Fast Buds Rhino Ryder - Slow Bloom???

[Olde School Player]

Really its not a bother buddy...its a mere 5 minutes(if that) out of my day!!

I guess what I was thinking was voting on opinions to (a) restore the light regimen to 20 / 4, 18 / 6, or even 14 / 10 if I want to hedge my bets & play safe; or (b) leave the light regimen at 12 / 12 (or 14 / 10....).
As I worked through putting my thoughts into the text of this topic, it helped bring my thoughts into focus. There is still some possibility that this is a full-on photoperiod (from a pheno that missed the auto gene? or a quality control issue with beans at the breeder facility?) and if I go back to autoflower light regimens it will crash and burn. Probably NOT what this is, but the potential negatives of going back to a full auto light regimen appear to be the worst of all evils.
Worst case, it is a new cross as @Mossy describes & has followed since autoflower creation. I expect this is what I'm looking at. And if I pursue the shortened light cycle I probably won't set a new personal best for a single plant yield. But this plant is a beast, and the reduced yield will still be 8+oz. I think I can live with that with no chance that my patients will have to wait for their medicine. @archie gemmill said it better than me (Thank you, Sir). She's already been a problem girl, so I think I should take the safe route, she will still reward me with lots of weed.

 

[Olde School Player]

Thanks, Mossy, your descriptions are exactly what I'm seeing. Additional comments below, blue text:


"Mossy, post: 1928652"
Right..this is My Experience Only. I am Not answering for any seed bank involved.
We have had big discussion on this in the staff room seeing the new flush of them appear on the market.
I believe there are 2 crosses that have emerged from the Original Autoflower cross.
Fully Autoflower..who does what the Original spec says. Day neutral ..will flower on 24 hour light cycle.
There is Also what we refer to in the back shop ...Fast Flower.

Before I tell you about her...we need to mention Traditional Photo period crosses.
Need to be changed to a 12/12 light pattern to go into flower.

Right..Fast Flower.
I firmly believe this is the second cross that has come out of the Autoflower mix...an since I've played with the from the very start. I say the selection was there from the very original Auto crosses.
Interesting theory, tell me more!!! Only bone I would have to pick is your label selection, these are going to be SLOWER than photoperiods. Fast how?
Now I'll tell you about the definitions that I have put on what I term as Fast Flower....and You let me know if your girls are hitting these definitions......let's see if we can divine the 2nd cross.

is neither fully auto or fully photo...

It is Usually a Late bloomer...if I see someone saying their girls took around 35 days to come into flower...I Think that is the first Clue. That's me to a Tee. Day 29, a few preflowers that you had to really search for. Day 33, went to 48 hours darkness, day 35, went to 12/12 light. Still only very few preflowers.
She will be Bigger than your average Auto...an every one I have seen has been beautiful and robust..the very definition of hybrid vigor.
Again, Check. One of the most healthy plants I have ever grown. Could be a record setter. Or blow out the sidewalls of my tent

She will show pistillate on 20/4 or 24 hour light pattern. Yep, but only preflower level; single pistils hidden at secondary nodes, but mos'def' pistillate.
(not photoperiod traits)

After she shows pistills she Stops...she doesn't go into bud production like an Auto..she goes back into veg...for 3-4 weeks. Again, Check.

No bud set..she just gets bigger and bigger..Then she goes into bud production You been peeping in my window?
(second veg period after flower..definitely not Auto)

Most of them are Massive...like Autos on steriods....the Harvest time goes out the window.
I See a Lot of them going 150 days plus.
This is the biggest auto I've ever grown. Tent is 2'3" square and she is pressing against all four sides.
I tried counting the top buds on her, and lost count at 100 about 3/4 of the way across the canopy. It's a sight to behold. See what I mean?

So you see...they follow Neither Auto or Photo prescribed patterns. I say it is the Second cross to come out of the Auto line.

Fast Flower..neither fish nor fowl...a direct cross coming out of the Auto Photo cross from the original Autoflower line.

If this is what you have...and want to Talk more..let me know..as I say..something we have had big discussions on...so I have a Theory.

I would love to hear more, feel free to share the wisdom.
Your observations take me back to some of my earlier thoughts.

"The parts of this that have me banging my head against the wall is, can an unstable autoflower hybrid cause the extended bloom time, but STILL bloom without a shortened day?"

Perhaps "unstable" has nothing to do with it? ​

I don't have any experience with Ruderalis breeding strains, so I can only speculate, but do some strai

ns go that long to bloom in their native state? If yes, is this extended bloom time characteristic a parental trait that's being passed along by a bad choice of breeding stock? ​

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So it appears your observations confirm the plant should eventually bloom by age instead of short-day lighting. So running a shortened day cycle is probably going to have no effect on the plant's natural aging path to bloom, other than more time will pass, making the plant older to induce bloom? Or fool me into thinking the shortened day lighting did something it really didn't? ​

That would be an important lesson out of this - whether a shortened day lighting cycle can tickle a late bloomer into starting the bloom cycle?​

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[Waira]

So I think she's finally blooming, but was it the decreased light interval like a trigger for photoperiods, or really just a slow bloom for the autoflower?
You said Phytochrome - controlled? That's day length, right? Which would only affect start of bloom in a pure photoperiod strain rather than autoflower?

...well, I've seen some slow-auto's, talking 5-8 weeks in veg' before they triggered under typical auto light sched',.. but seem way more that weren't expressing autoflowering at all, and at that point you treat them like reg. photo's,.... Sometimes there's no telling which unless you want to ride the clown car around for weeks! --f' that! .... I'd say your question has been answered by their response- finally! Keep on the 12/12photo' light sched', IMO.... not worth the risk!
As for autoflowering in general, from what I'm learning more and more, there's no "on/off" switch about it, and until there's some sort of research info about the exact nature of the whole mechanism behind it (I believe the autoflowering phenomena is a sort of overriding of the usual photoperiod sensitivity thing), I can't give a definitive answer, just report observations I see here and in my grows,.. here's an example: Stickman made a great MoB/OGK x C99 cross, with the auto on the C99 side, F1's... Until recently, I thought it was impossible for F1's to auto,... I cite Sweet Seeds F1FV line-up which are all F1 auto/photo crosses, and are all still photosensitive, and a measure of this... However, this cross of Stick's auto'ed, 3/3 I think with different growers, but the bloom speed was not that fast, double contrary WTF stuff! The whole advantage of Sweet's F1FV's is they exhibit very fast blooming vs. their fully photo' parent! Stick has mentioned seeing other F1's auto' as well,... yet neither Aunty nor FullDuplex have seen it happen,...*( speaking of which, some of FD's ALF#5 line is decidedly longer veg'ing auto's, 10+ weeks to finish)..... I'm going to talk to Stone (autoflower Portal) and see what he's experienced as well.... All-in-all, there's way more to autoflowering expression than simple Mendelian/punnet square inheritance genetics going on here, and a definite grey area in between fully auto and photo.... This is where proper breeding comes in, to eliminate the line that don't show the goods! Even then, aberrations happen,...
Phytochrome response-- technically, it's darkness time length,.. the whole feedback loop with that is fairly complex, something to research if you've a mind,...

 

[HemiSync]

So here we are again. It's Nov1 and my Rhino Ryder has been on a short-day light cycle for two full weeks (if we count the 18/6 turndown beginning on Oct14, bump that up to 18 days). And for the last few days she has shown what I would consider to be a full bloom growth pattern - the terminal buds at the end of every branch are showing a clustered leaf pattern and pistils are visible inside each one. No doubt she's blooming, but I'm still faced with the dilemma I saw coming and have voiced earlier in this thread - did she bloom because of the shortened light cycle (meaning she's exhibiting photoperiod tendencies); or did she bloom because this particular ruderalis hybrid strain needed that amount of time to bloom? Just because I've never seen one go that long doesn't mean that's not the right answer....

I don't think there's a way to definitively answer that question without some significant risks either way.

Options - I can restore the light regimen to 20 / 4, 18 / 6, or even 14 / 10 if I want to hedge my bets & play safe.
Or I can leave the light regimen at 12 / 12 (or 14 / 10, same as the chickenshit option to hedge my bet, above).

My biggest reservation to restoring to 20 / 4 or 18 / 6, is if this turns out to be a photoperiod, then that light cycle will cause the plant to re-veg. I had that happen once with a Matanuska Tundra (or Thunderfuck if you prefer the urban legend label). My central air went out and I had to move my grow out of the old utility room, into a bedroom that was not light tight. Bad judgment on my part, once the A/C was repaired, I didn't go to the trouble to move everything back where it belonged. The plant re-veg'ed, and instead of the nice rock hard tangerine-sized buds she was growing, they ballooned to fluffy buds the size of a gallon size nutrient jug. You might say, HOLEY MOLEY!!! I WANT BUDS THE SIZE OF GALLON JUGS (I know, I know, @fettled6 wants a stripper with gallon sized jugs - me too!!!). But the buds were trash. Fluffy trash. Wouldn't get a fly high. And I had spent half a bazillion dollars for those seeds. The buds went to the compost pile, where I also pissed on them. So I don't want to risk a re-veg.
But I also don't want to waste the 46 days I've invested in growing her, ESPECIALLY since she's turned into a monster beast with the most top buds I've ever seen on a single plant. Even way more than my last grow, Dinafem Blue Cheese, which was a Blue Ribbon winner.



So unless someone can bestow some pearls of wisdom & botanical ruderalis grow knowledge on us, I'm leaning really hard toward 14 / 10 as the only safe way out of this. She will guaranteed bloom at that light cycle; I'm just hoping with quality bud density. I'm guessing yield could be down as much as 30% with the reduced light cycle, but I think this could be a 12 oz. plant under a conventional 20 / 4 lighting. That's still an 8 oz. plant, which is my "smiling" line in the sand.
By the way, I also decided that two 55watt COB's would not be enough light for this beast - her canopy is a full 5 sq. ft. - so I hung my 325Watt Pro-II Cree-128 a few days ago. Light height at 18" and she's loving it. The COB's are hanging over my next project, FastBuds GorillaGlue Auto, transplanted yesterday & looking good.

Isn't there a way to set up a "Vote" feature on AFN? Would be interesting to see what everyone thinks I should do. Then when I fook up I have someone else to blame it on....


@Waira @bushmasterar15 @912GreenSkell @HemiSync @Mizzo81 @Nosias @Mossy @hairyman @Dudeski @archie gemmill
and any other valued contributors' opinions welcomed.

Thanks for tagging me, I’ve never had this with my seeds or a breeders. Worst I’ve has is 70 day strains go 100 in bloom but they started flowering within the normal 30 day period from seed. Some of which can be attributed to my lack of experience with autos at the time.

 

[Kinezokyprios]

Switch to bloom nutrients and defoliate heavily. Your plant needs food and air. You need to open it up inside. Keep the leaves facing outwards and clear all from inside. Light and air cannot reach inside.

 

[HemiSync]

Switch to bloom nutrients and defoliate heavily. Your plant needs food and air. You need to open it up inside. Keep the leaves facing outwards and clear all from inside. Light and air cannot reach inside.

I think @Olde School Player should have harvested this after 4 months, if not I want pictures.

 

[Kinezokyprios]

Like this every possible bud site will be activated. Hope this works and it is not simply bad genetics.