Wildfire smoke impact on flower?

[Grandma Weedstein]

So in Oregon we’re basically inside a cloud. Mornings have been coming later and evenings earlier, also significantly much less light during the day. (Due to the wildfires obviously.)

3 questions:

1: Will this speed up my outdoor flowering?

2. If it does and then the smoke (hopefully) goes away, is there a risk of hermaphroditism?

3. Smoke impacts on taste, whether positive or negative.

Just to give you an idea of 9 am where I live:

 

[Pennywise]

I would spray the plants occasionally to remove ash. Not sure if the smoke will speed things up much. I don’t think the change will cause hermies.

 

[013]

Hey GMA Weed, Sorry for your troubles, no experience with that kinda fire, but bud washing at harvest is in order for sure. keep us posted

 

[Grandma Weedstein]

I would spray the plants occasionally to remove ash. Not sure if the smoke will speed things up much. I don’t think the change will cause hermies.

They’re in a hoophouse so I just shake them off. Also this is a seed crop so I don’t really care about taste. Not complaining about good advice, just giving you a better picture.

Hope you’re right about hermies because I have gone out of way to make only pollen from one male for all these plants. I guess I will never find out if they pollinated themselves, LOL.

 

[Pat Puffer]

@Grandma Weedstein That ash is also in California with our wild fires. I had the same concern on taste. Some one above mentioned a light spritz of water. I may do that myself.

 

[Justin Goody]

@carcass said his light level was WAY down on the Lux meter. I would imagine in some cases that’s going to push plants to finish a bit faster, and maybe even hurt some yields.
Here the light is down slightly but we are lucky and aren’t taking any ash fallout. I’d love for mine to finish early while it’s still sunny. Weird year for everything

 

[Grandma Weedstein]

Thanks guys — I hope I didn’t seem like I was making light of a bad situation. We’re all just super worried here and I guess I just wanted to talk about something other than fearing my house will burn down, LOL. These fucking powerline fires and manure heaps are causing fires all over, so we’re all jumpy. Thank god for the fire department putting out fires around my little woodland town every day — there’s a ton of them that haven’t made the news because they put them out. Firefighters rule!

 

[Grandma Weedstein]

Also, to clarify, this is mostly a seed crop so the taste thing is literally just for curiosity.

 

[The Celt]

They may flower faster, if the smoke filtering the light and letting high levels of IR red (730nm range), much like a plant in heavy shade, it can cause them to start flowering early, not sure that it speeds up the actual flowering though.

I know you are not worried about the taste, but if that was a concern, you can always wash them at harvest. In your case, as you are growing for seed, you can still make use of the left overs after removing the seed by making hash or oil, I never waste it

Once/if the smoke clears and light levels return to normal, it shouldn’t affect the plants in regards to causing them to hermie, they already have seed in them so no reason for the plant to go into “survival” mode.

 

[Grandma Weedstein]

They may flower faster, if the smoke filtering the light and letting high levels of IR red (730nm range), much like a plant in heavy shade, it can cause them to start flowering early, not sure that it speeds up the actual flowering though.

I know you are not worried about the taste, but if that was a concern, you can always wash them at harvest. In your case, as you are growing for seed, you can still make use of the left overs after removing the seed by making hash or oil, I never waste it

Once/if the smoke clears and light levels return to normal, it shouldn’t affect the plants in regards to causing them to hermie, they already have seed in them so no reason for the plant to go into “survival” mode.

That totally makes sense — I forgot about the biological reason for hermies as a survival mode. I got plenty of seed in them so the plants can relax!