Outdoors all year?

[BentBuddha]

Hi all.

 

This summer, i've been experimenting with outdoor hydro (hand watered). With good success. I have a strain that only needs to be veged under lights (or outside) for a few weeks and then when i change it to 12/12 i get a pnd easy.

What i've been doing is getting a clone, getting legs on it under fluros, then i put it under a light for 18hrs a day for a few weeks (handwatering also). When it is big enough, i move it into a 50ltr pot. At the same time, i take a few clones off it for my next plant. So roughly every 5 weeks i'm putting a plant out to flower and harvesting one. To make sure the plant has 12/12 i bring it in the shed every night before 6pm.

 

It's been working great for spring/summer, but what about winter?

Anyone flowered in winter? I'm in s.a btw

will the rain or cold make the buds go moldy?

Is the cloudy/over cast days enough light?

 

All imput appreciated

Edited February 7, 2008 by BentBuddha

[loylty gets u nothing]

hey

i do some similar activitys all yr round

i find that the winter provides much smaller

fluffy,whispy buds,very disapointing imho

bud quality suffers royally imho

but u being SA may be diff but i doubt it

all the best

bil

[bufo marinus]

I did a season of similar grows last year Buddha through winter. The buds had full sun all day and a sunny winter and turned out nice and fat https://cannabis.community.forums.ozstoners...4999&st=128

https://cannabis.community.forums.ozstoners...4630&st=216

Had some minor mold problems but other than that, vegging indoors and flowering in the sun rocks!

I use coco/perlite and hydro nutes also.

Tried to do an outdoor reveg by leaving at least half the buds intact on my favourite purple plant but it just refused to do it and I live north of Noosa.

Great way to grow Buddha

[RobbieGanjaSeed]

About two hours wset of noosa is the lovely red heart of the peanut growing area, and I grew through winter out there for years and had no complaints. In fact I think they were better buds in some ways.

Buds grown conventionally, a few months veg, heads forming through the warm autumn of nth west brisbane makes for some fat runny heads. Syrup running down it's thighs, smell leading you by the nose through the thicket. How many ways can I count my love for theee...

 

oops sorry.

 

Seriosuly though, veg the buggers under fluors until they're a foot tall or so, put them in 20 litre pots in full sun and they get every bit as big fat and chunky as indoor flowered buds as a rule. The rule of thought I held before I did this was that the longest you'd get away with it would be say sept, that's when 12 hours starts to even out again, but if they're flowering strong, say half way through (these were long flowering strains I shoudl menton too), I had them flower right up until mid Nov.

 

The ones I planted out last in the winter season I'd harvest the buds around oct/nov, cut them back, nuke them with Nitrogeon and they'd be the plants I'd veg for next Easter harvest.

 

The dry arid area I lived was perfect for this though. It was a rare season indeed we'd have moisture much at all. No chances of mould what-so-ever. But of course that means every drop they need has to be carried to them ..

 

I'll be doing it this year I hope. I bought a greenhouse I hope to have set up in time this year to do exactly the same. But I live in Suburbia now, and so am weighing the pros and cons of risk.

 

good luck

[TheTreeBoundRat]

In the north of Australia its works extremely well in winter. Infact your really just wasting electricity and will get lower yields if you flower indoors imho(of course there are many variables). No need to top/scrog etc. either as the plant in its natural shape makes best use of the moving sun. The most important thing is positioning the plant where it will get the most light. You could also use Reflective material to light up the rear of the plant etc.

[RobbieGanjaSeed]

Gee mate, I appreciate ya courage..but putting reflective material around my plants? i dunno...more guts than me. They already stand out like dogs balls from the air.

 

I agree withthe natural shape of plants and sunlight, and would never doubt heads for bigger outside than under lights.

 

I used to trry and get my plants in for a 6 month veg when I had better health and could care for them. I gotta mention the year my plot got hit by hail but. That was weird. A hail storm ripped everything to shreds just befpre bud time, and I thought I was doomed. The poor plants looked like they'd been through a blender, you know what plants look liike after hail..and it was serious hail.

 

But I'm sure it increased the overall yeild in the end. i went from depressed, near pulled the plants, to a sulky state of affairs to my smile getting wider and wider every week after a couple months that is.

 

If you can't plant in 100% direct light, which is pretty unusual I find. I was lucky I was in a remote spot on thousands of acres and the owner was cool. But if you are in the sticks, try and select a nth facing slope, cause that's where the sun will come from in winter. Even if you use normal seasonal growing, that's where the sun will be focusing come bud time.

Select a spot just along the tree line as the trees open out int he valley floor. If you are wise and selectively cut branches off trees, it's just amazing how much light just one branch comming down will cause. Not always needed to remove the whole tree.

So just find a gap in the tree line on a nth facing slope, and be ready to knock off any branches that shroud ya plants as the sun moves throughthe day.

 

Good luck.

rob

[xShivaspacetechnologyx]

what about using an outdoor hothouse for growing in winter in a subtropical place around nnsw? would this help in anyways, or would it just kill them? also would they start to flower around the same time a summer grow (approx 2-3 months after sowing)?

 

cheers all

[RobbieGanjaSeed]

In my opinion, the hothouse wouldn't benifit in Nth NSW, unless you live/grow somewhere frost prone. Nth NSW, coastal has only had one season of winter that was fronty for decades of any note. Pot will cope with light frost at least, but heavy frost is trouble, frost hurts any plant with subtle tops.

 

The hothouse, IMO would reduce the amount of light, unless it's clear like glass. If that were the case, it'd be yee haw.

 

but above all, the temperature etc, is simply light. If you can get them direct light in winter then ya ought to be right. Sounds like SA might be a worry, 'cause Bill is no slouch on these matters and if he says it's iffy down there, then the sun must loose a lot of bite as you go south I suppose is straight forward.

 

Nth NSW temps, and nthwards , winter never seems to get cold enough to bother grass. All weather is "local" though, meaning broad statements like this are dependant on local conditions, "micro-climates". I lived in a gully that in winter you could be led blind-folded for miles, and you'd be able to say "this is home" by the drop in temps.

 

Anyway, all up , in my experience, S.E. Qld, (and I imagine NTh NSW coastal could be included in that, the all important winter growing factor is sun. Temps seem fine.

 

Not sure if I mentioned before how I used to do it, but basically keep ya mothers in a fluor cupboard, take cuttings and get them 12 inches tall (pot flowers iof course when day sunlight lengths drop to around 12 houtrs long, with no regard for how old the plantrs are at that stage). When they get around 12 inches tall for a lot of strains, I'd put them in 5 gal pots if keeping them around the house, or put them in the ground, whatever...and they will go into flower automatically. Let them finsih off heading naturally.

 

Take fersh cuttings every couple weeks, and you'll harvest every couple weeks. Head season around these area I'm talking about starts around Easter there abouts (delending on strain), and finishes around Sept.

 

 

Good luck

rob

[wannado]

i can get to 3 revges in abefore the frost gets me

[bufo marinus]

I think there are a number of factors that can have an effect on whether a plant will reveg.

Temps are one and Light intensity is another but a mixture of either in the wrong amounts can swing anywhere from tripping into flower all the way to death.

I have left 3/4 of a plant, just knocked the big colas off, and slowly watched it die as winter dragged on whilst freshly rooted clones in the same plot powered into flower.

The plants didn't get touched by frost living near the coast in Qld and they had full winter sun all day, but something happened? I think a build up of a hormone due to not enough light intensity for not long enough probably told the plant it's time was up.

I believe if I could have put a light source above the plant of enough intensity then it would have revegged before a point of no return was reached in it's physiology

This I think will work at my place, I'm not saying it will work everywhere and not saying that revegs can't occur in different climates(greenhouses etc) under different lighting regimes.

I'd say if you can keep a light above the plant for 4 weeks until it starts to reshoot then it should start to flower again survive winter and reveg again.

I have discussed this elsewhere with a breeder and he employed the use of external flood lighting to extend summer and put more height on a crop close to his house.