The Right Length of Day To Make Your Plant Flower

 To understand plant flowering, you need to understand a term "photoperiodism," which is the amount of light and darkness a plant is exposed to. The amount of uninterrupted darkness is what determines the formation of flowers on most types of plants.  Uninterrupted is bold because this is very important.  When growing indoors you want to make sure your grow area is light proof or you may not get any or very poor flowering.  Some growers  think that the length of daylight a plant is exposed to determines when a plant flowers.  However, scientific experiments proved otherwise. It is the length of darkness that a plant experiences that plays the most crucial role.

A plant that requires a long period of darkness, is termed a "short day" (long night) plant. Short-day plants form flowers only when day length is less than about 12 hours. Many spring and fall flowering plants are short day plants, including some strawberries and Christmas cactus. If these are exposed to more than 12 hours of light per day, they won’t flower.

Other plants require only a short night to flower. These are termed "long day" plants. These bloom only when they receive more than 12 hours of light. Many of our summer blooming flowers and garden vegetables are long day plants, such as, lettuce, spinach and potatoes. These all bloom when the days are long.  And some plants form flowers regardless of day length. Botanists call these "day neutral" plants. Tomatoes, corn, cucumbers and some strawberries are day-neutral.

 

You can do an internet search for the plant you grow to see if it is a short day, long day or day neutral plant.

Good Growing,

Dr. E.R. Myers