Hello all! Couldn't find the answer I was looking for, or more likely didn't know how to ask the question I need answered I'm a southern Ontario home grower, who has had great success outdoors in the three seasons since legalization. (Last year, actually, lost the crop to botrytis, but they were glorious and massive until they got sick- we had enough saved from previous years that we thought it better to just destroy it all than risk lung problems during the plague ) This year I started four plants indoors at the beginning of April. The goal is to have them ready to get into the ground on the 2-4 weekend. One mango kush, one alien tech, and two blue dream. I have them under two one-metre t5s, about four inches above the canopy. Everybody is happy and doing well. Maybe too well... The problem is one of the bds is shooting up faster than the rest and keeps bumping into the lights. I do not see any heat stress or burn marks, but I raised the rig to four inches above the tallest plant last night, and this morning she has bumped into it again! So what do I do? Do I keep raising the lighting rig to accommodate the tallest plant, increasing the distance from the others that need it? Or do I keep the light steady, providing there is no sign of heat stress or burning, and hope that the dreamer will chill a little and stop shooting up? The 2-4 is still almost four weeks away, and I know from having grown up here that there is a risk of frost pretty much up until then. Thanks in advance for your help.
its vital that when you put your babes outdoors ensure the sun times match your light times otherwise confusion will rule to answer try some LST here Cannabis Low Stress Training (LST) Tutorial | Grow Weed Easy good luck
Hey Vostok, thanks for the quick response. Yeah, if they go out at the beginning of the long weekend they will, at most, gain a couple of minutes. I have been keeping them at 15 hours since the start, 5:30-20:30. And I understand LST, but can I really make alterations in the remaining 3+ weeks that won't be a problem once they're out in the ground? They are going to a nice farm, and apart from topping them, I intend to leave them alone unless they need support or we have a drought. I don't need to conceal them or amp up their production. Kinda like letting their weed-ness take over, see what they do. However, my question remains. While I have them in veg indoors should I a: raise the lights so that they are about 4 inches above the tallest plant, b: leave the lights where they are (so long as there is no heat stress or burning) and let the others catch up, or c: something else I haven't though of yet. P.S. thanks for the link, interesting stuff. If I ever get around to growing indoors, I will definitely be doing some of that.
The sun will burn them so you want to acclimate them to sunlight by putting them somewhere with dappled light. I put mine under a tree where its mostly shady for a couple of days them move them to a spot that gets morning sun but not the intense afternoon sun. After about 4 days you can put them into the direct sunlight all day. Its just like humans. If you take your shirt off and work all day in the intense sunlight you will get sunburned, but if you only spend a few hours in the sun for a few weeks you'll get a tan and be able to withstand the summer sunlight.
Also you will probably want to give them supplemental light for a couple of weeks to keep them from going into a premature bloom.
I'd keep an even canopy just to be fair to the rest of the crop, and bend the odd branch over if necessary in veg you would be very surprised how tough/ fluid/ strong at this stage of life hence clones is an option to that annoying branch lol good luck
Don't be afraid to top the fast growing plants, or you can take cuttings from the tops and clone them. I don't think an even canopy matters all that much of they're going outside. You can also put the short ones on top of bricks or wood blocks to get them to the same height as the taller plants.
Cheers! And yeah, I didn't mention it but I will be hardening them off starting next week. I learned that the hard way the first year when I was pretty sure my afghan darlings were dead (they rallied and became the two in my profile pic- well over a kilo from two $15 clones I didn't know what i was doing with ) I am in a city, so what I have done the previous years is put them on my (tiny) west-facing balcony for the last half-hour of sunlight, then hour, then the last two hours, through until they are out from noon (when the sun shines over the roof for the first time) until sunset. Thanks for the info and encouragement! We had a shitty growing season last year, so I hope everyone gets the harvest of their dreams in 2022!
Take your thumb where you want to bend it and indent the stem for a couple of inches while pulling the top over. This acts as strain relief and can be done at any stage of growth although you'll need pliers to crush an old woody stem. Young plants are still soft enough your thumb will do it. You'll likely need to tie it down to stay down as it will try its best to stand back up. 15-9 is perfect for an indoor start and move to outside. It should come off very well. I'm in blistering hot and dry Southern California and don't coddle or ease my plants from inside under T5 high outputs to outside. It just doesn't matter to the leaves. Where things get dicey is with the roots. Cannabis hates having it roots messed with at all. A few minutes to long with the sun on the pot sides of an indoor grown plant can cook the roots snuggled up to the sides and the top side of the plant looks like you hit it with a flame thrower a few hours later. As long as the sides of the pot is protected from direct sun light they'll do fine. It's a lesson I had reinforced to many times not to have finally figured out what was fucking up the plants. I dig the hole and get everything set to go before I bring the plant outside and it gets flipped from container to ground with no delay. 10 years I've been doing the indoor to out so I have it down fairly well by now. BNW
Solid advice, thanks BrassNwood. I have them in cloth pots now. We will dig the holes first, transfer them as fast as possible once the holes are dug. We are planting in two locations, this year, to avoid automatically spreading any disease or mold problem, so I'll have to figure out the timing and make a plan before we start. Always the best policy.
Harden seedlings? I just took mine out this morning at 7 Watered them..and set them right out in the dead bright as fuck sun till dark . They are doing great I don't fool around with hardening shit lol When it's time for them to go out for good in the big plot...imma put em out, water and then fuck right off them for a week..then go back and check them..and then I'll check on them again in 3 weeks and water..unless it rains..then I won't give em a second thought.
A further question to you all- I got the girls out on the 24th, and due to some last minute decisions they ended up in 25 gallon cloth pots. It has now been nearly a month, and they are all green and alive, but they are absolutely not growing, and three of them seem to have moved into flower. I have never had this issue before with outdoor grows, but then I have never used pots before either. Is this a result of shock alone? The farm is very windy, does wind inhibit growth/stunt plants and send them into flower? My every instinct, and my reading, leads me to hope that they will start growing again and move out of flower back into veg. I would welcome any and all thoughts/insights.
Whelp, in case anyone comes across this, I will share my tale of woe... When they went out on Victoria Day, I had timed things perfectly. They gained a minute and a half according to the schedule for our latitude. But what I didn't figure on, and should have, is that the real world is not uniform. A clear and open field might have got exactly the same duration of daylight that I had planned on, but I did not factor in the farmhouse. After a frustrating month or so it finally clicked. I took daytime measurements, and the farm's shadow shortened the day for the girls by nearly two and a half hours. They went from fifteen hours to twelve and a half overnight. No wonder they went into bloom! In previous years, we had planted on the south side of the barn, where there was no hindrance to the morning or the evening sun, and so my timing was fine. It was last year's powdery mildew, and then botrytis, that forced the move. (And a pity too- the Mango were huge and very happy, and the Cafe Racer was even bigger. All lost.) A lesson to everyone, but particularly to me All I can say is that they did flower and, uncharacteristically for our local, they got a full flowering period. So I salvaged two and a half ounces of Blue Dream and a little over an ounce of Alien Technology. Pitiful, compared to my hopes, but more than enough (in dollar terms) to pay for the grow. And if last year had not been such a cluster, I'm sure I'd be laughing at it all now. Anyway, I still have plenty from previous years. Canada's legalisation model is excellent- I will not have to resort to the black market. I'll just have to succeed next year...
Powdery Mildew is easy enough to control if you stay on top of it. High PH water is enough to kill it. Potassium Bicarbonate #1 choice. Sodium Bicarbonate #2 choice. (household baking soda) Both mix at 1 tablespoon to 1 gallon of water. Apply once a week as a drench spray. Seedling to week of harvest. Botrytis is a bit tougher. You can try what my Florida buddy does and thin the big colas in early flower by snipping off every other bud site. His logic was half a Cola beats no Cola every time. BNW