Flowering outdoors in spring?

[Grandma Weedstein]

So I’ve got a couple spare female seedlings that I plan on flowering in my tent right away, separately from my main outdoor crop.

I don’t have much room in the tent but I want to pollinate one of these females for seed. Even if I had more tent room, I want to grow the other female for sinsemilla, so I wouldn’t want a male in there.

As you can guess from the title of my thread, I am considering flowering the male outdoors this spring. I’ve found it usually takes about 2 weeks for them to produce flowers that release pollen.

Since I will probably flip the females before setting the male outside, I was wondering what’s the latest I can set him out this spring and still induce flower? How late can I leave the male outdoors before he starts revegging? What would be the risks if he does start revegging?

In the past, I have simply placed the male in a cardboard box every 12 hours to induce flowering, which worked fine. However, it took up room inside my double-wide trailer where space is scarce. Also, remembering to box and unbox was a pain in the ass. Yes, I have additional timers but I am not buying another tent or reinforcing the cardboard box to handle a light. Just not worth the effort considering I get pollen in 2 weeks anyway.

 

[Listersmeghead]

Hi grandma,
It's already 12/12 light dark where I am, so the light hours are gonna get longer quickly now. When it gets 13 or 14 hours of light then it's maybe going to reveg.
Saying that, some plants carry on flowering as the light hours increase.
It's going to be tight.

 

[Grandma Weedstein]

Hi grandma,
It's already 12/12 light dark where I am, so the light hours are gonna get longer quickly now. When it gets 13 or 14 hours of light then it's maybe going to reveg.
Saying that, some plants carry on flowering as the light hours increase.
It's going to be tight.

Yea I was thinking I’d probably try flowering the male outdoors in like a couple weeks to a month... When I set some neglected female plants out in my chicken run around that time last year, they flowered and then revegged around June.

Are there any studies on the length of daylight that actually triggers flowering and revegging? I know it depends on cultivar but there’s got to be a range... I realize this is a lot to hope for with a plant that’s been illegal and thus off-limits to basic agronomic research.

 

[Listersmeghead]

Tbh, I've only worried about it going the other way, summer into Autumn. I know then they get twitchy just below 14 hours of light, definitely start flowering outside by 13 hours.strain dependent.
I'd expect to put a vegging plant outside with 14+hours of light and it to stay in veg.

 

[SmokingWings]

Yea I was thinking I’d probably try flowering the male outdoors in like a couple weeks to a month... When I set some neglected female plants out in my chicken run around that time last year, they flowered and then revegged around June.

Are there any studies on the length of daylight that actually triggers flowering and revegging? I know it depends on cultivar but there’s got to be a range... I realize this is a lot to hope for with a plant that’s been illegal and thus off-limits to basic agronomic research.

It is not the hours of daylight that are important. It is the hours of darkness that trigger flowering. On top of that it is the continuous hours of dark, not just the total hours in a 24 hour day.

So, the magic number is 12 hours or more of continuous dark. What happens is that when the sexually mature plant is in a dark period the tips of the branches start to form a hormone. After about 12 hours there is enough of the hormone built up that it causes the plant to start growing a flower at the tip instead of forming a new leaf. If the plant is in the dark for 6 hours and is then put in the light for an hour and then back in the dark for 6 hours the plant will not flower. It seems that 1 hour of light is enough to completely shut off that particular hormone production. If the plant gets exposed to another 6 hours of dark it will not flower. It needs the uninterrupted 12 hours of dark.

People worry about turning on the light in the room and ruing everything. That does not appear to be true. It takes more than a couple of minutes of light to break the cycle. The Gas Lantern method is used by some grower to give plants more than 12 hours of dark without flowering. Starts off with approx. 6 hours of dark then an hour or hour and 1/2 of light then another 6 hours of dark. Even plants in pre-flower will not go into full flowering mode. The method is used by some to reduce the costs of running lights.

The Spring Equinox is coming up on March 20. At that time the astronomical sunrise and sunset will produce what a lot of us call 12 hours of day time. For those of us in the northern hemisphere, after March 20th and until June 20th the daylight will continue to increase. I am not sure if there will be enough time to get a plant to complete the flower cycle. A male plant might start to produce flowers but there might not be enough time for the pollen to ripen properly before the plant starts to go into the reveg stage.