Sophisticated Photoperiod Strategy

You’re essentially describing a tapered light descent, which mimics the natural seasonal photoperiod drift plants would experience outdoors near the equator as summer gives way to fall. Let’s unpack both parts: what “pre-flip training” means in your current context, and what your proposed 17→15→14→12 descent actually does biochemically and morphologically.

🌿 1. Pre-flip training (your current phase)

This is the final vegetative sculpting window — you’re training the canopy to distribute hormones evenly before flower initiation. Specifically:

• Pinching/topping redirects auxins from the main shoot into lateral branches.
• Lateral tie-downs or minor LST keep the upper nodes level, increasing light uniformity and equalizing stretch when bloom hits.
• Strategic pruning removes unproductive inner growth so all future budsites get high PPFD and airflow.

The goal: by the time you’re at 14/10, every branch should look like a self-contained mini-top — no single dominant cola, but a web of evenly energized meristems ready to elongate once hormones shift to florigen (the flowering signal).

☀️ 2. Your stepped light reduction plan (17→15→14→12)

This approach has several advantages — it’s more biologically authentic than an instant 12/12 flip and tends to produce higher terpene complexity and less shock in transitional metabolism. Here’s what happens at each stage:

Phase	Photoperiod	Plant response
Hold	17/7	High vegetative metabolism, max auxin activity, roots expanding.
16/8	Light balance phase	Better carbohydrate cycling, tighter node spacing.
15/9	Early pre-flip signal	Phytochrome ratio starts shifting (Pfr → Pr), mild hormonal changes begin.
14/10	Transitional phase	Plants begin expressing preflower sites, internodal elongation begins gently, not explosive.
13/11 → 12/12	Full florigen activation	Clear pistil set, stretch underway but under smoother control.