What causes foxtails

[Hdinkleman]

Recently purchased a par meter.
have foxtails on my current grow.
had foxtails on my last grow.
did not have foxtails on grow before that.

current grow foxtails - once i moved plant into flowering tent and raised ppfd from 400 to 600 on a 16/8 light cycle i continued raising it to 700-720. foxtails started after that point. no plant problems, some strange top fan leaves but read in the seeds reviews it was common with this strain. healthy robust grow, tiny bit of nute burn, less than a mm on tip.

last grow foxtails- at the end of week 9 the plant was starting to put out a bunch of foxtails and new pistils, i needed to chop and had gone the full breeders reccomend so i took her down. had cloudy trichs but not alot of amber. light burn-nute burn-light stressed plant problems

grow before that- grossly underpowered the plants. had very nice uniform classic little trees type buds

 

[jetsgrower]

no idea but I would like to know to

 

[Hdinkleman]

So if light stress is causing the foxtails, i have started to turn down my light by approx 50ppfd per day.
i have noticed within the last two days the foxtails have seen to stop.
im wondering if the plant having too much light at the end of flowering will cause the buds to foxtail rather than mature.
im going to document this on my next grow as well.

it is obvious to see the day the foxtails begin, the next plant that shows the begins of foxtails, i will drop the par and prevent them from spiring, if that is what is causing it.
and also on the other end of the spectrum, during mid-late flower, i will push as much light in increasing increments until i see the development of foxtails
i am interested to see what will happen.

i feel as this spiring is not filling in my colas as they should be, the bottom buds of the cola spired into the top buds rather than a full stack.

 

[Nunyabiz]

Some are caused by genetics, some strains are predisposed to it.
Most are caused by to much heat though.

 

[Hdinkleman]

last grow- measuring recorded distances as recorded in “im trying to grow pound plants” grow journal. the plant was being blasted by over 1100ppfd for weeks.
bud growth was good. besides all the other problems i had foxtails develop late in flower and right until harvest.
i had no idea with no par meter.
was still blasting the plant at over 800ppfd at the last weeks before i decided to harvest.

i felt as the plant was not ripening as i remeber from the grow before that which had no foxtails.

 

[Mastrmasn]

Some are caused by genetics, some strains are predisposed to it.
Most are caused by to much heat though.

Like you said strain is a big factor. I had a sensi star my last run. First time I had seen foxtails personally. Did a quick search and it was hard to find sensi star grow that didn't foxtail.

 

[Hdinkleman]

Theory is -light stressed caused foxtails delay flowering maturity while producing extra calyx and pistils due to too much light in late flower.

in nature the deep red, lower ppfd levels and shorter days signal end and flowering ripening.

i use 3000k quantum board and seperate led bar to add small amount of IR, UVA, deep red and orange.

when i have given over X amount of DLI the plant ceases to ripen and generates foxtails for another spurt of trying to catch pollen.

i have a feeling that alot of people who get foxtails have no clue what their ppfd level is.
using cheap leds giving too much DLI in late flower and then blaming it to genetics

i will document as i go

 

[Hdinkleman]

Like you said strain is a big factor. I had a sensi star my last run. First time I had seen foxtails personally. Did a quick search and it was hard to find sensi star grow that didn't foxtail.

@Mastrmasn
do you have a ppfd
what was your light on/off
i am not looking at strain, whatever i grow i will treat the same in the experiment.

what was the DLI you were giving the plant late flower?

 

[No Pain]

Recently purchased a par meter.
have foxtails on my current grow.
had foxtails on my last grow.
did not have foxtails on grow before that.

current grow foxtails - once i moved plant into flowering tent and raised ppfd from 400 to 600 on a 16/8 light cycle i continued raising it to 700-720. foxtails started after that point. no plant problems, some strange top fan leaves but read in the seeds reviews it was common with this strain. healthy robust grow, tiny bit of nute burn, less than a mm on tip.

last grow foxtails- at the end of week 9 the plant was starting to put out a bunch of foxtails and new pistils, i needed to chop and had gone the full breeders reccomend so i took her down. had cloudy trichs but not alot of amber. light burn-nute burn-light stressed plant problems

grow before that- grossly underpowered the plants. had very nice uniform classic little trees type buds

for some strains its genetics ….other than that it can be induced by heat and or light stress ...im my experience I have seen it happen more so from light stress when its not common for it in the strain genetically ...so you can now see that based on what you stated yours is more than likely due to light stress .

 

[Hdinkleman]

Some are caused by genetics, some strains are predisposed to it.
Most are caused by to much heat though.

current grow had heat some hot days but has shown exceptional growth. last grow had no heat problems.

both plants started foxtailing while i was waiting to see amber trichomes.

current grows hot days were before it was even in the tent. it was in my veg area as per the grow journals name.

question is- How much DLI is too much in late flower during the ripening stage.

is too much DLI causing my plants to foxtail during their last weeks of flowering i stead of focusing its energy on ripening, it is focusing on developing new calyxes to push pistils out.

its as if the plant is saying.
“hey guess we arent in fall, might as well keep trying to get pollinated”

but since their initial burst is gone, they use the rest of what is in thier power to push spires out of the top colas tops.

 

[Hdinkleman]

for some strains its genetics ….other than that it can be induced by heat and or light stress ...im my experience I have seen it happen more so from light stress when its not common for it in the strain genetically ...so you can now see that based on what you stated yours is more than likely due to light stress .

so what dli have you personally experienced foxtails

im looking for actual data in the posts.
i am going to post mine and observe the plant

 

[No Pain]

so what dli have you personally experienced foxtails

im looking for actual data in the posts.
i am going to post mine and observe the plant

I am telling you based on experience of light distance from plants as I have seen and dealt with this since before growers where concerned or even knew about ppfd… I have no recorded data as to what the plants where receiving and if I did I don't know that you would be able to truly utilize it unless you where using the exact same lights as me . we would have to use the same lights(as not all lights are created equal) at the same height and grow the same strain and change envoirmental (heat) factors to rule out the lamp .

I applauded you in recording your data and sharing it with all of us here , just know that the ones that it will truly benefit are the ones running the same equipment and strains not wanting foxtails .

 

[Hdinkleman]

Have decreased DLI from 31 to 23 will see what happens.

 

[NamTran]

My last grow had a sh*t ton of foxtails. And someone here told me that if the leaves/calyxes ratio is too low then you are more likely to have foxtailing.

 

[Mastrmasn]

@Mastrmasn
do you have a ppfd
what was your light on/off
i am not looking at strain, whatever i grow i will treat the same in the experiment.

what was the DLI you were giving the plant late flower?

I don't have any of that information but there was two other strains growing with the sensi star and neither one of those foxtailled. Which leads me to believe that in my case it was the strain.

 

[Emilya Green]

I am anxious to see the results of this experiment. I am convinced that we can influence the ripening at the end by simulating what mother nature does at the end of the growing season. I have seen people reduce the intensity (or raise up) their lights at the end to promote ripening clear back in the HID days, and LED growing should be no different. I have also seen that gradually reducing the photo period to as low as 10 hours of light a day at the end causes a quicker finish. I think you are on to something important here... and that we will discover that there are times in the grow when less light is better. We already know this to be true about veg and it makes sense to me that near the end, when processes are slowing down toward a finish, that less light would help promote the end, whereas more light or continued strong light could tell the plant to keep trying.

 

[Hdinkleman]

My last grow had a sh*t ton of foxtails. And someone here told me that if the leaves/calyxes ratio is too low then you are more likely to have foxtailing.

what was your DLI, ppfd and when did the foxtails occur?

 

[Hdinkleman]

I don't have any of that information but there was two other strains growing with the sensi star and neither one of those foxtailled. Which leads me to believe that in my case it was the strain.

ok what kind of light were you using at what distance?
i can plug it into the dli calculator and get a rough estimate of what your plants were receiving.

and contrary to what i have been told the DLI calculator MATCHED my ppfd reading almost to a T when i did some comparison readings

 

[Hdinkleman]

I am anxious to see the results of this experiment. I am convinced that we can influence the ripening at the end by simulating what mother nature does at the end of the growing season. I have seen people reduce the intensity (or raise up) their lights at the end to promote ripening clear back in the HID days, and LED growing should be no different. I have also seen that gradually reducing the photo period to as low as 10 hours of light a day at the end causes a quicker finish. I think you are on to something important here... and that we will discover that there are times in the grow when less light is better. We already know this to be true about veg and it makes sense to me that near the end, when processes are slowing down toward a finish, that less light would help promote the end, whereas more light or continued strong light could tell the plant to keep trying.

thanks for the support emilya.

i 100% had light stress last grow.
ever since i got this ppfd meter i have been obsessed with giving the plant an optimal amount of light.

the thing that struck me as i said earlier was that the foxtails STARTED WHEN I ASSUMED THE PLANT WAS FINISHING. WHY??

it has occured with last two grows at approx the same time i switched the nutes to flowering stage 4 schedule (flowers ripening stage as according to my nute schedule).

both grows light levels were very high.
this experiment may take a while, i will document going into next grow journal which i will start as soon as current plant finishes, which it should have by now.

the only cola that has not shown prominent foxtailing is the cola i back built around week 5 flower, but even that cola has grown a smaller foxtail that has now covered the back built wound.

i am not saying foxtails is unnatural or does not occur in natural outdoor settings. my hypothesis is that too high light levels cause a certain type of foxtail if the plant is receiving over a certain natural amount of light during its natural ripening stage.

i think too often LED light growers without a ppfd meter are giving much too strong light levels during this last stage causing foxtails to occur rather than the plant ripening to amber trichs and desisting in growing new calyxes and pistils.

think about it in a logical way.

why would a plant grow more pistils IF IT KNEW IT WAS DYING?
a plant grown indoors is receiving enviromental cues from us as light givers.
if we give too much light at the ripening stage wouldnt it reason that the plant would be fooled into not ripening because it THINKS it is not dying.

this may take some months but i wanted to create the thread now so when i have more results i already have somewhere to post.

i will take some pictures and post data when i have some time later tonight or tomorrow.

current grows foxtails are shooting single spires approx 1-1.5 inches spireing from colas.
not a single amber trichome in site, even though i have a 50-50 clear cloudy trichome for at least 1.5 weeks.
probably actually more like 70-30 cloudy-clear.
but anyways if anyone has had multiple foxtailed grows i would like to hear about what may have caused it.

i know the genetics crowd will say its genetics, but are the genetic type of foxtail the same style as spiring?
i have seen foxtails COME OUT THE SIDE OF BUDS MAKING THE BUD ITSELF BIGGER, but my experience has been unfavorable spireing instead of buds ripening and/or ripening (trichomes)

 

[Mastrmasn]

ok what kind of light were you using at what distance?
i can plug it into the dli calculator and get a rough estimate of what your plants were receiving.

and contrary to what i have been told the DLI calculator MATCHED my ppfd reading almost to a T when i did some comparison readings

I use Bridgelux eb gen2 3500k. I have 9 24" the were running at 225w. About 85% 12 inches from the tops. Even the lower stuff was foxtailling.