Hi guys, I have been growing my first ever plant for about 10 weeks now and need some advice. I found a seed in a bag of weed and just chucked it in the ground thinking nothing would happen. It grew so I put it in a pot. It grew more so I put it in a nice big 25L pot. It has lived outside its whole life and is currently about 4ft tall and looking healthy. I have no idea if it is male or female. My problem is that in about 6 weeks I have to move house and there is a high chance I wont be able to take the plant with me. So I need my plant to flower pretty much right now. I live in Australia and it is about to be summer here. Days average perhaps 27 degrees Celsius or higher and will get hotter from now. I would estimate that the sun comes up at about 6am and goes down at about 8pm so it is getting at least 14 hours of sunlight per day currently. I have done lots of research and it seems I can force it into flowering by changing how much light it gets. I have a shed that I should be able to make pitch black all day long if necessary. I have read that you can "shock" the plant into flowering by giving it 36 hours of full darkness and then keeping its light schedule at 12 hours sunlight / 12 hours darkness per day. I would love some advice on what people think the best way to do this is. One of my main questions is if I do manage to shock it into flowering, how long do I have to keep it at 12/12? can I put it back outside permanently once it has started flowering? Also, how can I avoid making it a hermaphrodite? None of this really matters if it is in fact a male plant, but I am willing to take the chance! Thanks in advance everyone
Unfortunately even if you started flowering now it probably wouldn't finish in time. Never really heard of an photo plants only taking 6 weeks to flower so I'd try to find a way to bring it with you
Hmm that is a shame. However I would still be interested in the answer to my forced flowering question. At least if I find out if it is male or female I can try to make arrangements for keeping it when I move.
If its 4 ft tall chances are its telling you if its male or female...and you answered your own question I dont think you need 36 hrs of dark I normally just do 24 dark and flip to 12/12. Like the others have said 6 weeks of flowering will most likely not allow the plant to finish, I would start planning how you are going to move it...Good Luck
Photoperiods produce a plant hormone that causes them to flower. That hormone is destroyed by light, so as the days get shorter it builds up in the plant and it starts to flower. If the days get longer again then the hormone gets destroyed and the plant doesn't flower anymore, so you have to maintain the extended period of darkness (12/12) to maintain the flowering state. As a rule, photoperiods take minimum 8 weeks of flowering, typically 8-10 weeks but can be longer. When plants are mature enough they will often show their sex without having to be put in to flower, but some plants are shy and don't show their sex until a week or more of 12/12. Putting them in to 36 hours of darkness wont give you any immediate answers, you might still have to maintain a 12/12 light schedule for a week or only a couple of days. Moving them in and out of the shed is reasonable as long as you keep the schedule religiously. If they are in the very early stages of flowering, just showing the sex, they can revegged again with few consequences (slight chance of hermie in some strains that will probably hermie anyway). If they have been flowering for a little longer than a matter of days, they can still be re-vegged but they go a bit haywire. Plants can go hermie because of stress, if they feel like they might not live much longer then they try to reproduce a new generation themselves. The temperatures that you mention don't seem excessive.
. You can flower it but it would be a monumental pain in the arse. It would mean putting it in your blacked out shed for 12 hours every day. It needs a full 12 hours of complete darkness every day. . You don't need to give it 36 hours of darkness on the first day, in fact that long without light would not be good for its health. 12 hours on the first day is plenty. But that needs to be done every single day until you harvest, and considering you will be harvesting in 6 weeks time, it's not worth the work in my opinion. . But if you don't mind moving the plant twice a day at the same time every day then go for it
Ok, thanks everyone! From this information I think I will be better off leaving it to flower naturally and just try to work out some way to take it with me! I have grown way too attached to this damn plant so I suppose I will think of something. If I post some pics up is there a decent chance someone will be able to identify the sex even though it is not flowering yet?
Awesome. I shall post some up tomorrow! Any particular part of the plant that I should focus most on?
Along the main stems where the branches branch out...sorry i wont be mucg help I am headed in to work someone will help
There will be little balls or something with little white hairs sticking out...sorry in a hurry google preflowers on cannabis there are plenty of pics