Can Pure Sativa Clones Go from 24 hours light to Outdoors without Premature Flowering ?

[Muttley]

Ok, so I have about twenty clones taken from an ACE Seeds pure Sativa Zamaldelica mother, and they are all currently under 24 hour light, with no darkness hours at all.

My lighting is provided by a pair of cheap Chinese LED lights that run in relays around the clock, whereby one light is off, while the other is on, under the control of two independent timers. I also have a fan connected to one of the timers, so that every hour, the fan kicks in and runs for one hour, before timing out for an hour, around the clock, to ensure good air circulation.

I have read in this and other forums, that indoor illuminated clones must be pre-conditioned for transplant outdoors, by gradually phasing in some hours of darkness, until the light schedule is close to the natural outdoor daylight duration. Now, since these plants are from a pure Sativa strain that takes a good few months to flower under natural sunlight outdoors, and since the timers require quite a lot of fiddly programming to change their on-off settings, I got to wondering whether I can simply leave the clones under their current 24-hour lights-on schedule, and place them outside, where the daylight and darkness hours are 12-12 year round, here at the Equator in the tropics.

In other words, is it likely that the pure sativa strains I have going indoors under 24 hours of light, will prematurely flower when transplanted outdoors into a natural 12-12 daylight cycle, or is it possible that the pure sativa genetics will prevent premature flowering, whereby the clones will continue to veg for a few more months, before going to flower when they have attained a good size ? Any advice from the pros here, would be much appreciated.

 

[Homesteader]

I think you will be fine sticking them outside. Many of the purer sativas take quite awhile before showing flower and either way the plant is going to do what it is going to do outdoors depending on the season. At the Equator, are you able to flower an indica outdoors without light dep? Just curious if you have tried.

 

[Muttley]

This reassuring reply is appreciated, Hometeader. I had a devil of a time figuring out how to make these timers work, so I am reluctant to go in and alter their settings now that the clones are all doing so well under 24 hours uninterrupted indoor light.

With pure indicas out here under the 12-12 day/night equatorial outdoor light regime, I saw really poor performance. Pure indicas would typically flower immediately, during the seedling stage outdoors here, such that I would wind up with tiny little budlets-on-a-stick, whose harvest barely amounted to a single bong-hit per plant.

That said, and since most seeds sold by online vendors are a blend of indica and sativa, I have been able to get decent yields from sativa dominant strains, provided that I start them right about April, which of course is the normal planting time in the northern hemisphere. I generally grow outdoors, and this year is the first time ever for me, of starting my seeds indoors.

The results of starting seeds indoors, and vegging them under LED lights, have been spectacular, though I won't be running any of these plants to flower indoors, due to security concerns. Soon as these clones look bushy enough to survive outdoors, I'll be transplanting them hurriedly, into my secret grow spot deep in a swamp, on a small island accessible only by dugout canoe.