# Do plants grow faster at night?



## Soilwork (11 Feb 2016)

Just wondering.  I know cabomba is a rapid grower anyway but it just looks like it's doubled in size when the lights come on the next day.  Same goes for most of my plants or am I just imagining things?


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## zozo (12 Feb 2016)

http://www.salk.edu/news-release/biologists-identify-genes-controlling-rhythmic-plant-growth/


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## Soilwork (12 Feb 2016)

Lovely, bookmarked.  I knew it! Thanks.


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## alto (12 Feb 2016)

the open access article 

A Morning-Specific Phytohormone Gene Expression Program underlying Rhythmic Plant Growth
Todd P Michael, Ghislain Breton, Samuel P Hazen, Henry Priest, Todd C Mockler, Steve A Kay, and Joanne Chory


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## Soilwork (12 Feb 2016)

Thanks again! Glad I found this site.  I wonder though.  Is the plants carcadian rhythm evolutionary tuned to the locale to which it spawned or do they reprogramme their rhythm to match our artificial lighting trigger?


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## zozo (12 Feb 2016)

Although circadian rhythms are endogenous ("built-in", self-sustained), they are adjusted (entrained) to the local environment by external cues called zeitgebers (from German, "time giver"), which include light, temperature and redox cycles

That would make us with our artificial sun and timer switches the Zeitgebers..


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## Soilwork (12 Feb 2016)

I am so using 'we are the zeitgebers' as my signature.  Claimed!


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## Greenfinger2 (12 Feb 2016)

zozo said:


> Although circadian rhythms are endogenous ("built-in", self-sustained), they are adjusted (entrained) to the local environment by external cues called zeitgebers (from German, "time giver"), which include light, temperature and redox cycles
> 
> That would make us with our artificial sun and timer switches the Zeitgebers..



Hi Marcel, Great read I never new that   Zeitgebers I Had to look that up. Well you learn something new everyday


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## Tim Harrison (12 Feb 2016)

This maybe of some help http://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/accelerated-growth-with-no-lights-please-explain.19470/


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## zozo (13 Feb 2016)

Well   i was already searching a while for that... "Etiolation" . The Dutch house hold word used for this grow charasteristic is not translatable without saying nonsense.

And now i find out that our official botanical term also is Etioleren derived from the french Étoiler..

 Troi thanks a million

Tho i do not think that plants growing in the dark at night by sufficient day light has to do with etiolation.. Etiolation is actualy a grow deformity by long term light defficiency. Like seeding plants to early in the year then the seedlings loos strenght and fall over from weakness.


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## Tim Harrison (13 Feb 2016)

Yeah you're absolutely right...it was just a stab in the_ dark_ in answer to the linked post
P.S. I linked the thread more for Tom Barrs response


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## zozo (13 Feb 2016)

Troi said:


> stab in the_ dark_


Lol...

Still an edducative one..  Etiolation seems to be a term well known and used among the Chicory and Asparugus farmers. Deprive the plant from light to make 'm white.
We have also a differnet word for the weak growth it causes, but that's also etiolation.. But i also noticed some plants growing faster when lights are off, like the water lily does, i specialy noticed it with the flowerbud it grew lately. It grew about 1,½ inch each night for the last 3 nights before it surfaced.


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