pistils whilst in growth stage

Hi has any one got any ideas why I may be getting pistils on my plants whilst they are still under 18 hours of light I have recently grown from seed some white russian (first grow) when I grew them they started to show sex whilst on 18hrs. I have now got a mother WR and an ultimate indica mother on 18hrs in a wardrobe under floresent lights they have been growing for some time 6 - 8 weeks and are now showing signs of flowers. Could the type of tubes cause them to flower ?

 

Ive never even heard of that happening...right on dude ur growing it right I assume.

 

You have what are called "Auto flowering" Strains. This is a good thing, your plants are telling you what they need right when they need it. I wish I could get that Phenotype/Genetics on all my strains. I have a Blueberry from DJ Short that does it. Always has, They like to show after about 3 weeks of vegg growth on 18/6. Even on clones. You got a good thing going friend, run with it. Just for the recoed, I vegg on 18/8 with a 400 Watt Metal Halide and still get the same auto flowering, SO i doubt the plants are lacking light on your tubes... But, it is still a possibilaty. Geck? Mean, Oregon Med? Whats your input guys???

 

It's not autoflowering in all reality. Ruderalis strains are the only true autoflowering strains. They show sings of sex almost from the beginning, usually around the 2nd week of vegging, that's why the Lowryder strain is so popular. 18/6 is the best pattern for vegging due to the fact that it allows a time for the plant to rest which creates better root growth. Without a rest period each day, the plants do not correctly redistribute nutriets to the rest of the plant. The sun does go down, correct?

If they start to show female pistils before their 3rd to 4th week of vegging, that maybe considered autoflowering, but I have been vegging on the 18/6 photoperiod for quite sometime and found it to be much better for the plants growth then the 24/7 photoperiod.

Most indica varieties will show preflowers around thier 4th week of vegging, this is totally normal. This means that the plant is mature enough to handle being placed into flowering. It is good that you let them veg longer because you will see a larger yeild. I usually let my plants veg for 6-7 weeks regardless of what time they show sex. Vegging anymore than 8 weeks for an indica starin is useless and may cause hermies. Sativa strains usually veg longer and have to have flowering induced due to the long flowering times.

 

-My mom preflowered at 5 weeks or so. -That was about 2 years ago and she's still doin it. -No problem. -As Med said, -it just means you dont have to force flowering or clone for sex -and as GuyS. said, it just means theyr ready to go. -Good deal Man !

 

cheers guys thanks for the info I thought I was doing something wrong. Does any one know if it alters the ability for cuttings to take as I have read it is harder to clone flowering plants?

 

you dont want to clone flowering plants. i usually let them flower and then try to re vegitrate them after harvest and take my cuttings once they grow. i would say its not unusual to see flowers if your vegging them under lights for longer than 6 weeks. im not expert though, i trust my intuitive aproach too much to get educated.

 

It is afe to take clones up until the beginning of the 2nd week of flowering. Don't take clippings after the beginning of week 2 of flowering. Revegging a flowered plant can lead to many hermies.

 

One thing to keep in mind with non-typical auto flower plants is if auto flower genes are not known to be present in, typically they are or become males more often then not.Pre-flowers can and do deceive one as to a specific sex at the first stages of primordia.

 

Hey Gotta Agree with Meangreen All the way on that one. If it is just preflowers, that is not considered autoflowering, just pre-flowers man. Got one of my new crosses that will show preflowers at 3 weeks old from seed. ABSOLUTELY no ruderalis genes in my pools either.

Been offline so long dont know where to start.
Gonna have to make a thread i guess.
Hello everyone..
BY4Now
tiedye

 

><>***^^~~ Naaa. -Preflowering plants make excelent moms. -I get excelent cuttings off my mom with a 100% rooting succes rate and she's in a constant state of preflower. -At first it worried me too but that was over 2 years ago and she been preflowerin since and givin excelent cuttins. -A first I was woried about gene degradation as with a plant that has fllowered and has been reveged but thats not the case with a plant thats geneticly predisposed to preflower, its NOT FLOWERING, only showing her sex so there is no gene degradation. -Its a good thing!

 

Look what crawled out from underneath a rock an died.Good to see ya did not get swept under the floor mat brother.

 

Autoflower/preflower! Pretty much the same thing, just different roads traveled to get there.

If it does shows pistols at the same stage every time, with the same strain, then it is auto flower. If it is induced by High Phos, Light changes, Or dissruptions, Stress, or any of a million other things, then it is induced. Aside from forcing with a light change, With respect and agreeing with Meangreens point, there runs a chance of hermaphroditing. Watch em close.

I keep my vegging time as short as possible as I know my strains prefer this. I have vegged from 1 week to 7 months and everywhere in between. Short grow periods tend to produce just as much, if not more, colas. I am talking about Jar appeal, dense, Thick, Heavy, quality buds. I dont count the fluff, low growing flowers, or air bud in my yeild. I grow Mostly indica Dom strains with nodes and branching everywhere turning into donkey dick colas. They have a small Sativa influence which comes out in their height. But they fill in rather well unlike some Sativas. Not to mention finish up in 52-58 days. Some Sativas do need a longer growing period, as Guy Smiley pointed out, but I am running a few Strains "August West, P91 and Sugarplum which was High Times Strain of the month and bred by a good friend of mine. "Stoney Girl Gardens" These Sativa ladies are most potent at 28-32 days in flower. I cant explain it, neither can they, and Ole' Ed Rosenthal came over and got some cuttings and couldnt believe it himself. With all the hybrids out there, you just never know. This is what I have found in my experiences with medical cannabis. For what it's worth.

The photo below is some flowering ladies about to finish up. The ones on the left were vegged for 3 weeks and went into the flowering room on Nov 11th and will kick out at least 4.5 ozs "dried" of medical marijuana per plant. So you have a rooted clone that hits dirt and goes 21 days in vegg and then into the flower room for 55 days. 4.5 ozs per plant in 76 days.

The ladies on the right were put into the flower room about 5 days ago.

 

there are genetic hermies(bad) and stress hermies(good) genetic hermies carry the Y gene, usually an XXY. stress hermies still are and always will be XX. a stress hermy is highly sought after, a genetic hermie is a nightmare.
ive always been a fan of re-vegging, the large rootball leads to quick, healthy growth, and alot of clones quick, making an excellent mamma. if you do reflower her, you cant imagine the amount of bud you pull off of her, and any male flowers that might apear will still only have the XX, no Y's.

 

I have NEVER heard a grower wish for stressed hermies. I'm not so sure about them being "sought after" as a quality of a strain. They will pass on the same genetics and hermie under the same stress that caused the seedbearing plant to hermie. That's why people get pissed when they get a hermie. Seedbanks/breeders would disagree about stressed hermies being something sought after.....

 

I must agree with Guysmiley,why wayfairingstranger would ya want any type of hermie forced or not in your garden.Enlighten us as to this belief of what evry knowlegable grow strives to avoid?

 

wayfaringstranger is correct, {somewhat}a plant that has been enviromentally stressed into hermaphroditism is no good, BUT if you take the pollen from this hermie and pollinate another true female you will come up with feminised seeds from the true female, i have done this on 2 different occasions and have yet to get a male from any of those seeds. with the price of fem seeds i would say that it is desirable, the hermie and the seeds from it are no good, it's the pollen!

 

Yeah and feminised beans are just hermies in hiding. ANY little bit of stress, even the soil getting too dry, will send femmed beans into a hermie state. I have had a few successful femmed grows, but most went hermie. A stable strain or f1 hybrid can take some stress and abuse because they have been bred with soild genetics over a few generations, hopefully. Even the seedbreeders say that femmed seed are a gamble. Getting a male from femmed beans means that they are not totally female seed, there is no such thing as 100 % female seeds. Hermies are very common amongst femmed strains and are not recommended for breeding, any breeder will tell you the same.

Basically an unstable strain that has hermied genetics is not desireable for stable breeding.

 

The only hermie with genetic value is a declared male that shows female flowers.These are rare and generally sterile but when viable they you have as close to a guarentee as you will get for unwanted hermaphroditism in subseequent generations as well as a increase in female to male in future progeny.Anyone who messes with pollin from a typical hermie is a fool as you have a 50/50 % chance of passing on the hermie gene into future generations assuming you are dealing with pure strains and not hybrids,and there is no guarentee for feminised seeds as there is none for femed seeds from seedbanksnly the likely hood of increased female ratio.Anyone with any breeding experience discards all seeds/progeny from known hermie carriers.

 

18.3 Producing Female Seeds

If it were possible to know which seeds are female and which are male, marijuana growing would be even simpler than it is. There is not practical way to discern the gender of a seed - but there is a simpler procedure for producing seeds that will all grow into female plants.

To produce female seeds, the plants are fertilised with pollen with male flowers that appear on a basically female plant. Such flowers appear on intersexes, reversed females, and hermaphrodites (see section 17). Female plants have an XX complement of sex chromosomes; therefore, the pollen from the male flowers that form on female plants can only carry an X chromosome. All seeds produced from flowers fertilised with this "female" pollen will thus have an XX pair of sex chromosomes, which is the female genotype.

Although the male Cannabis plant can produce female flowers, it cannot produce seed; so there is no chance of mistakenly producing seed on a male plant. It is possible to use pollen from an intersexual plant that is basically male (XY); the resulting crop of seeds will have the normal 1:1 ratio of males to females. For this reason, choose a plant that is distinctly female as a pollen source. A female plant with a few random male-flower clusters, or a female plant that has reversed sex are both good pollen sources. The seed bearer can be any female, female intersex, or reversed-female plant.

In most crops, careful inspection of all the females usually reveals a few male flowers. And often, when females are left flowering for an extended period of time, some male flowers will develop. If no male flowers form, you can help to induce male flowers on female plants by severe pruning. One such procedure is to take the bulk of the harvest, but to leave behind some green leaves to maintain growth (as described in the section on "Double Harvests" in section 20). Most of the plants will continue to form female flowers, but male flowers are also likely to form. At times, the plants may not grow particularly well, and may in fact form distorted and twisted leaves, but they will produce viable seeds as long as some stigmas were white when pollinated. (Remember, it only takes a few fertile buds to produce hundreds of seeds.) Pollinate the female flowers by hand as soon as pollen becomes available.

{Figure 82. A solitary male flower on a female plant provides "female"
pollen. (Also see Figure 84 for a female reversing sex.)}
{Figure 83. Growth may not be vigorous, but seeds will form if stigmas are
white when pollinated.}
Under artificial lights, turn the light cycle down to eight hours after cutting the plants back. The short cycle helps to induce male flowers on female plants.

Male-free seed can also be produced by pollen from a natural hermaphrodites. The progeny, however, may inherit the hermaphroditic trait, resulting in a crop with some hermaphrodites as well as females. This could be a problem if you want to grow sinsemilla the next crop. i'm not a fool i just know what i'm talkin about, i got this from the grow bible by mel frank & ed rosenthal!