flowering questions.

-FLOWERING-

you've germed your seeds, grew out your tree, and are ready to produce some buds.. to induce flowering you must cut back the amount of light to 12 hours and give them 12 hours of dark... different strains have different critical photoperiods.. some can start flowering with a 14/10 cycle, and some only need a 10/14 cycle to sucessfully flower... unless you know for sure what the needs of your plant is it is best to stay with a 12/12 cycle.. this will ensure that no matter what your plant will flower... you are more than welcome to experiment with your light cycle, but dont expect any different results.. actually you can adversely affect the plant and lessen your yield... stick with the regular 12/12 cycle.. why fix what isnt broken..

during flowering your plant will use the red/orange light spectrum.. these are in the 2000k to 3000k (approx) ratings for bulbs, warm color temp with floros, or hps with HID lighting... it takes more light to flower than it does to veg.. hps lamps or floros like these http://www.wormsway.com/detail.aspx?...ku=SSB104&AC=0 are best to use for flowering.. you can still have success using other lights.. just remember it will take more during the flowering stage than it did to grow the plant..

if you are using mixed seeds expect anywhere from 7 to 21 days before knowing sex.. sometimes it can take longer.. just be patient.. you are looking for to white hairs at the internodes.. that is a female.. if you start seeing small clusters of little green grapes, those are male pollen sacs, and you want to remove that plant as soon as possible... dont do anything until you know for sure what it is... if you arent sure post pics on RIU and ask for help... you may also get a hermie.. these will show both female and male traits.. removing the pollen sacs on these will ensure they do not pollinate themselves or any other surrounding females...

flowering takes about 2 weeks to start setting in.. in which time you will start noticing bud sites all over your plants.. they will appear as light green, almost yellow spots, all over your females.. each of these is where a bud will form.. they will start out as small popcorn sized nugs and fill in over the length of the flowering... it will take several weeks before they start to resemble a normal bud... but once they start filling they will rapidly start looking more and more "normal"... the buds will fill out and swell the most the last few weeks of flowering as they are ripening..

you can onset flowering and speed it up a little by giving your girls 24 to 36 hours of straight dark before going into the 12/12 cycle... this helps let the plant know that without a doubt it is time to start producing flowers.. it helps slow and stop the production of veg hormones and helps kick start the production of flowering hormones.. it also helps speed sexing up by up to a week... some claim this increases the chance of getting hermies... i personally have done it and dont believe it affects anything at all other than flowering time.. try it on one or two of your plants and start the other straight into 12/12.. see if there there is a difference between the 2...

make sure to keep the room sealed up nice and dark during the dark cycle.. light leaks can cause prolonged flowering, and enough light can revert your plant back to veg growth... take time and care to cover all light leaks in your grow room prior to flowering...


as always you want to take care introducing nutes to your plant... you'll want to wait until you start seeing bud sites before starting flowering nutes alone.. in between starting flowering and that time you may lessen the amount of veg nutes and start introducing bloom nutes.. a 1/4 strength application of each will ensure the plant gets some of all the nutes it needs during the transistion... with hydroponics you may choose to flush your system with a cleaner, such as flora clean, to remove salt build up.. but again you want to ween your plant off of veg nutes and onto bloom nutes... switching without some kind of flush and slight transistion can cause nute burn..

the flowering cycle itself will vary greatly from strain to strain.. some will get done in 6 weeks.. some will take 12+ weeks... indicas will flower quicker than sativas.. there are so many crosses out there tho that 8 to 10 weeks is a good guess at how long it will take to flower.. there is no way to tell for sure how long it will take.. just be patient and watch the clock tick away...

also during flowering be prepared for your leaves to yellow and fall off... unless your bloom nutes have small amounts of nitrogen in them your leaves will yellow... as the plant progresses and gets further to being ripe the large fan leaves will start raining of your plant.. dont go pulling leaves off tho.. let them fall off.. remove ones that have fallen and are stuck in the plants branches...

some strains will smell more pungent than others... odors and odor strength will vary from strain to strain as well.. always be prepared for a skunk, that way you can handle whatever your plant throws off..

pistils will die and be replenished throughout the flower cycle.. dont stress if your plant spits out some red hairs here and there.. they will be replaced with bright white ones within a few days.. if you spray your plant or bump the buds it can make them turn red also...

your temps should stay cooler during flowering than veg... this is the time when you really want to strive to have temps in the low 70s... but again, if you have good air circulation and movement you will be ok... also humidity needs to be lower.. to much humidity can lead to bud rot and mold/mildew... a dehumidifier my be needed if air flow is not great... hotter air will hold more moisture, which means higher humidities.. so if you are growing in a warmer room with little air exchange humidity could be high, so a dehumidifier may be needed in that instance..

trichrome production will also vary from strain.. some will be heavily frosted, and some will have few.. they will start appearing at different times too.. there is no specific week you should see them.. so dont stress about how long it takes to see them or start thinking there is something wrong with your plant..

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