Myth Busting - Revegging Autoflowers

[PollenSax]

hmmm...ok....here'z the reazon i was askin about the age of the mom/donor -> given the basic rule o' thumb for an auto of 1m to veg, 2m to flower, and the fact that they're on a clock, let'z say u cut/clone a branch from the mom when she'z 3w old...duz that mean the clone will start flowerin in jus another week, or... ppp

One thing I'm learning about the "Clock".
It can be stalled, and slowed down just like a photo.
For instance if the plant gets injured (Making clones), or whatever stress may slow one down, it takes longer to mature, which tells me it's not really a timer clock, but a maturity clock. It still tries to mature, even if it takes longer.
My Gorilla cookie clones are 15 weeks old, and still they are hanging on until the seeds are ripe, and they almost are.
I harvested the mothers 3 weeks ago.

 

[WildBill]

One thing I'm learning about the "Clock".
It can be stalled, and slowed down just like a photo.
For instance if the plant gets injured (Making clones), or whatever stress may slow one down, it takes longer to mature, which tells me it's not really a timer clock, but a maturity clock. It still tries to mature, even if it takes longer.
My Gorilla cookie clones are 15 weeks old, and still they are hanging on until the seeds are ripe, and they almost are.
I harvested the mothers 3 weeks ago.

I think on my next run of HBSS and Purple Kong here in a few days, I'm gonna try to make pollen from a cutting and then on the next run of that strain, I'll pollinate a branch or two to make some seeds. Doing it between two grows will let me make sure the pollen is mature and I don't have to worry about the seeds fully maturing before I take the girl down. That way I could also make a cross between the two fer S&Gs if I grow then together again or in a later grow.

 

[Fitzy]

I have pollenated as late as wk 7 which will stall the plant for the most part anything that gets pollen is to want to survive sorta speak this even happens in the wild where 1 male drops pollen early and another later. I've had 20wks flower on a 8wk 9wk tops strain and this is consistently occurring with super late pollenation so there are ways to slow to plant but it's only benifical when breeding otherwise ive not seen any that increase yeild or potency ect

 

[WildBill]

I have pollenated as late as wk 7 which will stall the plant for the most part anything that gets pollen is to want to survive sorta speak this even happens in the wild where 1 male drops pollen early and another later. I've had 20wks flower on a 8wk 9wk tops strain and this is consistently occurring with super late pollenation so there are ways to slow to plant but it's only benifical when breeding otherwise ive not seen any that increase yeild or potency ect

If I do as in my post above yours, I just wait until I see pistils to use my gathered pollen on the new girl?

 

[Fitzy]

If I do as in my post above yours, I just wait until I see pistils to use my gathered pollen on the new girl?

Pretty much but pollenating say when pompoms are forming you can pollenate but I would wait till it starts to stack to pollenate mostly bc the buds will be smaller overall bc lots of energy is diverted to making seeds which is why I generally use larf sections seeing they are not going to be super nice buds either way. Hope that helps if not lmk wat you want clarification on I will help best I can

 

[WildBill]

Pretty much but pollenating say when pompoms are forming you can pollenate but I would wait till it starts to stack to pollenate mostly bc the buds will be smaller overall bc lots of energy is diverted to making seeds which is why I generally use larf sections seeing they are not going to be super nice buds either way. Hope that helps if not lmk wat you want clarification on I will help best I can

Sound reasoning!
How long does it take for the seeds to mature?

 

[Fitzy]

Sound reasoning!
How long does it take for the seeds to mature?

So far 5 wks has been pretty consistent and some are ready earlier some later but most are @ that 5wk mark the more you work with a particular cultivar you like the more you will see consistent results phenos also can influence it a bit but I've never seen longer then 6wks personally.

 

[fryge]

One thing I'm learning about the "Clock".
It can be stalled, and slowed down just like a photo.
For instance if the plant gets injured (Making clones), or whatever stress may slow one down, it takes longer to mature, which tells me it's not really a timer clock, but a maturity clock. It still tries to mature, even if it takes longer.
My Gorilla cookie clones are 15 weeks old, and still they are hanging on until the seeds are ripe, and they almost are.
I harvested the mothers 3 weeks ago.

I think this is a good observation.
if there's a 'clock' based on age of the plant, that clock must be counting time somehow. a plant does not know about reading calendars, so it must be looking at something to determine it's own age, and that something might be something that can be influenced by the environment a bit. for example, in some plant pocesses sucrose is a signal compound. it can say something about age, since as a seedling there is little leaf area, so little sugar. as the leaf area increases, sugar in the plant rises. it can also tell the plant if it has the right sink/source balance, like if it 'notices' high sugars that could trigger development of more flowers/fruits(=sinks for sugar) to balance it out again with the amount of leaves(=sources fir sugar). (btw, not saying that sugar is the key in this case, just giving 1 example of the kind of mechanics that can be behind a time/age based response, for example sucrose is a known factor in the switch from juvenile>adult plant, but it is 1 factor in a web of interactions. many factors are more genetic/molecular and less intuitive as this sucrose example.)

personally, I have only limited experience with growing autoflowers myself, but I do have some theoretical(plant sciences) background. last 2 years I've started dabling a bit in autoflowers and made some crosses with them, but I only grow outdoor, so I cannot do testing at 24/0 for example.

unfortunatly finding the exact nature of the autoflower gene will not really be feasible without a professional lab(while with it, it would be a very easy experiment), but based on the exact behaviour you can narrow it down somewhat. so I like reading the posts here which go more in detail on exact observations, growth conditions etc, eventhough I do not always agree with all interpretations/conclusions.

one thing to keep in mind is that there are often interactions with temperature, so for example in agronomy and crop models often the unit 'degreedays' is used instead of just days/weeks. if you get down into the molecular mechanics, it's not actually so clearcut as an interaction, the temperature effect on development speed is a genetic trait(which mechanics are really cool, but kind of complex to dive into here since I would need a lot of text to explain it well). but for describing and predicting plant behaviour the degreeday concept works really well.
the thinking about flowering purely in term of photoperiod is a bit simple, actually there are multiple flowering pathways which converge at a kind of central hub to finally trigger flowering. it happens to be that cannabis as a plant relies heavily on the photoperiod pathway, but for example strawberries can be triggered to flower purely through cold temps even if the photoperiod is not right, and they can be completely kept out of flower by too high temps. only in between those 2 extreme temperatures they flower based on photoperiod.

next, it's not as simple as flowering under longer days meaning it does not react to daylength at all.

for example the plant scientists' lab mouse, the plant arabidopsis thaliana, is a so called facultative long day plant. meaning it will flower eventually on any daylength, but it will do it faster under long days. so it is not dayneutral since it does behave differently under long day and short day.
so if you consider the categories long day, short day and day neutral, just the fact that cannabis 'autoflowers' can trigger and finish flowering at 24/0 does not make them necessarily day-neutral, they could still flower faster under short day then under long day.

and I think I read a post earlier in this topic which described a response like this? i.e. difference in time to finish under different photoperiods.
to really get a conclusive answer all the other conditions would need to be similar though, so one experience is no proof yet, but that kind of observations is when I start to read closely.

and another point on revegging:

-that podcast linked earlier, still have to listen it, but based on the pics/comments I get that it involves taking off leaves? if so, that seems interesting, since before I found this thread I was also searching on google scholar for info on 'reveg' in other plant species. plenty of plant species don't have 'reveg', once flower triggers it continuees. but 'reveg'(not an actual science term) is described in a few plant species, and I found a description of one where it was speculated that a leaf-originating signal is required to keep flowering, and taking off the leaves can abolish that signal resulting in reveg:
https://academic.oup.com/jxb/article/56/420/2587/530497 this was just the result from a quick google, did not fully read it yet and there may be more recent research already(this is from 2005, so not too old, but with this kind of stuff it could easily be outdated already).

edit:
bit extra explanation what degreedays exactly are may be usefull. basically, it is just degrees(in celsiuis)*time.
so for example some autoflower strain could take 4 weeks from germination to start flowering at 20 degrees. then it's 4*7*20=560 degreedays to reach flowering, i.e. the temperature sum till flowering is 560 degreedays.
now knowing this temperature sum, you can for example also calculate how long it will take at 15 degrees: 560/15=37,3 days, or about 5,3 weeks. (assuming base temperature=0 degrees)
i.e. more than a week difference in just time between these 2 temperatures, but using the degreeday concept this allows you to still compare these plants, and compare plants between different years/seasons, if you've got weather data. and if you have a stable variety where you know these numbers, you can also do stuff like calculating your harvest date based on different potential weather conditions, etc.

another I think usefull tip to look at your plants more closely:
think about what a developmental stage is. I described above the development from germination>start of flowering. those are clear developmental boundaries you can put a date on: you can see when a seed germinates, you can see when it emerges aboveground, you can see when first flower appear.
then if you write down the date on such key points you can calculate development rate in between as an average per day for examle.

but those boundaries for what you consider a developmental stage can be chosen at other points too. for example, the 'phylochron' or 'plastochron' is another unit used in plant science. it is the time('chron') needed for one leaf-unit(leaf+node+internode) to develop. if you look at a plant, you'll see it is always build up out of repeating smaller units. also goes for buds, if you dissect them you'll find a basic unit which is repeated all the time.
i.e. the time between 2 nodes is basically a developmental stage as well. what I've been dong for a while now is to always write down at which nodenumber of the main stem I saw the first (pre)flowers. no clear conclusions yet, but I think it may be a usefull measurement/datapoint.

 

[PollenSax]

I think this is a good observation.
if there's a 'clock' based on age of the plant, that clock must be counting time somehow. a plant does not know about reading calendars, so it must be looking at something to determine it's own age, and that something might be something that can be influenced by the environment a bit. for example, in some plant pocesses sucrose is a signal compound. it can say something about age, since as a seedling there is little leaf area, so little sugar. as the leaf area increases, sugar in the plant rises. it can also tell the plant if it has the right sink/source balance, like if it 'notices' high sugars that could trigger development of more flowers/fruits(=sinks for sugar) to balance it out again with the amount of leaves(=sources fir sugar). (btw, not saying that sugar is the key in this case, just giving 1 example of the kind of mechanics that can be behind a time/age based response, for example sucrose is a known factor in the switch from juvenile>adult plant, but it is 1 factor in a web of interactions. many factors are more genetic/molecular and less intuitive as this sucrose example.)

personally, I have only limited experience with growing autoflowers myself, but I do have some theoretical(plant sciences) background. last 2 years I've started dabling a bit in autoflowers and made some crosses with them, but I only grow outdoor, so I cannot do testing at 24/0 for example.

unfortunatly finding the exact nature of the autoflower gene will not really be feasible without a professional lab(while with it, it would be a very easy experiment), but based on the exact behaviour you can narrow it down somewhat. so I like reading the posts here which go more in detail on exact observations, growth conditions etc, eventhough I do not always agree with all interpretations/conclusions.

one thing to keep in mind is that there are often interactions with temperature, so for example in agronomy and crop models often the unit 'degreedays' is used instead of just days/weeks. if you get down into the molecular mechanics, it's not actually so clearcut as an interaction, the temperature effect on development speed is a genetic trait(which mechanics are really cool, but kind of complex to dive into here since I would need a lot of text to explain it well). but for describing and predicting plant behaviour the degreeday concept works really well.
the thinking about flowering purely in term of photoperiod is a bit simple, actually there are multiple flowering pathways which converge at a kind of central hub to finally trigger flowering. it happens to be that cannabis as a plant relies heavily on the photoperiod pathway, but for example strawberries can be triggered to flower purely through cold temps even if the photoperiod is not right, and they can be completely kept out of flower by too high temps. only in between those 2 extreme temperatures they flower based on photoperiod.

next, it's not as simple as flowering under longer days meaning it does not react to daylength at all.

for example the plant scientists' lab mouse, the plant arabidopsis thaliana, is a so called facultative long day plant. meaning it will flower eventually on any daylength, but it will do it faster under long days. so it is not dayneutral since it does behave differently under long day and short day.
so if you consider the categories long day, short day and day neutral, just the fact that cannabis 'autoflowers' can trigger and finish flowering at 24/0 does not make them necessarily day-neutral, they could still flower faster under short day then under long day.

and I think I read a post earlier in this topic which described a response like this? i.e. difference in time to finish under different photoperiods.
to really get a conclusive answer all the other conditions would need to be similar though, so one experience is no proof yet, but that kind of observations is when I start to read closely.

and another point on revegging:

-that podcast linked earlier, still have to listen it, but based on the pics/comments I get that it involves taking off leaves? if so, that seems interesting, since before I found this thread I was also searching on google scholar for info on 'reveg' in other plant species. plenty of plant species don't have 'reveg', once flower triggers it continuees. but 'reveg'(not an actual science term) is described in a few plant species, and I found a description of one where it was speculated that a leaf-originating signal is required to keep flowering, and taking off the leaves can abolish that signal resulting in reveg:
https://academic.oup.com/jxb/article/56/420/2587/530497 this was just the result from a quick google, did not fully read it yet and there may be more recent research already(this is from 2005, so not too old, but with this kind of stuff it could easily be outdated already).

edit:
bit extra explanation what degreedays exactly are may be usefull. basically, it is just degrees(in celsiuis)*time.
so for example some autoflower strain could take 4 weeks from germination to start flowering at 20 degrees. then it's 4*7*20=560 degreedays to reach flowering, i.e. the temperature sum till flowering is 560 degreedays.
now knowing this temperature sum, you can for example also calculate how long it will take at 15 degrees: 560/15=37,3 days, or about 5,3 weeks. (assuming base temperature=0 degrees)
i.e. more than a week difference in just time between these 2 temperatures, but using the degreeday concept this allows you to still compare these plants, and compare plants between different years/seasons, if you've got weather data. and if you have a stable variety where you know these numbers, you can also do stuff like calculating your harvest date based on different potential weather conditions, etc.

another I think usefull tip to look at your plants more closely:
think about what a developmental stage is. I described above the development from germination>start of flowering. those are clear developmental boundaries you can put a date on: you can see when a seed germinates, you can see when it emerges aboveground, you can see when first flower appear.
then if you write down the date on such key points you can calculate development rate in between as an average per day for examle.

but those boundaries for what you consider a developmental stage can be chosen at other points too. for example, the 'phylochron' or 'plastochron' is another unit used in plant science. it is the time('chron') needed for one leaf-unit(leaf+node+internode) to develop. if you look at a plant, you'll see it is always build up out of repeating smaller units. also goes for buds, if you dissect them you'll find a basic unit which is repeated all the time.
i.e. the time between 2 nodes is basically a developmental stage as well. what I've been dong for a while now is to always write down at which nodenumber of the main stem I saw the first (pre)flowers. no clear conclusions yet, but I think it may be a usefull measurement/datapoint.

Thanks for that . Very informative. I've never heard of the term "degree days", and it makes perfect sense.
"if you look at a plant, you'll see it is always build up out of repeating smaller units. also goes for buds, if you dissect them you'll find a basic unit which is repeated all the time.” It is pretty cool. You see those repeating patterns every where. Even our bodies are symetrical, split exactly in half, one side a repeat, a copy of the other.

 

[Ravenor]

Has anyone tried to force dormancy by putting a cut back plant into a refrigerator set around 40-45? I was thinking that then you could start out with just a few hours of light a day and work that back up to 18/6 - 24/0.