Yeah I like to pull all my own veggie seed too. My pumpkins, my corn, and tomatoes. Zuchs and cukes too. My wife and kids don’t like the heat so we just do sweet peppers. But I pull those seeds too.
1 Like
@Noddykitty Very interesting. Just to be clear, the clones are adapting to your terroir, not new generations from seed? I wish I had more space to try some of these techniques.
My Durbans, started in March, started showing visible flower over the weekend. The DP I started in May is still solidly in veg. I’ll try topping to see if that stimulates flowering.
Bruce - indoor or out? My DP started flowering around 10 days ago (I think…duh). Outside…no more tent / indoors in the summer as electric bills make the dispensary much more attractive.
You can make a blackout box (I build from cardboard) and cover 6pm to 6am for strains I want to kick start into flower. Topping / fimming just add stress and affect growth a little to much when in flower. At that point I only LST
I am an outdoor grower. I am 6 degrees further north than Las Vegas, so that may account for the difference in flowering from the same batch of seeds.
The blackout box is a good idea, except the getting up at 6am part. I thought the neighbor’s porch light might be interfering, but the plant closest to her is flowering.
While we’re on the topic of flowering timing, I have a little interesting anecdote to share.
My sister took over the care of a Lemon Kush plant I had started in mid-April. It’s been on her back porch alongside some diesel autos since mid-June.
The autos started flowering mid-July, and the Lemon just went along with it.
I also had some clones of the lemon (but not that particular plant) that I put outside mid-July, and they just started showing last week.
So, not a perfect experiment - just an anecdote. But I wonder if there was a bit of plant psychology involved there. If you had a mature plant, and the daylight hours are getting “close enough” - could they get triggered earlier, hormonally or whatever, just by being around other flowering weed plants?
@CurrDogg420 Funny, while reading this thread earlier, I had the same thought. Putting unripe fruits next to figure ones makes them ripen faster due to a gas that ripe fruits emit. Same gas for different species, a banana will make tomatoes ripen.
That said, I have flowering plants next to veg plants that don’t seem to be responding - YET. We’ll see…
just make sure she gets 12 hrs dark…it can be from 9pm to 9am…I have never had street or neighbor lights affect my flower / veg periods…the photon coverage is like electricity and they are not really strong enough to affect growth…like the moon
1 Like
LST us best and yang camouflage plastic flowers, at first glance are overlooked but odor is your enemy plant marigolds, onions and other flagrant plants in the front and back yards, also consider a small portable grow tent, helps prevent insects and limits odirxrelease
welcome…happy growing!
“@Noddykitty Very interesting. Just to be clear, the clones are adapting to your terroir, not new generations from seed? I wish I had more space to try some of these techniques.”
[/quote]
Yep, I have had the same jillybean and Durban poison clones going for over ten years. No seeds, they are just from the clones. I have a collection of about 12 (or so) keepers that I just perpetually clone. I take very clear notes on year to year observations. First frost, rain, hot summer, wet spring etc. Then strain specific like first flowers (pistols), harvest date, botrytis, powdery mildew, purps, odor, etc.
My primary consideration is for mold resistance above all things. I live near Seattle and the fall rains (after lovely mild summers) just destroy most strains with bud rot. Over the years I have tried over 200 “pedigree” seeds from different breeders. I would have to say the keeper list is quite small.
I do make seeds from these clones and do an exciting pheno hunt every year from my own crosses. I am sure there are definitely longer and shorter flower times available from all the seed babies. There are too many variables for me to test those where I live. Not to mention almost everything is a polygenetic hybrid these days too. I would need acreage and multiple greenhouses to test the runs properly. Also, an average 2-3 ft female plant will usually give me an average of 1000 seeds. Give or take 500. So there are a lot of seeds besides the variability of traits amongst all the seeds. It is easier for me just to select from mold resistance. I just put my extra or fail seeds out for the birds in the feeder. I like to share seed/clones with my grow buddies locally. They essentially are an extension of my pheno hunt and I always hear back about rare jems😜. I think of myself as Johnny-apple-weed. I also like to buy 1-3 new things every season to try.
Basically I have my 12 or so keepers that I grow big bad ass plants from in my raised beds every year. My bread-and-butter as I like to say. And then I’m always experimenting in tiny pots. That is what I like to call prove it pots for new things that fit my criteria. I’m ruthless on selection so I’m not wasting my time and working to improve my collection. There are always a lot of fails. Bad smoke, weak smoke, lanky floppy noodle stems, mold, slow flower, too stinky. You get the idea.
Bushdoc,
I have a neighbor that always leaves her porch light on. Drives me crazy. I even went and unscrewed her lightbulb a couple twist many night all summer long. But over the years I haven’t seen a difference.
I had to pick my battles so to speak.
I do put my male keeper clones directly under the bright street light on purpose. Like right under its beam of influence. This location helps delay my males from flowering to soon. This works great.
Currdog,
I have often wondered the very same thing. For sure hormonal trigger works like a charm on aquarium fish. (I install custom aquariums). My observations in my raised beds seem to prove this wrong. The plants are side-by-side and the roots all intermingle even more than in pots. I think it is just a coincidence.
I have noticed when I plant sister clones two rows deep (n to s). The sister clone to the north (in the sun shadow so to speak) will always flower about two weeks faster than the sister clone to the south. I find this across-the-board regardless of strain.
I think it’s just like the apples on the south side of the tree are ripen first. Compared to the apples on the north side of the tree because they get more direct light. But more shade instead of light. Rather than a hormonal trigger as suggested by your theory Currdogg if that makes sense.?
1 Like
I have read many papers about plants and light outside. Not just cannabis. From my understanding the going theory is that when the sunsets you get the red shift. As the sunsets only the red wave lengths make thru as the sun is twilighting. The plants have many photo receptors that pick up on that red shifted light. And it’s signals to them to go into a deep sleep. And the theory is it turns off their other photo receptors.
Say versus indoor, where we just turn off the lights. They really don’t go to in a deep sleep the same way. It’s the main reason why the moonlight and street lights (city light pollution in general) doesn’t cause our outdoor girls to go hermaphrodite. Everything seems more sensitive to intersex traits with light leaks in doors. I don’t know this, I just found out an interesting read and theory. But lots of plant biologist feel this is the case.
1 Like
Yeah that makes total sense and I’m seeing it too. I keep waiting for my southernmost girl to stop stretching cause she’s pushing 6’. Her sisters to the north have little baby buds.
I was just wondering about morning vs evening light too. My weed garden is closer to the eastern tree line than the veggie garden so it gets a lot more evening sun than morning. I wanted to get your thoughts about that.
So I’m doing some stoner napkin calculations here: her porch is a good 6’ from the ground…. 
That changes the angle.
If my calculations are correct, I think that means I have to try growing a giant plant. 
1 Like
My understanding is we get the same red shift in the morning sunrise as well as the evening sunset. I think it’s more important to have the high noon 6-8 hours than the evening or morning sun. It’s also why outdoor plants very often flower at 14 or 15 hours instead of just 12. Because that red shift in the last hour or two and the first hour or two acts like shaving off daylight. I have read about this a lot and it seems to play out in my garden. I have stuff that get the Eastern light, and I also have stuff that gets the western sunset light. And I don’t see a real big difference except individually north to south.
I wish I could use my big dog 🪚on my W neighbors cottonwood stand. I think he would notice.
1 Like
sunrise and sunset produce red waves as the light travels the LONG PATH. THe short path (after and before sun rise/set) are the BLUE waves
“The sister clone to the north (in the sun shadow so to speak) will always flower about two weeks faster than the sister clone to the south.”
This would explain my situation. My early spring planted girls get less sun, farther away from the street and often in the shadow of the house. They are a week into flower. The summer planted girls are close to the street and get several more hours of direct sunlight daily. They are showing pre-flowers only,
I believe the 12 hour practice is merely a lighting convention for indoor growers. I believe the plants start to flower as the days get shorter, not because they get to 12 hours on the equinox.
I still wonder about plants that flower on the equator where the days are exactly 12 hours all year long. In Uganda several years ago, I stood on the equator stoned on local weed…
1 Like
hormones trigger flower production…hours of light / darkness, temperatures, Rh and AGE all have a part to play in this…In tents we FOOL plants…
Nature knows what she is doing, we just guess