I’m thinking the best way to experiment would be to start a group in April/May another in June and another in July.
Typically (and obviously strain dependent) my plants begin flower around mid August in my neck of the woods.
With the summer solstice being June 20…
Group 1 = 3.5 months of veg with approx 1.5 of those months increasing photoperiod and 2 months of decreasing photoperiod
Group 2 = 2.5 months of veg with approx .5 months increase and 2 months of decreasing
Group 3 = all veg is decreasing photoperiod.
Most interested in Group 2… if that’s the magic middle ground… definitely will report back my findings.
If you got genetics from a different latitude, the finishing times will be different, and it sounds as if that may have happened. For instance, if the variety you grew is originally from south of your latitude, it will add two to three days per degree of latitude North for the finish date. An example. My variety finishes early October at 42 North. When I grew it at 50 degrees north, the harvest date was pushed forward three weeks.
Thanks for the education! That’s a great way of putting it. But if you are putting your plants out later for an early harvest we know for a fact that were gonna lose our asses on weight.
Whats important here Imo. Is if we get a frost first week of October or just to harvest mid September to not having to go through cold wet temps with the fact that everything is turning color which makes plants stick out more.
Whatever the reason the question in my mind remains. Where is the happy medium. How soon be for our frost free date should we start our plants for good weight and earlier harvest window? Asuming this info we got is correct
I have tried it, doesn’t seem to hold true here in the PNW at 46 degrees latitude.
Phenos that get planted later still take the same amount of time to reach sexual maturity, so they can’t begin flowering as soon as phenos that were planted earlier.
I am not very far north, but this was still quite a learning curve compared to the Mediterranean climate I learned to grow in.
The end of my season is October 15th. And unfortunately for me I like sativas. I don’t care so much about yield as I do about a finished plant. And my experience with bigger Harvests planting earlier is the same as yours, but it sounds like G-Man has had a different experience, so like all rules there are exceptions depending on climate. This nearly 20 lb plant was started in May last year from seed. You can certainly grow large plants with late plantings.
That’s been my belief as well and you’re definitely right about sexual maturity. I forgot about an experiment I had last year where I threw some seeds on the ground in August to see what kind of temperatures the resulting plants could live through… not even the male’s flowered, and there must have been between 30 and 40 plants . I’ve never had it tested, but I believe my old heirloom, from which those seeds came, leans heavily towards the sativa side. Maybe indicas are different in that they hit sexual maturity faster. My friend’s brother didn’t plant until mid-august , and when he planted packed them close together . They did finish. I’m going to test the theory though. After this summer when somebody asks me the question, I’ll be able to tell them exactly what happened with three different plantings of the same landrace into the same soil, same location., as well as the experiences of those of you that decide to do a similar experiment.
Another thing I read, maybe in that same book , is that seeded plants finish before unseeded Plants. I make seeds on my best plants every year, as I have done for the last 30 years , and they finish at the same time as they always do. If you were to seed an entire plant, instead of a branch like I do, the seeded portion should finish within 4 to 6 weeks. That I could see. That bit of info seems to mesh with what we’ve been talking about
My understanding is that Clarke (author) was born in 1953. The book Marijuana Botany: An Advanced Study: The Propagation and Breeding of Distinctive Cannabis was initially published in 1980 or '81.
that makes sense, I saw library of congress 1953 but in my copy i see references to late 70’s and early 80’s, I thought there was revisions , but either way 14 pages in my copy
