Red T5 Causing Males To Pod On 24/0 Photoperiod?

[Dankalicious]

I keep my males under 6500k T5 24/7 pruned down to prevent pods from forming. I have kept males for years this way and have never had issues on autoflowering or internodal pod formation. Recently I added a couple 3000k tubes in hopes to boost the root systems on the father plants. Nothing else changed and all of a sudden both strains under that fixture started autoflowering. I have removed the 3000k, nipped off the tops, hit them with a nitrogen boost and everything seems to have gone back to normal. I'm wondering if the presence of red light caused them to flower or the change in overall spectrum? IF it was the change in spectrum would that mean that the only way to prevent this is to use the same tube combination from the start of the cuttings?

 

[Bulldog11]

Interesting, red spectrum in nature occurs more in the fall. Might be a connection here. Tagged.

 

[Seamaiden]

I thought this was why you *don't* use redder bulbs during veg. They're not rootbound are they? That always causes flowering at the wrong time IME.

 

[MGRox]

My guess would be that you had a net drop in daily integrated PPFD betweeen 6500k, and the 3000k. If we were talking LED's that would be an easy thing to say; sadly Flouro's get rated at the same lumens quite often. If you were possibly on an 18hr schedule that change would have been slightly smaller.

Not at all saying that the red shift did not contribute possibly to this. Though, this way we are looking at a normal flowering induction vs assuming a spectral one.

 

[Bulldog11]

Yup. That is far more likely. Nice post @MGRox.

 

[homebrew420]

Not the light. genetics. I see this all the time.