if 21 march and 21 september are the two equinox. which will 12/12 photoperiod means i can start it in Januari and my plant will flowers on the fourth month ? am i right or am i wrong. should be make sense.
Actually just to point out the earth actually does not rotate on its axis as its orbits the sun. the earth is actually set at a permenent tilt of 23.5 degrees on the solstice plane. The seasons are a product oft hat tilt of 23.5 degrees and the resulting angle of the sunlight. So, if the earth is in the western part of the universal plane in relation to the sun the angle a city such as Miami at 25.9 latitude would be almost vertical to the sun rays with the sun just about at a direct overhead position at noon standing outside. now if you put the earth in the eastern part of the plane the sun at high noon now sits low in the southern hemisphere, thus indicating a winter season. Everything else stated seems pretty accurate.
Great first post on this thread. I am of the opinion that it is not the decreasing daylight that makes the blooming to come on. If it was so a clone that under 20 hrs of light dropped to 12/12 day, but the days getting longer, let's say in March, after the initial shock it should realize that the new days were still getting longer and should keep growing but it does not, it will keep blooming. It may be a fine point but an important one. To to me it seems that the plants noticed the huge drop and not that the days are getting longer or shorter, it's the big drop either at once or over a longer period of time like it happens naturally
i am at 40 lattitude and find that when i get 14 hours of daylight, 10 dark, my girls start flowering. for me, that is end of June, early July. several strains have done this.
On June 20th last year, I put out 6 plants and they all flowered. Pure OG strain. This was not surprising as the days were, from that point, getting shorter. I went with it and the results were fantastic. See the pics below. I got great bud and a lot for what I thought were small plants at first. Ended up with nearly 2 pounds of the best outdoor bud most people had ever seen. And the smell.....it traveled from the back of the house to the front! I did a second grow immediately following the summer one and came up with about a pound of leafier, but still super dank bud. Again, this stuff knocked everyone out. It does not look like typical outdoor. After the two grows, I figured it was too cold to continue and decided to wait until spring time. Fast forward to March 28th. I decide to take a chance and throw out a bunch of vegging plants, hoping that the difference isn't too much. They were under 18 hours of light before being put outside, where it was about 12/12. My goal was to just see what happened. If they flowered, could I put them back into veg and continue to grow? Could I flower them all the way through? Would they flower at all? Of course, they flowered. And fully. But I was worried about when they might revert back, so I decided to let them be while I readied my next batch to put out on Mother's Day. For 10 days I gave them nothing after only giving them water for a week. They still matured and got to what looked like week 6 in terms of bud production. I was set on eventually pulling them out (and only using them for root/plant food) from the start, but when I looked at them on May 12, they looked like they were moving along just fine. Still, with the next batch ready to go, I took it all out and cut it up for trim and edibles. Fuck it, right? Here's the crazy part. A buddy of mine took 4 clones from us, same strains, and put them out about the same time, give or take a few days. Let's say April 1st. I just checked them out today and they are totally a week to 2 weeks away from harvest. Not the chunkiest, but he gave them NO NUTES. Just water and miracle grow in the beginning when he transplanted into the ground. His bud looks incredible. So now, after putting in my new plants on May 12th, they are today in flowering!!! My question is, of course, WTF??? I thought for sure, even with 18 hours of light going to the 14 we have now, it would still stay in veg. But nope! All flowering. So can we simply grow outdoor year-round in southern California? I am not new in this industry at all. But outdoor in this location is giving me second thoughts about what I know. I have a greenhouse in southern California, the South Bay to be exact, and due to the ocean and hills and what not, the fog rolls through the neighborhood in the mornings. The temperature is pretty ideal, although it does get pretty hot during the day just like the rest of LA in spring/summer. I have read up a lot now on the amount of sunlight to darkness in this area as well as northern California. I checked out Eureka, CA and compared it to here. The difference is about 30-60 minutes more light during summer and the same difference but lower in the winter. I've read that plants need at least 8-10 hours of darkness to go into flowering. What I don't understand is how plants in northern California get so big and veg for so long but my spot down here goes straight into flowering? Here are pics of what's going on. Flickr: socalgrower24's Photostream
Do a search on humboldtlocals grows, he'll show you a trick on how to string up incandescents, cfls, doesn't matter, just takes a little light - you add supplemental light, put them out in grennhouses in march or april in 300 gallon raised bed smartpot planters. the lights only have to come on once during the dark period for an hour to disrupt the dark cycle enough to keep them in veg. that's it, simple. well, strains have to be able to get that big, etc. and so on. but that's it bro, if you check out mns site shantibaba has some really good articles on gardening year round, using just sunlight, your greenhouse, and a light shading cloth. Later!
Hey socal: Are you using autoflowering strains? And how gradually did you break down your light cycle? Are plants get huge up here because of a couple factors: Were on the 28th parallel Most strains are climatized Most people grow leading to better availibility of strains, soil, nutes and know how. It makes it allot easier when you can talk to your neighbors or anyone at the store with your specific questions. I planted 4/30 and all but one of my toxic punches started to flower. The one that didn't is huge now. The others are pulled now. Maybe they would have come out of it but it was not worth it to waste 2 months of prime veg sun on them to have a mediocre pound per plant. You loose alot of vertical growth when they try to revert back to veg. Just my .02
My point about the supplemental lighting. If you talk to your neighbors and you are from up there you would know this man, and you wouldn't have had your issues with them flowering when they did, you would have known this. (or if you were older than 18) It wasn't because of them having any autoflower genes, its because you put them out when your freaking photoperiod (time when the sun is out, from sunup to sundown) was less than ideal for vegetative growth, ie around 13 or 14 hours or so - if you planted on 4/30 anywhere in Cali your length of day was 13 hours and 40 minutes give or take a few - exactly why your plants flowered when they did. If you think that your reasons are why you really need to read up a little more. Especially check out Humboldlocal's thread, who definitely is from up there and knows whats up. Thats my 2 cents
How long will they bud mine have started here in Carolina and appear to be budding slowly 3 weeks in and not much going on?
Mine started to bud at the beginning of Sept. , I live in the northern tier, and m,ine are covered with buds, just waiting till next week to commence harvest, or maybe even till Oct.15, a friend tewlls me you want 80 per cent of the buds to have re hairs in them. My yield skyrocketed thjis year from using feminized seeds, more expensive, yeah, but much larger plants, no males, and well worth it!
Always worth their weight in gold. Those feminised seeds are. Not too mention pretty much any seed with good genetics compared to bag seed. Remember it costs more for a reason. Also you can clone her and have a clone line of her and just have a mother plant and be able to expect consistent favorable results!
Hey thought I'd add my 2 cents, I live in a northern clime, and I tried feminized seeds this year mixed with non, the feminized girls were over 8 feet tall, the others, not nearly as high ( so I am sold on feminized seeds- and bought all I need for next years crop- no pesky males no waste of supplements) so my girls finished in early Oct., 4 feminised, 3 non- total yield 2 lbs. AND EXCELLENT SMOKE! Now, if had not needed to come back East for a few months, I might have let them go a bit longer even- and now I'm gonna smoke some! Peace!
It feels great at clipping time lol. Other than everything sticking like you got super glue on your fingers later lmao