how can i finish plants earlier than normal?

[white_cluster]

please don't try this because I havent tryed it and cant tell you if this will work but a friend told me if you push rusty nails through the base of the stem this put the plant into stress causeing it to go into flower quicker than usal so has any one tryed this and if so what happened

 

this is actual an excellent source of iron to plants, I not shitting you at all, every gardenening book suggests it. never tried it, I'm sure a few nails, or doing it to too small a plant would stress em, anyways never seen a dope plant lacking iron myself.

 

but trippy spiral is onto shit, stress them plants, or one of them, any stress, insect infestation, cold, etc.... they'll all finish your plants quicker.

try a form of stress on one of your plants and see how she does.

 

I'm sure thats the only time I'll ever give that advice.

[Luke Skywalker]

white_cluster Posted on Feb 23 2004, 12:16 AM

QUOTE 

please don't try this because I havent tryed it and cant tell you if this will work but a friend told me if you push rusty nails through the base of the stem this put the plant into stress causeing it to go into flower quicker than usal so has any one tryed this and if so what happened 

 

 

 

this is actual an excellent source of iron to plants, I not shitting you at all, every gardenening book suggests it. never tried it, I'm sure a few nails, or doing it to too small a plant would stress em, anyways never seen a dope plant lacking iron myself.

 

but trippy spiral is onto shit, stress them plants, or one of them, any stress, insect infestation, cold, etc.... they'll all finish your plants quicker.

try a form of stress on one of your plants and see how she does.

 

I'm sure thats the only time I'll ever give that advice. 

 

Hee hee, I'm sure it is too WC. Yeah, some gardening books will tell you this, but I'm not sure how many will recommend it for much but tree species... not too sure. I've heard of some ring barking plants to just about totality, leaving a small amount of the surface whole between the bottom and top to stress plants into flowering an cropping earlier or better than they have otherwise. This is done sometimes with citrus, and other fruit trees, I've also heard of it done for passionfruit vines too....

 

Whether you should be sticking iron nails into your plants stems tho... hmm... the idea of tetanus getting into one of my food crops is not that encouraging. And even if it did supply some iron to the plants, they don't look deficient to start wtih, they look great, and the iron on a rusty nail isn't in a very plant soluble form. Which is why I think it's only used on large species which have the time to break it down to a soluble form...

 

But aaaaanyway, stressing the plants to get them to flower quicker may or may not work. I wouldn't recommend it.

 

You could hide the plants amongst others, but as you've said kermit, they're likely to be more susceptible to mould, other bugs, (which are already likely to be living amongst these other plants) and all kinds of probs. The key is to keep the humidity levels down in late flowering if you can, or at the very least ensure that any moisture on the plants is completely evaporated by the end of the day. Otherwise, you're likely to have trouble.

 

Keep the plants well spaced, and they should do fine. You'll know when they're about ready, see if you can get a cheapo microscope or mag glass to inspect the trichs and you'll be able to directly tell when the plants are ready. The calyxes will swell up as the flowers realise they aren't getting laid, and the hairs will turn red sequentially, first a small proportion of the oldest flowers, then moving from oldest to youngest. Some use the colour of the hairs to judge harvest, and it's a fairly good judge, but trichome viewing is the most accurate method IMO.

 

If you can regularly place them somewhere with no light but good air movement, you can increase the total dark time they're having each day. This is sometimes increased to speed maturity, but it doesn't always make that much difference. You would have to be doing it at exactly the same time each day, and removing the plant from the dark place each night, to get a good response, and this late in flowering, it may not be that much of a diff to ya. In fact, the reduction in light may well reduce you yeild slightly, if making it a little faster in maturity.

 

Some growers also leave the plants in total darkness for the last 24/48 hrs to enhance the flushing/chlorophyll breakdown process before harvest. I've yet to see anything conclusive on it, but I gave it a go for the last harvest and I must say there wasn't much diff.

 

Anyway, I hope that helps ya kermit, let me know if I don't make sense eh?

[white_cluster]

I've heard of some ring barking plants to just about totality, leaving a small amount of the surface whole between the bottom and top to stress plants into flowering an cropping earlier or better than they have otherwise. This is done sometimes with citrus, and other fruit trees, I've also heard of it done for passionfruit vines too....

 

this is how they made "la mona amarilla" or the finest colombian gold buds, ringbarking a small strip of stem, its called girdling, the buds where basically flushed by the process causing them to lose chlorophyll and go yellowy brown, I'm sure it was also to finish the plants earlier as the best colombian sativas have huge flowering times. Its well worth a try with a spare plant you got I reckon, I never tried it.

[Luke Skywalker]

It would do the job, as it's cutting off the sap flow... interesting WC. hmmm....

[KerMit]

welp the plants have put on alot of weight since that first post which is only 2 weeks, cept for one of them thats drooping and not developing much more, its had a history of doing that i think due to damaged roots, not sure how i can fix it. But i might try the above mentioned method with one of the plants that are ready, got nothing to lose i guess.

[Medicalman]

One good way to hurry up finishing is to plant, or move your plants to the east side of a steep embankment. As the sun sets, the hill will block the light out much earlier than on flat ground or a westerly slope. The closer to the bottom and the taller of the hill, the less daylight the plants will receive. It has worked like a charm for me in the past. The plants only really need a few hours of direct sunlight per day to stay healthy. I suppose placing them on the east side of a building or something would work also.

 

Hope it helps,

MM