Todd McCormick said if you put photo plants out before may 15th they will flower, that the only time plants veg outdoors is may 15th to the summer solstice. Îs this true to any outdoor growers? But what would stop the plants from revegging when the days got longer? Thanks
Hey mdab', all the above is solid info -
McCornhole's comment is a sweeping generalization, which as usual is only partly true... It's a little more complicated than that!
More things to consider:
- photosensitive cultivars (talking zero auto genetics at all) will have a pretty wide range of how readily they can be triggered into bloom. There are many cultivars bred for speed and easy (sooner) bloom triggering, namely those made for growing in high Lat's. That's been a thing for decades and decades!
A common warning among them from respectable breeders is just what he mentioned, to be fair... Take something like the classic Guerilla Gold and plant it in early May and you bet, it's likely to start to flower, then reveg', and then flower (usually poorly) as normal.
On the other hand, take something strongly Sativa dominant with landrace/heirloom lineage (read long blooming times), or say, something with a lot of old school Haze in it and that plant will be fine with early May planting...
- another big factor is how much sudden and extreme a change there is going from the nice nursery/tent's longer light hours (longer than current ambient that is) to the cold cruel world outside. For example, if your working the seedlings/juvies under 18/6 or more, then suddenly put them into 13/11 outside, you damn well may "shock" them into kicking over out of sheer drastic change. Same cultivars, raised under, say 14/10 and going into similar outside hours, very likely will be just fine....
This is exactly what I do after a couple weeks of high light hours (my photo' kids start life with the autos under about 18/6); after that, I make sure they ease into more or less current ambient light/dark hours so when they go outside, so they don't have that gear grinding sudden change and risk triggering a bloom conflict.
I say conflict because it can be borderline and rather wonky in behavior if the change is right on the cusp, the plant's hormone feedback loop getting conflicting signals, and as always, the cultivar behavior caveat is in play! I've not had any problems, but other OD growers I know have had some strange-ass behavior from this misfiring veg/bloom transition, and it fucked the plant proper for the season.
Know your genetics and their known behavior trends -
- there are a lot of "semi-auto's" out nowadays, often called fast/early versions which are usually F1 photo/auto (or visa-versa) crosses, but sometimes worked a bit differently. Point is, these will have a stronger tendency to trigger early/easy
by design, but yet again, the parentage and the pheno selections made when making them play a big role in this. I've run many fv's, some triggered quite early, others not so much but were stoopid blazing fast in blooming, 5-6 weeks only to finish after first crowns formed...
Put these out in May and you'll get burned,...again, most good breeders will warn you about this very thing!
In truth there's a lot of overlap with all of this, tip o' the hat to that
one size fits all thing...
Example: Ultra Early Love cultivar, a known super fast pheno of Love Potion, which has zero auto genetics in it... Mine triggered into bloom even before some of the semi-auto's did, and finished bloom with crazy speed! Hard to account for given the parentage: G13 x Santa Marta Gold Colombian (a very long cycle Sativa)... G-13 is no speed queen itself either -
One even more extreme example to show the Know behind a specific cultivar: the Doors x Original Haze, a cross made by a mate who was questing for a special old school high lost in the 70's-80's from the original Haze lineage. This cross is almost pure Haze, which itself is a notoriously long cycle plant; blooms for 12-14 weeks or more pheno depending... And yet in some unaccountable event, DOHz acquired very fast blooming and
normal triggering timing (well before 12/12 that is). Only 9 weeks bloom time in England and Germany, grows I saw online and
planted outside in May; mine was even faster here at 36Lat. coastal Cali', under 8 weeks!
*(mine went outside in June, to keep her smaller)...
Normally I wouldn't have a ghost of chance with such a Haze dominant cultivar...
