I have 4 white widows grown from seeds, planted on 12/9/09. They are under HPS lights 18/6, are 13" tall, and have decided to start flowering. They appear extremely healthy, but I don't know if I should extend the light period and try to slow these puppies down, or shorten the light period and let them do their thing. The four that have begun to flower are all F...another has not chosen to flower yet. Other info: grown in miracle gro soil in small cowpots, fertilized very lightly after 3 weeks, repotted into large pots with miracle gro soil and have another week to go before I start adding nutrients to the water. Any suggestions are welcomed. Tyg
time for 12/12 IMO. Extending the light period would not slow them down, it would make them grow faster.
What?... As for your issue, it sounds like it could just be preflowers, some strains show bigger signs of sex when they show preflowers then other, its not always all out flowering, just a small popcorn bud or two that sticks around for a couple weeks then dies off. It is pretty close to impossable for a nomral non autoflowering strain to flower under 18 hours of light. I would wait another week or so to see if you actually start getting budmass and not just stigmas that are their and will die off in a matter of a few days. Im pretty sure they are just preflowers though in which case you have nothing to worry about. Keep doing what you are doing and im sure everything will be fine. In some crazy situation the plants really are flowering under 18/6, cut it back to 12/12 and just let them flower if thats what they want to do. (pretty sure this isnt the case though so i wont get to into that now)
Probably pre-flowers, Keep it at 18/6 if you want too. Personally I veg 20/4 with a hps (dual spec) Does your HPS have a bit of blue to it? It can help imo.
I'm going to go on the idea that they're preflowers....double white threads in some leaf axils. Thanks for the input! Don't want to rush the girls...I'd rather they be big, happy and bushy. I took cuttings to root for the next gen. Submitted for your approval, Tyg
Sounds like just definate preflowers. If its just two little white stigmas or threads as you say and they are at the nodes where the branches meet the main stem they are preflowers. They will just start to turn to an amber then brown then die off, nothing to worry about everything will be back in full force once flowering starts. Youre on your way to a nice successful grow though with all those females!