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Hi -
is iit neccaaray to give your plants 36 hours of darkness before you initiate lfowering on them?
someone told me this....
Also, when do you lollypop your plants? (cut lower branches off)
(I plan on using these for clones, I mean , might as well)
thanks guys
whoever told you that is full of crap :)
PS: pic in week 5 flower, note: didn't need any darkness before switching the time cycle.
Peace 2 you,
Denial
Is it necessary? No.Quote:
Originally Posted by saltypimp
Does it help? Absolutely, yes.
I use 48 hours of dark to force flower my plants.
what they SAY is that it sends the plants into whirlwind speeds to start to sex and procreate asap, hoping light will eventually come back and they can continue their respective cycles;
I would say wait until the right time or else you may stress the plant, and if you have to go back to veg state it is delayed a steady pace almost by a week or two. Long time to make up for a mistake. . .
I'm going to do a 36 hour myself; during the dark-cycle of the marihuana plant is that it uses the energy it has stored and collected in the light-cycle to cause plant chemistry/biological formulation (growing, flowering, etc)
supposedly the 3 - sets of straight 12 hour periods of darkness cause the plants to use every bit of energy they have left into beginning the flowering stage, drying it up. Would be good to give an immediate boost for a bloom setup right before you turn on your lights again, so when the stomata's open up like @_@ OMG, there is nutrients to immediately start abosrbing.
:smokin:
I did 24hours on mine and she's a beauty. :thumbsup:
I personally have found no diff. in my plants from extra darkness. I think it's BS but some people swear by it.
yup, i too was woering about the lollipop deal..
-when?
http://i15.photobucket.com/albums/a3...uh1/plantA.jpg
now?
Might save a day on electricity.
how about 36hrs darkness prior to harvest :question:
so outside in nature what starts the flower phase ? Growth or light cycle?
"whoever told you that is full of crap"
Well, I read about this from one of BOG's threads. He was a very good grower and did breed some great strains. So, I don't think he's full of shit.
Myself, I've done the darkness for 36 hours, 24 hours and none at all and either way the plants flowered within a week. However, I've always vegged my plants for eight weeks, sometimes they preflower at six weeks of veg, so I don't think it has made any diff to my observations.
Shov
Nature doesn't force a plant to flower. It coaxes them gradually.Quote:
Originally Posted by zoott
We are not nature.
Forcing flowering causes a quick hormonal change putting the plant immediately into flower, instead of gradually as in nature.
Stripping the girlz of all bottom plant growth will promote all energy in flowering on all the colas recieving light. This should be done during the last two weeks of Veg or until the first day of Flowering. And during the last two weeks of flowering take 50% of the fan leaves off this will increase stress and focus on the flowers to swell. Make sure they are well watered because fan leaves store their sugars and nutrients and you will be taking some off.
Clones should be taken from a mother to guarantee the same genetics. I have observed that taking clippngs from your clones as an ungoing routine may deviate from your original desired characteristics such as quantity and quality. An "OGG" (Old Guy Grower) told me that about the fourth generation is when the characteristics will start to deviate.
Ive never seen any benefit from going to extended darkness to begin flowering, either way the plant seems to stretch like crazy and begins flowering within the week. Now at the end of harvesting Ive seen some differing reports (never tried it/heard about it til I read it on here, so Im trying it with this grow)
As far as lolipopping, I dont remove anything until stuff starts dying basically. If i make it pretty well into flowering without removing leaves Im actually doing better than normal, lol. The idea behind removing leaves though is to increase airflow and thin out vegetation to get light to lower buds. Ive never understood why you would do it as a matter of course, especially early in flowering, as it seems it would cause way to much stress for little real benefit. (Sorry Purplethumb, I just cant wrap my head around removing sun leaves for fun :) ) Most growers tho that take clones from the bottom branches do it before flowering, maybe a week before, so the plant has time to recover before the push to flower.
Carinia-
Let me know how it goes with extending the darkness at the end of your harvest. I usually lenghthing the darkness period during the last week to speed things up. I've never tried the complete darkness prior to flowering.
With all the different experiements I have done, Lolipoppiong or pruning has proved amazing results on my part. Secondly, you are absolutely right about the stress during flowering, however, I wasn't clear about the timing of removing bottom growth. I pruned right before I changed the light regiment to 12/12.
As far as removing SOME of the fan leaves during the end of their cycle, I try to promote more resin growth and causing a little stress and the end seems to let the girls focus on protecting itself. The girls literally look like they have been rolled in sugar! So Yummy!.....:thumbsup:
This is an interesting concept. On one hand, using a fruit juice won't add to the flavor- Those large molecules can't cross the root membrane. However, the sugars and organic acids (citric, acetic, etc.) can, and the plant DOES have a use for those.Quote:
Originally Posted by PurpleThunb
As for the soda part, lowering the pH of the solution for your FINAL flush makes a lot of sense from a chemistry point of view. Salts and minerals are more soluble in an acid solution than in a neutral one, making a flush with a solution of, for example, carbonic acid as you are doing, quite a good idea to try. I'd like to see a side-by-side comparison between an acidic flush and a neutral flush, but I like your reasoning.
I disagree.Quote:
Originally Posted by PurpleThunb
The leaves are where the photosynthesis takes place. By removing the leaves, you are speeding up delivery of what the plant has already processed, but you are actually preventing any further processing.
There are very few reasons to remove a leaf. Increased resin production is not one of them.
36 hours of darkness before initiating 12/12 is unnecessary. I remember someone on Overgrow did an extensive test to check for differences between plants with and without the 36 hour dark period before flowering and concluded that it made no difference in resin production. it did not help or harm anything, the plants didn't react much differently at all.
cutting off lower branches has nothing to do with light, it is simply a matter of trying to focus water/nutrients on the tops of the plants. why give a little fluffy bud water/nutrients when you can give that water/nutrients to those big firm colas? lower budsites are usually further from the light, and at times may be shaded by higher growth.
think of the stems as pipes. the less pipes you have coming off that main pipe (main stalk), the higher pressure you will have at the end of that main pipe (main cola). the more pipes you have stemming off of that main pipe, the less pressure you'll have at the end of that main pipe.
removing fan leaves is a completely different story. you usually remove fan leaves to give light to otherwise shaded budsites. but don't go overboard, you should remove them only when necessary. you should never remove fan leaves in attempt to focus energy anywhere on the plant, because it will infact do the opposite.
Absolutly agree and that OLD Dude was on the money you can not keep on going into crops using cuttings from previous ones with out messing up the strain completely. There is nothing better then to take your cuttings from one in a thousand plant.. LOL This log started with a funny question!!!:thumbsup:Quote:
Originally Posted by PurpleThunb
In the Marijuana Growers Bible by Jorge Cervantes he says that some growers choose to use the 36 hours of darkness but it isn't necessary. He found that he was able to sex the plants a few days earlier that way. I dunno..i'm a noob :D
I have grown in a number of ways. I have tried trimming fan leaves, not smart unless they are large and blocking a developing bud lower down, and even then, if you can bend it out of the way, its better for the plant. Any damage to the plant releases a hormone that is essentially a growth inhibitor.
I have grown a plant and just trimmed every BRANCH, not fan leaf, before flowering stage, and this conserves energy for the bud with apical dominance, making it and any above the prune fatter. From what I've read about flowering, 24 hours of darkness before flowering supposedly "resets" the plant's circadian rhythms, and supposedly helps it flower faster. I was curious about trying it but from what cthulhu said it probably doesn't matter a great deal, but anything to decrease growing time right? If I could hook electrodes up to the plant and soil to make it grow faster I would.
Hmm, whats your source for this? I watched a High Times growing DVD that said you could clone clones indefinitely without any negative effects to the plant genetics, and Jorge Cervantes also confirms this in the Medical Grow Bible. I trust Jorge as the word on growing cannabis and I'm sure High Times wouldn't give bunk info on their DVD, so I'm interested to see your source for your claim. I am on the 5th generation of Master Kush clones after flowering the old mothers because they got too huge and they all have performed the same and end up with basically the same results, so I am a bit skeptical of the info you presented.Quote:
Originally Posted by GreenLeaf420
As for the thread topic, I have never given an extra dark period between veg and flower because I don't want to screw too much with the light cycle, but Jorge says in the MGB that "some growers" report that giving 24-48 hours of dark before HARVEST increases resin production. How that is measured and how accurate the claim is, I don't know, but I am giving mine 36 hours of dark before harvest this time around just in case. :thumbsup:
Ive read somewhere that marijuana uses the trichomes and resin that accumulates on the stalk as LENSES in order to focus light in a way that benefits the plant...and also that the resin serves as a sort of sunscreen, which in itself seems a bit contradictory, unless you understand that marijuana does have preferred spectrum that the plants absorb more efficiently. Depending on the genetics of the plant, indicas vs sativas or whatever, they may prefer different light because of the adaptations to that particular environment it was cultivated in. Ive read that the plant itself originates from an arid (xeric) part of the world, and that it is efficient in heat dissipation, which is why it stands out to a chopper with FLIR in the midst of cooler plants (grass or whatever). The resin may focus a specific spectrum of light and diffuse other spectrums that the plant doesnt want or need.
Ive also read that higher energy infrared and ultraviolet can increase resin production because of the sunscreen effect, which doesnt neccessarily increase potency. I tried feeding my last batch 3 t5 blacklights....some of the plants turned purple within a week, which may also be attributed to the flora nova 2 part series of nutes , which i read may cause plants to turn purple. The other plants did NOT like the UV light, and they burned from it, with little polkadot burns all over the parts up to 1 foot of the lights. The current batch has been eating ultraviolet blacklight since they developed a real serrated leaf right after cotyledons (baby leaves without seration). They are growing robustly with no sign of adverse effects, just started week 1 of flower. These are the purps from last batch ......the big purple one is from outdoors.
plants don't like the far-UV 'black lights' ... and, remember: 'purple is just a color', doesn't make the plant any better (just more expensive :wtf:) ... :smokin:
yo black dragon that is after 1 week wtf am i doing wrong man !looking good isnt shee :):jointsmile:
You do your lollypoping in the veg stage, then give it about a week to heal itself before going into flowering. I strip at least the two bottom branches/nodes then thin out the bottom layers. Works well for me....