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darkness period



Karen Randall wrote:
>Subject: darkness period + extended photo period
>
>Steve Pushak wrote:
>
>>The length of the absolute darkness period is important to stimulate
>>flowering. My Ocelot sword flowered while I was away for a week and the
>>room lights were off all the time.
>
>I believe it depends on the plants.  Some are day length sensitive for
>flowering, others are not.
>I think this even varies amoung the genus Echinodorus.  I remember seeing
>something about even being able to affect the leaf shape of certain
>Echinodorus species by varying the photoperiod.

I think attributing the flowering to the light factor may be a bit hasty.
During the week of inattention it's possible that fertilizers usually added
were not added (fish foods for sure). Perhaps the plant sensed bad times
coming and flowered as a means of self preservation.  Or it could have been
both things together. I have an ozelot sword exactly the same (from the
same source) and it flowers in my tank under ordinary conditions...by that
I mean... I don't change anything to make it flower. It gets 12 hours of
tank light plus several hours of "room" light both natural and incadescent.
I don't believe the person who grew these ozelots and who continues to grow
them, does anything special with light.

Olga
in Vancouver