New Grower What's the deal with SLOW flowering autos?

[Kels59]

Curiosity from a relative newbie: Every strain hubby and I have grown (a few at a time) has had one or two plants that are seriously delayed in flowering or they stall between preflower and flower or they finally flower very late and they end up lanky and scraggly with very little yield. What is the deal with that? Lesser genetics? Normal variation in phenotype? Doesn't seem like it would be nutritional or environmental since all the plants are raised same and not all of same strain do it, just a couple. Preparing soon to start our first mephistos and we only have 3 seeds of each strain we bought. Would hate for that to happen to 2/3 of our plants of a strain and get very little yield if its something we are doing wrong and can avoid. Thanks for any input.

 

[Proph]

Hello! And welcome to AFN if you haven't heard it already!!

I think you are dead on in your assessment. Genetics and pheno types play a huge part. Some breeders test their genetics before releasing them.. Locking in certain traits and stabilize the strain. Some release them untested and the variations in growth patterns, stability ect. are immediately apparent.

 

[Kels59]

Hello! And welcome to AFN if you haven't heard it already!!

I think you are dead on in your assessment. Genetics and pheno types play a huge part. Some breeders test their genetics before releasing them.. Locking in certain traits and stabilize the strain. Some release them untested and the variations in growth patterns, stability ect. are immediately apparent.

Thanks @Prophetiko for your reply. Looking forward to our next grow with strains from a different seed bank. Will be interesting to make observations and compare past experience to new.

 

[EvilScotsman]

hey buddy. that does sound like could just be unstable genetics. you shouldnt get that with mephisto though. other than the one i snapped in half i havent seen a bad plant from them yet. very stable genetics.
do you do any training? if your plants are going tall n lanky theres plenty ways to train them into a more desireable structure : )

 

[puggle6]

I am an established grower (hydro atleast) and can sympathise, will be sticking to solid genetics in the future.




f6

 

[EvilScotsman]

I am an established grower (hydro atleast) and can sympathise, will be sticking to solid genetics in the future.




f6

yeah i wouldnt fancy trying out an unknown breeder like. its far too long a process to be risking the lot in order to save 20 quid on the beanz. really want to try mephisto at some point but stocked up with enough dutch passion to last me the next 5 years.

 

[EvilScotsman]

haha actually. talking about instability. the lass that punts mine for me has 2 other guys growing for her aswell. when i turned up with the last batch she showed me 2 big bags of the worst lookin weed ive ever seen. told me both growers used different hydro methods, different lights, different nutes but both their crops rotted away to nothing during the dry. what was the one thing that fucked em both up..... yup, old seeds she found in the cupboard that she gave to both of them and resulted in nearly 2 kilos of useless cabbage that ended up in the bin i was actually rollin about the floor. shes always asking me to find cuttings and i tell her to get a grip and use seeds. well she finally did and look what happened. in my defence i did tell her to get dutch passion, not to use old shit from god knows when. dafty lol.

 

[Kels59]

hey buddy. that does sound like could just be unstable genetics. you shouldnt get that with mephisto though. other than the one i snapped in half i havent seen a bad plant from them yet. very stable genetics.
do you do any training? if your plants are going tall n lanky theres plenty ways to train them into a more desireable structure : )

Hey @EvilScotsman thanks for your reply. Haven't tried any training yet, but would love to learn so we can try it out on our next grow. I can't seem to determine from photos how to tie down and with what, and have read a couple of articles on LST too, but I am still not clear on how to do it right. I should probably watch some videos. I totally get the concept and objective but not clear on the materials and methods. I might be a bit slow on the uptake lol. If you can point me to any good resources for learning training I would appreciate it. Then I only have to convince my husband I am not abusing the girls lol. He really babies them to extreme!

 

[Kels59]

I am an established grower (hydro atleast) and can sympathise, will be sticking to solid genetics in the future.





f6

Me too from now on @fettled6 these seeds are not cheap and it sucks to have months of $ and time into a grow and have too little to show for it! Live and learn I guess. Sure appreciate all I am learning here and the breeder recommendations. AFN is awesome!

 

[lunarman]

I think environment and/or the grower can affect things so that the switch from veg to bloom is delayed. I have two plants that are taking forever to switch to bloom. A Dutch Passion and a Dinafem, two reliable auto breeders. I am pretty sure me being a newbie has something to do with it. I am not sure what I might have done along the way that caused it, but I'm pretty sure I am what caused it.