Moving indoor plants under 18/6 to the outdoors without triggering flowering

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kolah

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Trying to get a jumpstart on this years grow,I started some Purple Hammer x Alien seeds and they have been vegging at a buddys house and are under 18/6 lighting. They are in 4 weeks in veg and looking purdy and to repay my friend for using his room (and lights) I told him to take all the cuts he wants from them. I plan to put them outside in mid-May.

I didn't give it much thought until about a couple weeks ago. Being under 18 hours of indoor lighting and then being put outdoors in May is most likely going to trigger them into flower....or if they don't flower it may put some pretty heavy stress on them.

I can't ask my buddy to cut back the lighting times as it would interfere with his grow so I am a bit puzzled and surely do not want to risk fucking up these nice plants.

I did a bit of searching and found this reply from another site :eek:

"It is ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL that you synch your indoor light cycle with the natural outside light cycle before you move them outside. If you do not they will start to flower immediately, not grow, and could get seriously fucked up and not recover. Never do plants under a 24 hour light cycle if they are going to go outside. For example if your plants are under a 18/6 cycle, and you put them out in April when the natural light cycle is at 14/10 they will start to flower. Since the days are getting longer, the plant will get confused, try to go back into veg and not finish flowering. Going back and forth like this is REALLY bad for the plant and I have seen them not grow again for months after this happens to them.

You need to figure out what the length of the days are when you want to put your plants outside for your location. Let's say you want to put them out on May 1st when the days are 15 hours long. If you have your clones under an 18/6 cycle that means you need to reduce the light cycle by three hours before they go outside. The natural light cycle changes by 15 minutes a week which is what you want to replicate. So, since I want to be at 15 hours of light indoor by May 1st, that means by the first week of February I need to start reducing the light cycle indoor by 15 minutes a week. If I start this in February I will be down to 15 hours by May 1st and the plants will not go into shock when I move them outside.

DO NOT RUSH THIS PROCESS OR YOU WILL REGRET IT. The absolute fastest you can adjust plants is one hour a week but this is a little rough on them. For example I was gifted some clones early last summer when the days were 15 hours long and the clones had been grown under a 18/6 cycle. I ran them for one week at 17/7, one week at 16/8, and one week at 15/9, then put them outside and they did OK.

You need to be sure the plants are hardened off before they go outside too. Natural sunlight is far more powerful than even the best indoor grow light and you can burn the crap out of them if you are not careful. Always put your clones under shade cloth or something like that when you first put them outside so they can get used to the more intense light. If the leaves feel "soft" at all they are not ready yet."
 
sky high

sky high

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Was yer heart set on doing >from seed< plants as yer OD plants...or could you also take cuts now....flower out these current lovely ladies at yer buddy's...and use the clones as the OD plants?
 
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kolah

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I'd really prefer to use the seeded plants outdoors, yes. My buddy has no room for me to flower them out as his place. Damn, I don't know what I was thinking...I guess I wasn't thinking at all, lol.

On another sidenote I recently presoaked 14 Blueberry x Alien 4 beans and after just 10 hours of soaking about half of them popped out tails already. I popped them all in cups filled with my own compost and those critters will stay in my new Sun room (it's still under construction but has a nice pot belly stove and is well insulated).
Dcp 4012
Dcp 4006
Dcp 4022
Dcp 4014
 
Mogrow

Mogrow

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Kolah // good to see/hear ya again bro.
i ran into trouble last year with the clones going outside. i took the clones and ran them indoors for less than a month under 18/6. put them in the sun about the last of april, first of may,light is roughly 13/11 or so. everything went good until about the first week in june, they went into revegg state, i mean they weren't budding yet but they starting getting the single blade leaf thing going and generally looking weird. i did not get to see what happened to them as my water source dryed up and they died from lack of water. If i do them again i'll back the of the indoor light from 18/6 to whatever the light is outside when i put them out.
peace mogrow
 
caregiverken

caregiverken

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Good to see ya around sunshine...
One nice home/greenhouse kola.

Yep Yep.


Im sure you know, Seedlings wont react as quickly to the light change as clones will.
So weaning seedlings off 18 hours light would be easyier than clones..

I veg all my plants with 16/8 ...But I am doing the gas lantern/1 hour interruption with sup lights this year to be safe and so I can start earlier :)
 
squarepusher

squarepusher

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u can place seeded sprouts early outdoor and they wont flower early, but if you already had the under supp lighting I think that ship has sailed.

So, slowly sync/match them up to sun and mid June I believe is an OK time to transfer then fully.
 
caregiverken

caregiverken

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u can place seeded sprouts early outdoor and they wont flower early, but if you already had the under supp lighting I think that ship has sailed.

So, slowly sync/match them up to sun and mid June I believe is an OK time to transfer then fully.
really? I did not know that....
thats why I am not taking any chances

my 1st summer growing,(2 years ago) i bought clones in june and planted them outside the same day..
They did great! :)

edit to add; may 28th to be exact ;)
www.thcfarmer.com/community/threads/ ken giving-green-crack-a-try.
 
squarepusher

squarepusher

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really? I did not know that....
thats why I am not taking any chances

my 1st summer growing,(2 years ago) i bought clones in june and planted them outside the same day..
They did great! :)

edit to add; may 28th to be exact ;)
www.thcfarmer.com/community/threads/ ken giving-green-crack-a-try.
yes, plants grown from seeds are considered juvenile or children plants (forgot official terms), thats why when they sprout in spring they don't flower immediately. Clones however, inherit their parent's information as an adult, so clones = adult plants will flower early in spring (basically anytime light cycle is in their favor) if not given supplemental lighting. Putting clones out in May 28 is borderline, the light cycle is probably over 14 hour day already so you may be safe, but you may not be, a bit of a gamble. Adjusting light as posted in the guide above is the smartest way to go about it.

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=770&month=5&year=2013&obj=sun&afl=-11&day=1
 
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kolah

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Thanks all. I think I will get my plants from my buddies place and bring them in the sun-room and start slowly cutting them back to match the natural sunlight. I got about 6-8 weeks to change their cycle. I'll keep ya'll posted.

And yes, that's a temporary door in the sunroom. I had some leftover OSB board and slapped up a quick door.
 
Amber

Amber

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I'd really prefer to use the seeded plants outdoors, yes. My buddy has no room for me to flower them out as his place. Damn, I don't know what I was thinking...I guess I wasn't thinking at all, lol.

On another sidenote I recently presoaked 14 Blueberry x Alien 4 beans and after just 10 hours of soaking about half of them popped out tails already. I popped them all in cups filled with my own compost and those critters will stay in my new Sun room (it's still under construction but has a nice pot belly stove and is well insulated). View attachment 301314View attachment 301322View attachment 301323View attachment 301324
Well isn't that the sunroom I dream of. Looks so cozy and soul soothing. Nice to see ya back around here. I think any seed raised in such a seemingly invigorating place would shine.
 
stickyfing3rs

stickyfing3rs

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ur place looks awesome kolah, id love to wake up to that everyday. love the pic of the horse with the mountains in the background. beautiful
 
Seamaiden

Seamaiden

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I love how open and bright that space is, kolah.

Ok, onto the topic at hand, can I assume you know the daylight length, and by virtue of that therefore the dark phase of the day you plan to put them out? That's the first thing you need to know, IMO/IME. I use a 13.5hr photoperiod, because I like to try to get them out in May just after last frost, rather than waiting just for that June 1 put-out date. Our last frost date is May 5. I also know my latitude, so I can use this nifty little tool: http://astro.unl.edu/classaction/animations/coordsmotion/daylighthoursexplorer.html

Alright, from there I set my main daylight phase of the photoperiod, @13.5hrs. After that, I add my dark phase interruptions, and based on what I've read of research done on photoperiodism of Arabidopsis, I believe that it only takes a few minutes' worth of interruption to stop sexed plants from flipping into flower. I do use at least 1hr for each interruption, however.

Now, this will be my first year starting seeds under artificial light and photoperiod, and since they're with the clones they're getting the same interruption, etc. IME, you can start seeds at any time of year and put them out at damn near any date (I've done as late as July 30) and they'll still go through their vegetative phase, *then* eventually hit that 6-8 node height and show sex (this is my experience, I can't say I'm all that great at the pre-sexing game, but I'm workin' on it!), and progress normally.

Is this making sense?

The thing you want to remember is that once that dark phase is increased sufficiently they'll (clones) flip into regenerative (flowering) phase. This is where the light interruption is important.
 

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