pre flowers and days

[thatswho]

Okay Guys and Girls, Just a quick question!!

 

When do you start counting the days for budding? Do you start counting the days when the first preflowers appear?? I have no idea, I'm growing outdoors and I have determined sex around 4 weeks ago. My girls have been stretching heaps and I think they have stoped the stretch now and I have little buds starting to form and they are looking really good except for one girl that has been attacked by some bug. I cant find the bug as such but I have started spraying with the garlic spray recipe supplied by Ferengi420.

 

Cheers

Thatswho

[Luke Skywalker]

I wouldn't advise spraying much after you start flowering, you may encourage budrot if you overdo it. Once a week, if that, and then you'll only want to be using specific anti-fungal sprays like microkill or microbial after about half way/ two thirds through flowering.

 

You may be able to identify the specific attacker by going out to the plant at night, this is when lots of pests appear and do their damage to avoid predators. Check under the leaves with a torch, and you can also place some white plastic underneath the plants. This will show up droppings from the offending muncher(s) and then you just look up into the foliage from the point of the poo.

 

The flowering times for strains are usually only a guide, as there are far too many variables for even the most apt breeder to take into account. the main factor in outdoor growing is the photoperoid, which is directly related to your latitude, or the distance you are from the equator. Growing in high latitudes, you have a much greater difference between the hours in summer and winter than somewhere like darwin. This is due to the angle the earth takes when it spins around the sun... but that's getting a little off tangent.

 

If your plants have stopped their stretching, and they are producing mostly three or one bladed leaves at the main nodes, then you're about 2 weeks or so into flowering, give or take a week. Sativa strains from equatorial regions won't flower until quite late in the season, and tend to flower for a long time, as they have a much lower turning point (of photoperoid) due to the small variation in daylight hours where they grow summer to winter. Indicas tend to flower quite quickly, usually quite early in the season, as they are acclimatised to the high latitudes that they are originally from, such as afghanistan, china and nepal.

 

However, most plants you'll find in seedbanks today are far from pure indica or sativa. Most are hybrids, some even made with a third cultivar of cannabis called ruderalis If your plants are an indica/sativa hybrid, and they give you an approximate time of say 10 weeks flowering, then you would start counting the weeks from the day you changed the photoperiod to 12:12 indoors, or, you could count back a couple of weeks from the time they've stopped their floweirng stretch, and then continue to count from that point.

 

Mind you, the flowering times are sometimes way off mark, and many strains can certainly do with a lot longer than they suggest. In the end, the best way to determine how long you should flower them for is to do a direct observation of the trichomes, and use this to pick your harvest date. If the majority of capitate stalked trichomes, from a random sample of a couple of carefully removed calyxes, are still clear, and not even slightly milky, then you are looking at waiting a little while. When the trichomes start to turn milky, then you are getting the peak thc production, but there is a slight degradation of the THC into CBD and CBN, lesser cannabinoids that are thought to effect the stone of THC. You can harvest at this time, most growers let it go longer however, as they think their plants are stronger if they produce more resin. This has some merit, but I personally harvest fairly early, as I prefer an "up" stone. Following the "milky" stage, there is a slow colour change to amber/brown, as the thc is degraded more and more into CBD and CBN. When all of the trichomes are amber, you're likely too far along. If there are about 50-70% amber, and most of the rest are milky, then you're bang on for a kick ass stone.

 

Of course, this method of direct analysis will only work if you are able to see individual trichomes, for which you'll need a minimum of 30x magnifying glass or loupe, or you can even use a small microscope, it can be a cheapo, as you will see a whole trichome at 300x magnification, and usually it's better to use about 100x to see things at best level IMHO.

 

You can certainly leave certain parts of the plant to remain and mature longer, and you can compare the resulting efforts after drying and curing. This will generally only produce slight changes in the stone, as most of the effect is programmed in genetically, but you may find that there is enough of a change for you to warrant harvesting at a particular time.

 

You could also use the stigmas, or white hairs of the flowers which turn red, to judge when to harvest, and whilst this is not as exact as direct observation, it usually does the job quite well. When 70-80% of the hairs are brown, you can safely harvest your plant. By this time most of the calyxes have swollen and are producing copious amounts of resin.

 

Hope that helps, and you are able to actually decipher something out of my post. You may not have noticed, but I'm really, really stoned on some great honey oil right now. :smoke :reallyexcited:

[F420]

Gee Luke, you swallowing books again .

 

yea, be a litle careful with any moisture arounf thick buds, like luke said the plant can hold the water and cause it to mould.

 

If you use milk as the base for the garlic spray it will prevent the mould.

but yea if you deep in flower then becareful.

I have never had mould from spraying, but it can happen.

[thatswho]

Thanks for that Luke and Ferengi, Luke you are like a walking talking book. I might hold back on the garlic spray for now and just watch and see what happens and do a night raid on the critters.

Thanks for the help I might take some photos later on and post them

 

Cheers

Thatswho