I've always wondered when we count our veg growth weeks.Where do we start.Specifically with seeds. Do we start it when the seedling pops from the soil,or some point after this??? Thanks for your time...
I was told by someone that it starts when the seedling leaves start dying, but he was also as much a noob as myself so i dont know.
I don't time my veg period. When my plants are 1/3 the size I want them to finish at I flower them. Usually 12 to 14 inches.
I feel like there is a distinct difference between a plant that is a seedling and one that is vegging. I consider the veg period to be whenever the seed leaves are gone, AND when there is the first signs of branching going on. Usually at that point I flip the lights from 24 hour to 18/6. There is also a growth spurt that follows this time period which I consider to be the first true vegetative growth. Another thing I look for is how long it takes new nodes to develop, in seedling state it is a much longer process vs veg where I see 2-4 new nodes a week (depending on the plant genetics that is, a sativa will take longer).
Yea really what the fuck does it matter with veg Sent from my SPH-L710 using Grasscity Forum mobile app
I consider it to be in veg from day one. There is no difference in the processes occuring in a two day old plant or two week old plant. The only real changes in life cycle are when the plant becomes sexually mature, and when it begins to flower.
It matters because I was reading about how to up your chance of females with regular seeds,and everything I found said no stress during weeks 3-5 of veg...Obviously we never want stress,but my grow is hard to maintain perfect environment in the summer...
it's either vegging or flowering. that's the only two states. as soon as the seeds cracks its vegetating, it's growing vegetively, growing vegetation. it only stops vegetating when it stops growing vegetation and puts its energy in to flowering instead
The first 4 months are basically veg stage. I plant in late March/early April. Flower season usually begins in August.
as for seed sex, it's already been determined by the pollen grain that was used to create it. a seed is either a male or female. no matter what you do you will not change this. this can be proven by this simple fact... if environmental conditions can influence the sex then most gardens would end up having the same sex, because they are getting the same conditions. one person's conditions will be vastly different from another person's so you would get distinctive differences of sex from person to person but plants that share the same garden will almost certainly turn out the same sex. for example, if lower temperatures were to bring on males and high temperatures were to bring on females all of the over heated gardens would always come up with 100% females. when have you ever heard of anyone planting 10 seeds and getting 10 males? I doubt if its ever happened. in fact growers get exactly what would be expected if it were random. around 50/50. thinking that your actions can determine a seeds sex is just superstition, and works in exactly the same way
While I respect your opinion,I got my information from instructions by Dutch Passion seed company.Never did I say you could get 100%...Though I'm sure your very knowledgeable I think a company that breeds,and grows thousands of plants/seeds per year should have a bit more insight... Thanks
if they stated you can influence gender by environmental factors they are wrong. it's as simple as that. if you wish to put them in touch I would happy debate it with them but frankly it's a clear cut issue. many books state you can effect genda, it is a very common misconception unfortunately. however many people think it, it doesn't make it any less untrue. an extremely simple experiment easily proves it. an experiment that growers conduct every time they drop seeds and the results are profoundly conclusive .another reason that PROVES that it's the pollen that determine sex of the seed and that's "feminization". if environmental factors determine the gender of the plant after the seed has been made we wouldn't be able to feminise seeds. the whole idea of feminising seeds relies on making female pollen and pollinating a female flower with it. you see pollen is much like sperm, it either carries the potential to make a male or the potential to make a female. creating pollen from a female and pollinating a female flower with it ensures you don't have any male pollen present. .you see this proves that its the pollen that determines the sex of the seed. no environmental factors can change that when it's a seed, when its a few weeks old or when its a few months old. .on the flip side, there's is no evidence supporting your hypothesis whatsoever
I guess we'll have to agree to disagree...They talk of feminised seeds first then move on to regular later in the green text... Dutch Passion released an essay on how to increase mostly females from a pack of seeds. This is an excellent piece of work and has helped me to gain more of an interest in this area. In the past few years I have come to develop my own systems to get those ratios on the up and up. Right now I am very happy to report a real increase in my females from standard seeds. Sometimes as high as 90% to 95% on a consistent basis. So how is it done? I prefer standard seeds for numerous reasons. The first reason being that feminized seeds come from hermie plants. Whichever way you look at it, the specially treated plants are hermed and this trait is often expressed in the offspring where conditions are less than optimal. Even with standard seeds the hermaphrodite condition is still achievable where stress occurs. I seem to have noticed that the two most stressful conditions which can cause the hermaphrodite trait occur before flowering in the vegetative phase of growing is around the 3rd to 4th week of growth before pre-flowering when the plant undergoes either heat stress or a problem with the 24/0 or 18/6 photoperiod (whatever vegetative photoperiod choose doesn't matter, as long as disruptions occur). Even during the initial stages of calyx development males and females are obvious side by side at the node region. This is hermaphroditism due to vegetative growth problems. In the flowering period, hermaphrodites generally occur quicker because of an irregular photoperiod than anything else and heat stress certainly helps bananas to pop up in with the bud. Now, even Sinsemilla crops will herm towards the end depending on the strain. I don't class this as a typical case of hermaphrodites. It is just something that some strains naturally do towards the end of the Sinsemilla procedure. Anyhow for starters we better reproduce what Dutch Passion have to say about there feminized seeds first. "Feminised Cannabis seeds" Courtesy of Dutch Passion In November 1998 we introduced our "Female Cannabis Seed". We did this after our own experiments showed that from female seed, we acquired almost 100% female off-spring. In the meantime we are six months further on . We have received a lot of feed-back from our customers. The reactions are mostly positive, clients who have successfully produced almost 100% female off-spring. However there have been reactions from customers who found a few hermaphrodites or males plants. Apparently environmental influences affect the sex of the female seeds as well. Because of the fact that Female seeds do not grow into female plants under all circumstances, we changed the name from "Female Cannabis seeds" into "Feminised Cannabis seeds". From literature and from our own findings it appears that the growth of a male or a female plant from seed, except for the predisposition in the gender chromosomes, also depends on various environmental factors. Not only the origination of entirely male or female plants is partly affected by these environmental factors, the number of male and female flowers on a hermaphrodite plant is affected as well. The environmental factors that influence the sex of the plant (or the flower in the case of hermaphrodites), are among other things: The quantity of nitrogen and potassium of the seedbed. Humidity and moistness of the seedbed. Level of temperatures. Colour of the light used. Length of daylight. Stress, any form of stress, makes that more male individuals will originate from seed. Even the taking of cuttings from female plants may produce male or hermaphrodite cuttings. To optimise the result, changes in one or more of the above-mentioned environmental factors for a certain period during growth, may be applied. During this time these environmental factors will deviate from the standard growing system for maximum harvest and quality, as described in nursery literature. The desired change(s) in the environmental factor(s) are started from the moment that the seedling has three pairs of real leaves (not counting the seed-lobes). This is the moment that male and/or female predisposition in florescence is being formed. After approximately two weeks the standard growing system can be reconverted to. Of the 5 above-mentioned environmental factors the first three are the most practical: 1. Level of nitrogen and potassium of the seedbed: A heightening of the standard level of nitrogen makes for more female plants originating from the seeds. A lowering of the nitrogen level shows more male plants. A heightening of the level of potassium tends to show more male plants, while a lowering of the potassium level shows more female plants. A combination of a higher nitrogen level for the period of a week or two and a lowering of the potassium level is recommended. 2. Humidity and moistness of the seedbed: a higher humidity makes for an increase in the number of female plants from seed, a lowering for an increase in male plants. The same is valid for the moistness of the seedbed. 3. Level of temperatures: lower temperatures make for a larger number of female plants, higher temperatures for more male plants. 4. Colour of light: more blue light makes for female plants from seed, more red light makes for more male plants. 5. Hours of daylight: few hours of daylight (e.g. 14 hours) makes for more female individuals, a long day (e.g. 18 hours) makes for more male plants. * Now let me just make a few adjustments here to this. You can do whatever you want to your plants in seedling stage and early vegetative stage of growth and it will not effect your final male to female ratios. The time when things should be near perfect is in or around the 3rd to 4th week of vegetative growth. This is the CRITICAL TIME for getting those female ratios up and up. I realized this clearly when noticing how some plants hermed because of problems that occurred around this period of the plants development. If the problems occurred before this time - no herms. So for this reason I surmised that this is when the crucial gender selection is made by the plant. Now I believe that the genders are set in the seed however the environment has a massive impact on how this is expressed in the final phenotypic expression of the plants gender. There are probably many genes that govern this, however lets get into how to up these female ratios. At the 3rd to 4th week of vegetative growth make sure that your plants are free from stress. No pests attacks, no fungi attacks, no mold, no irregular photoperiod, not underwatered, not overwatered, not pruned or topped, a cannabis friendly soil mix, not recently transplanted, no small pots. If have these basic growing conditions under control then we can move onto the real forces of female production from standard seeds. N:K and nutrients. What this simply boils down to is that you have the right nutrients present in the right ratios. A nutrient formulation that has roughly equal parts N, P and K is great but if the P levels go up or the N levels go down you are starting to look at a flowering type food for cannabis. If you do this then your odds of producing mostly females is greatly decreased. Make sure that you get those N, P and K levels to almost run from higher to lower amounts from N to P and K. I have noticed that equal portions of N to P an K can help with the female ratios but the higher N is certainly more helpful. So around the 3rd of 4th week of growth make sure that the ratios are good and that P or K has not gone above the N and P or else more males will occur. Obviously this means to avoid overfeeding your plants around this time too. Never let your medium dry out completely around the 3rd to 4th week of vegetative growth. If you make sure to water occasionally, but not to overwater your plants, you will get those female ratios on the up and up. Overwatering or drying out of the medium will only produce more males. For consistent results in getting more females keeps those mediums moist. Humidity. Now this is the tricky one. High humidity levels only promote fungi and mold development and lowering humidity levels is the way to cure most of this rot but by keeping those humidity levels up in or around the 70 rH factor will help to produce more females. If you have a low humidity grow room then you should get to hold of a humidifier. Now high humidity levels like 70rH cause the medium to dry out a lot quicker so you got to keep this under control too. Keep those mediums moist and those rH levesl at 70. This will help to improve those female to male ratios. Again, getting them on the up and up. If you run the 24/0 photoperiod then do not allow those temps to go anywhere above 85 unless you have an equatorial strain. 75 is the best but going a little lower is not a problem for helping those female ratios. If you can get in at around 65 then those females are going to be popping up all over the place. The problem with this is that some growers like to use the 18/6 photoperiod and when the lights are off the temps drop from around 65 to 50 and even less. Try not to be below 55 because this has the adverse effect on the plants producing more males than females. Again between 65 and 75 is where you want to be during the 3rd to 4th week of vegetative growth, the preference being 70. Invest in a MH Light for vegetative growth. Dump the HPS bulb for flowering later. I have noticed that HPS lighting during vegetative growth simply sends those males to female ratios all over the place. With MH lamps the females are everywhere. Invest in some MH HID lights. It makes all the difference in getting those females to show more often. This is worth repeating! MH Bulbs produce more females under optimal conditions especially if they are present during the 3rd and 4th week of vegetative growth. Surprising enough you can start seedlings under HPS and it will not have an effect on those female ratios. Again the 3rd to 4th week of vegetative growth is what is important here. No stress during the 3rd to 4th week of vegetative growth. That is all there is to it. If you got your garden growing in optimal conditions without plant stress then the impressive 90% to 95% females start to emerge from standard seed packs. I find that topping is best done at the second to third week of vegetative growth but that this is a little stressful and can lead to those female ratios dropping again. Avoid topping or pruning if you are looking to up the female count.
if environmental factors such as nutrient levels and temperatures effect gender why does everyones results appear to be exactly what you would expect in a random pattern? if environmental factors determines gender then almost all of people's grows would give either 100% male or 100% female. only the very few grows that fall exactly in the "in between" area would give both male and female. to get exactly 50/50 you would have to have your conditions exactly bang on in the middle. .and given the fact that getting 50/50 is so common it defies the law of entropy
whenever I start a new strain I start 10 seeds. I have done this countless times over the past 20 years and I always get around 50/50. the furthest from this I have ever got was a 7-3 split and this was just once. are you seriously stating that every single time I have started a new strain the conditions I gave them were all exactly dead on in the middle of making them male or female of every factor? if what you are saying we're true, getting 50/50 even if you aimed for it would be near impossible. but the fact remains most of the time 50/50 is exactly what you see
Did you read what I put?They said besides the predisposition to sex ect... Why can females turn hermi if theres no effect from environment?Why do plants hermi?Stressful evironment...That point proves you wrong IMO... I think a huge seed company that's been around for decades has a better outlook on ratios,and can see pattersn much better then you...Your only going off books knowledge.They grow thousands of p,ants a year once again. I respect your opinion,but your going off your own 'book knowledge',and your own non trial experience..
Hermaphroditing is not changing sex. Do you not have any response to any of the evidence I have put forward? Here's some more... If environmental conditions effect gender then how come when you clone a young plant all clones no matter what the conditions always are the same gender? By saying people with more years under their belt are always right makes no sense. People are proven wrong all the time. Look at the evidence I gave you. If someone can explain away all that evidence I will gladly listen. You have not provided any argument that I cannot disprove. Why would you think these people know better than me even though I have given you undisputed evidence. People used to believe in gods but that nonsense has long been disproved. There are a few idiots still clinging on to the superstition but you always get some people that can't let go of a disproved idea
And I am going off book knowledge, almost all grow books are way outdated, and written by morons. There are a few ok ones out there but generally they are the basics for beginners. I have acquired most of my knowledge from various forums and obviously my 20 years experience. However non of this is relevant. Even if someone without any experience of growing provided the same basic argument that I have its still fully credible. That's the beauty of evidence, it matters not who provides it, it stands up for itself I'm not saying something and saying just trust me. I have provided evidence which proves that their hypothesis is incorrect