? Is it when you first see preflowers, are actually able to sex them, a little afterwards, before, or what? Thanks!
When you see the plant flowering or pre-flowering. The real key to this timing is understanding that flowering is not a light cycle (a common misunderstanding), it is a plant growth cycle, so you can't count based on when you flip your lights but based on the plant's actual growth/progress.
hmm,,, as many posts as you have toastybiz i'm going to have to bring up the other side to your argument. i believe that flowering does begin when you switch your lights, as far as keeping grow journals go. yes, the actual flowering of the plant starts when it wants but the amount of time it takes from the switching of the lights to the showing of preflowers will vary by strain , phenotype, or even individual plant. if you were keeping scientific data on your plants progress compared to other plants or comparing nutes or any sort of expiriment, you would have to mark when you switched the lights, and thus induced flowering. i guess it really depends on what the question at hand is. YES, the flowering section of your grow journal starts when you flip it into 12/12 but, (like toastybiz says) the flowering of your plant starts when it shows sex. hope that answers some questions and get people thinkin :-D happy growing!
Interesting points, BOTH OF YOU!!! And thanx for the extensive info! The question it raises in my head though is; How do seed banks "rate" their seeds in regards to flowering time then? From the time they show sex or from the time you change your lighting???
OKAY..... SO... 12/12 Does induce flowering, for journal reason we mark this down. Take about a week after we flip to 12/12 to show signs of colas ... therefore... Whats being debated right now, really is only different by seven days. I say classify the date on grow journals as "Flowering Light Cycle" and when when you see does destiguishable beautiful tops, call its "Flowering" or just "Budding"... But we all have our own process.
Because of strain and familiarity with it... mix in a little bit (or a lot) of good breeding, you get avery good idea its characteristics
I think the question your trying to ask is when a seedbank says 8-9 weeks flowering is it 8-9 weeks from light switch , or from preflowers,. the answer is preflowers i believe.
Hello, toastybiz! Thank you, this is extremely important to my attempted perpetual harvest plan. I rather suspected after my first experience that this was the case, i.e. the first batch didn't start showing preflowers til they'd been put on 12/12 for 8-9 days, and they're just now finishing out, sure enough approx. 8 weeks from seeing flowers as billed. I've got a primarily sativa strain going now that didn't start showing til over a month on 12/12 tho (!) These 2 girls are relatively long bloomers at 11-12 weeks supposed flowering period. Heck, if this is truly the case, then total growing time for these is gonna be about 5 months. Another question here is - why did they take so long to show? My only possible guess is that each strain is going to be different... which means my perpetual harvest plan ain't much of a plan! All of this is interesting to me in more than an "I need to know when my plants are gonna be done" way tho. Have read this entire thread thus far, and am listening carefully, thanks folks! Currently watching the above, plus an auto, plus my first grow (harvested the first of these 2 days ago, another is up for harvest after a couple more days of nutes then flush, the final one is lagging behind a bit but based on the other 2 of the same strain's growth, she should follow up nicely in another few days I'd guess). Altho I suppose if you see preflowers while still vegging, you could estimate flowering from that time, is that correct? The little auto I have going was supposed to start flowering around 14 days, but it took her 20, and that was with me switching her from grow to mild bloom nutes 3 days prior (yet leaving light schedule at 20/4 for now) Heard lots of troubles w/growing out this particular strain (afghan kush ryder, world of seeds) folks saying she won't autoflower...) Anyhow, thanks again for your help, everyone! Still listening too!
GreenMan, I agree, we use the term "flowering" two different ways and so they get confused with each other. For purposes of timing your harvest and such you definitely don't start counting until the plant has begun to flower. For purposes of a grow journal, there only are two phases of the plant's growth with a name, vegging and flowering, and when you flip the lights you no longer are vegging so you must be flowering right? In reality we need a third name, "transitioning" or "pre-flowering" or something. My response to the OP was related to the first definition.
Well, the grow nutes labels have a "transitioning" dose on them, so this makes all sorts of sense to me. If I'd known the above when starting out, naturally my timing calculations would have gone differently... grow and learn, I suppose. Here's to tracking a 3rd stage within a grow journal, at least for all regular (not auto) plants - *clink*
This is a good discussion, as when I first grew it was by starting at the time of the light cycle, but no matter when you start the time, if you keep checking your trichomes with at least a 30x magnifier you will know when it is done. I still count my weeks, but harvest is when half are amber for me.