nMEEKS
Horticulturist
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As Soser mentioned, you will need at least 3.5-4 weeks of growth before any preflowers will show (based on maturity, not photoperiod) to give you an indication as to the sex. A loop or hand scope is going to be very helpful, but with your camera, you can always just take a macro photo and check that (I know you have a better camera than me, and this is what I do). Feminized seeds are just as good as regular IMO though, as long as you don't plan on breeding with them down the line, so I think that will be the best for your first go with seed in your 1 plant setup.WOW!!! Thanx again Meeks :) another awesome detailed response!!
1 more question... ;) will a seed grown plant show any sex before a photo-period change? or you must have to change to a flower cycle...? If i was to use regular seeds i would have to make sure i'm growing a female or i imagine i could waste alot more time again flipping to see sex, and then flip back again.... unless i can get a seed grown plant to show sex at an early stage by flipping lights... I'd cry if i grew a monster size plant for 4-7 weeks veg and then flip to see a mass of balls on an indoor tree!! that wouldn't be the easiest thing to 'dispose' of not to mention electricity and time wasted/needed.
I have seen that when a plant gets so big the leaf arrangement does change into that floral arrangement and creating longer stretched out arms on big plants... very interesting.
Thanx Meeks, legendary response!!
Great answer Soser! The one thing that you missed is something that I only recently learned about, although it has always made sense intuitively. The commonly used term is called 'Split', and it is when a cutting or seedling reaches a point of physiological maturity where it transitions to floral growth even under vegetative lighting schedules. The plant I learned about this concept for are Poinsettias and if they grow more than 5 nodes they have a tendency to 'Split', which is highly undesired when growing vegetative cuttings for production. Growers will come in and 'Pinch' or 'Top' the plants before they reach this stage, which resets the plants maturity clock, and allows the lower nodes to produce new vegetatively growing shoots. Cannabis growers are already familiar with the practices required to do this (topping at the 4-5th node), they just may not know all the benefits of what they are doing.Plants usually show sex around the fourth to sixth internode and you can tell without flipping the lights - but still need to put in a good 4 weeks or so to even get an idea and sometimes you are wrong and don't find out until flipping for a week to ten days. You will need a 30x magnify lens or jewelers loupe with a light 30-60x ... So imho your style and situation is best to use fem seeds/clones until you have the freedom and the space to try reg beans , I have neither but that does not stop me. Now lets see if I have learned anything from Meeks in these few months when he responds .....good questions as the alternating leaves sights I noticed from seed to clone but never knew why to know ........peace soser
If a grower is vigilant, and prevents any of his growing shoots from getting more than a few nodes before pinching them back (industry term for topping is actually 'pinching'), they can keep a plant growing 100% vegetatively up to a very large size before any preflowers would be formed/visible. On an untopped/unpinched cannabis plant, preflowers should start to form after the plant forms 5-7 nodes and is growing happily. On a topped/pinched plant, the 4 week wait for preflowers on a seedling can be extended out to 6 weeks or much longer!
Thanks for helping out and getting people solid information when I don't have time to get back right away!