36 hours dark before flowering?

[Shovelhandle]

"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

[psteve]

so outside in nature what starts the flower phase ? Growth or light cycle?

Nature doesn't force a plant to flower. It coaxes them gradually.
We are not nature.
Forcing flowering causes a quick hormonal change putting the plant immediately into flower, instead of gradually as in nature.

[PurpleThunb]

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.

[carinia]

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.

[PurpleThunb]

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:

[stinkyattic]

You know that saying, "You are what you eat!"? Well I Leach out with 1/2 tsp of sugar per gallon of water and 50ml of blueberry juice or grape juice and a can of grape or vanilla cream soda (soda brings down the PH). The purple varieties becomes sweeter, stickier and leaves an unbelievalble yummy aftertaste!

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.
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.

[psteve]

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.

I disagree.
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.

[cthulhu]

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.

[GreenLeaf420]

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.

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:

[sensilights]

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