycles?

[HwyBill]

I set up a little grow operations to over-winter some of my preferred plants.

Not looking to just over-winter in the typical sense of preserving them in a dormant state, but rather to keep them alive, thriving, vegetating, and possibly blooming and fruiting.

At the moment, I've put them on a 18-6 light cycle.

The greenhouse is on the exterior room of my apartment. Was actually thinking of making their dark cycle during the natural day, and having them lit up during night hours to serve as a deterent to potential crime.

How do you think this will actually affect my plants? Will giving them light during outside dark hours, and letting them have some dark during naturally light hours screw them up?

 

[fishing4fun2]

I don't think it will, i have mine on a 6-18 six hours on at 11pm off at 5am i wanted to just keep mine in a dormant state but there growing even with just 6 hours of light in a cool basement room.

 

[Scarlet Fire]

It definitely won't. Your plants don't know what time it is, they'll take the light whenever they can get it. Mine are in a non-heated garage on 18/6 and I set the 6-hour dark period to 10am-4pm so that the light is heating the room while it's cold out. When I grew in my old apartment's closet, this greatly cut down on night-time heating costs.

 

[HwyBill]

So I want mine to veg during the light cycle, but you are suggesting that a disconcordant light cyle won't f**k them up?

It definitely won't. Your plants don't know what time it is, they'll take the light whenever they can get it. Mine are in a non-heated garage on 18/6 and I set the 6-hour dark period to 10am-4pm so that the light is heating the room while it's cold out. When I grew in my old apartment's closet, this greatly cut down on night-time heating costs.

rock! I'm doing similar...

 

[Scarlet Fire]

That old set-up had a lot of bugs, such as I had to wear sunglasses to sit in most of the room, because the closet door actually stood half-open, with a tower fan oscillating toward the plants in lieu of a proper ventilation system. But it was a great way to start early plants that made it to the outdoors this past spring and gave me wonderful yields. You can manipulate so many environmental factors by growing indoors, it's just not all that cheap.