Straight up apologizing for the massive post.
Yo guys, greetings from DownUnder, new member here (finally), I’ll get right to it. I’ve had the issue over time with various genetics throwing pollen sacs from lower nodes from time to time. Unfortunately the ones that tend to do it are the newer fire genetics often sourced from multiple female plants (ie the male was unseen for multiple generations) -Snake Venom, Sherbet, Louis XIII, Birthday Cake are just some.
I’ve been growing for 15+ years and only recently become aware of the cold stress in dark periods causing hermies. I’ve previously caused it in the top of the canopy due to light stress, but wasn’t aware of temperature stress causing this (I was able to grow inside the house previously). It’s something that did start to happen more frequently when I moved out of the city a few years ago to country town where I had some more space and a big shed, which did get pretty cold at night. For that reason, I run my 5’x10′ rig at night, so the temperatures are more balanced between day and night, but even the day temperatures were quite low at times (ie 45-60F/5-15C) which did cause me to lose vegetative growth in the stretch, but caused stretching during flower after the initial stretch.
Some genetics responded by throwing pollen sacs from the lower nodes and half-pollinated the room (ie 8 or 9 other plants) causing me the frustration of a seeded crop, something I’m clearly trying to avoid.
This has happened to various genetics in testing recently which I now figure is due to my low winter temps, what minimum temp do I need to maintain at night to stop this from happening? Fahrenheit is fine I’m like Guru and can convert.
FYI my genetic stable at the moment contains:
Blackwater from Cali Connection (recently retired Louis XIII OG due to the problem above)
Connoisseur Cookies from Connoisseur (dankest cookies I could get in 2014)
Gorilla Bomb from Bomb Seeds
Snake Venom and VCDC from Moxie
White Rhino from Greenhouse
Chemdog(hermied) and 707Truthband from HSO
Northern Lights X Big Bud from World of Seeds
Sunset Sherbet from Pheno Finder (also hermied)
Tombstone from Greenpoint seeds
I’m always blowing through new seeds every 3/4 rounds looking for new keepers to update the stable as I’m a confessed flavour pig! Denver got me hooooooked silly!
Also please let me know if anyone is slinging, or looking to sling recharge down under, I think you’ll have a huge market for it down here I got a few friends in the import/distribution game here who might be down for it. There are lots of personal growers and people looking to grow quality organic medicine down here and recharge is one of the missing pieces that can help everyone get better results from everything I hear and read.
Great work Scotty, Dude and Guru. Love your hard work and frosty nugz!
Please enjoy another one of mine!
Pic 1 is the CMH side of 5’x10′ tent with 2x 315 CMH and a 300w blurple under light. Front Left plant is Connoisseur Cookies, White Rhino Behind, 2x Gorilla Bomb on the right hand side.
Pic 2 is Connoisseur Cookies from a run about a year ago and I’m looking forward to posting some sexy follow ups on DGC and on CannaBuzz.
Cheers
The Captain
I would think the whole plant would hermie not just lowers. Sounds like lack of light stress possibly.
Thanks bro, pretty sure its not due to a lack of light, all signs are pointing to cold night-time temps, as some of the clones I threw outside late in the season did it when their siblings who went outside earlier didnt. And when it happens for me it’s almost always the lower 3-4 nodes (bottom 1/3) of the plant when it does and I get full male flowers, not “nanners” which are the exposed single pollen-carrying panicles that appear amongst female calyxes in the upper parts of colas.
I’m just reaching out to see if anyone knows if there’s a general trigger point for hermies, or if its totally variety-dependent and I’ve basically gotta heave out the under-performing or compromised genetics. Otherwise I’ve got greenhouse heaters I can use, but dont want to be pushing night temps up too much as I just love the colourful expressions at harvest too much. I just wanna know what minimum night temp I need to keep to avoid it.
Also one of my rigs is split so half the room gets flipped while one is mid-flower, so I can’t just manipulate the temps for one half of the room, so I’m kinda locked into a compromise for both sides. I generally keep it tight in lights-on in the 24-26C (75-78F) range. But due to my exprosed situation in a steel shed, I’m a victim of the extremes of the outside environment, which these days (past 2 weeks) fluctuates between -2C (28F) in the morning to 25C (77F) in the middle of the day and back to 10-12C (50-54F) by the time lights come back on. I’m stuck like this because my summer daytime temps are way too high and winter nights way too low to go the other way round. I’d just throw more money and power at it to solve the problem, but I’m in a rental and pretty max have the power safely (I mean that) maxed out. Otherwise I’d just run my porta-AC in there in smart-mode and be done with it. Kinda like learning to grow again every time I move houses and set up in a new environment. Keeps it challenging, but I definitely appreciate what I’ve learned along the way, and I don’t plan to stop learning or sharing.
It’s what will bring our culture forward into becoming Cannabis-culture, not Stoner-culture, we actually have a powerful and important role to play in this game, especially when we have the opportunity to set the tone of the conversation. Let’s not let being stoners stop us from educating ourselves, spread the light, the love, the truth AND the science (Grow Guru you ROCK!) about the most amazing plant in the world.
I gotcha just trying to figure out why it’s affecting that part of the plant. Figured roots would stress with temps that low and stress the entire plant. Cold does sink in a room and the ground can radiate the cold. Im curious as what controls, regulates, and effects ethylene production from a science stand point as well. I’ll be patiently waiting for a Guru explanation or a Jmystro post.
nice looking grow man. But i feel like you are really wasting power with the under light, hopefully Guru or someone can affirm this but to my knowledge the light receptors are only on the tops of the leaves and you are throwing wasted light at the plants and would be much more beneficial if it was above the plant
Thanks man. I hear what you’re saying… But…I originally had the blurple LEDs lying around after buying a couple to get through a 40C+ (104F+) aussie summer a few years ago when AC wasnt enough. A few grows after returning to HPS, I did start to associate the large amount of dark space under the canopy with the amount of popcorn down there (larf, schwag -call it what you do) and took the lead from tomato farmers, who throw photons at parts of the plant not usually lit from above (using side-lighting or inter-lighting bars) and presto, more energy to the plant, and they produce more fruit.
[*Great time for @GrowGuru to chime in on this thread!]
So I tried it… wow! All I can say is that a few extra photons being directed at chloroplasts (ALL over the plant) can lead to a dramatic increase in the weight, size, density and quality of flowers under of the canopy WITHOUT stressing the top of the canopy. Plus the heavy blue/red bands really help stimulate more anthocyanins which help any variety with a tendency to go purple to express it even more than temperature manipulation alone. Fluence Bioengineering have a great rave which talks about it here which is fully legit btw-> https://fluence.science/science/influence-of-light-intensity/
Because of the limited distance (height to canopy from my flood tray, the LEDs throw a great wash up between 4 plants and give me BUDS where I used to get POPCORN, all I can say is try it. If you fill out a flat canopy in a tent and want to turn the lower flowers into usable ones, just throw in some bottom light. The ones I got here are cheapo Chinese ones with mixed 2ch-dimmable spectrum (Blues, IR, White for Veg channel and Reds, Orange, White, UV for the bloom channel) they’re 300W of chip power, but 142w at the wall, and for the running cost, they’ve more than paid for themselves several times over.
I’ve wanted to upgrade them eventually with some bars underneath like the single Spectrum King bars used in the Low-pro veg and bloom units (IP-rated fixtures shouldn’t be considered a ‘luxury’), so I can use them in a cross arrangement and better distribute the underlight. So since trying it, I’ve found it to be the biggest single bumper to my yield, especially in my 1m tent.
If you got anything LED kicking about, throw it under the canopy for a grow and see what you think yourself. It doesnt need to be anything super powerful, you just want the widest throw. I’ve got a few people trying it and they’re really happy with the improvement. That being said, it does depend on your grow setup, if you dont run a full flat canopy (SCrOG Style) then it’s probably not going to make as much difference, and the extra heat and power may not offset the purchase or running cost. But I’m really happy with mine, like I said, I’m just hoping to upgrade when Spectrum King get the new units over here and I can hassle my friend for a tester or loner before I purchase.
But thanks for your comment, I really appreciate it man, it tells me someone notices what I’m doing (right or wrong)
Peace man.
PS It takes me longer to get to the point in the mornings. Apologies for ramble.
Jerrin from new mellenium who brings the dark mentioned under lighting helping his overall as well. Grow guru says the photons have the ability to bounce around and reach the top side of the leaf. The original photoron ran their lights 360 around with the bulbs going vertical from the base of plant to the top.
Unstable genetics are flooding the market since legalization with terrible growers calling themselves breeders. Any stress can cause weak genetics to quickly show their herm traits. I feel it’s only going to get worse over time.
agree 100%
But why only on the lower 1/3?
The oldest growth is always the most mature and more prone to show the issue first. I don’t blame herms on stress. I blame the shit breeders for not doing the work. This was not as much an issue when breeders spent years developing cultivars. Now you’ll see breeders putting out several cultivars a year. This is bullshit.
Yep.
Agreed Totally guys, I’m just such a ravenous fiend for the original classics and new sensations that I’ve actually seen/tried over in the US. Because once you have tried, you understand there’s a big difference between the genetics being sold as “XXX YYY” as seed and its original “clone-only” counterpart. That’s why I blow through heaps of seeds looking for profiles that are as close the original dank fire I tasted in Denver, LA, Vegas, Seattle and Oakland.
So do I suck it up and just kick the defective genetics and move on? Or is there any way of avoiding the intersex expression altogether using environment control.
For now I have some greenhouse tube heaters I’ve started using, just on a thermostat kicking them in at 18C (64F) with a dead-band of 1C so they switch off again at 19C, but the residual heat in the oil jacket keeps them warm for another 20-30 mins after a heating cycle so they’re fairly efficient.
I’m hoping to find out if this makes any difference this round. The Chem (HSO) will let me know in week 4 if it did I’ll keep the clan posted.
Appreciate all the input guys.
Cold would make sense if more than the bottom 1/3 of the plants hermed. But because your space is so big (5×10) with a minimum of a 5 foot ceiling (more likely 7), you’re dealing with 250 – 350 cubic feet of space that needs to maintain a consistent climate. Between circulation fans and exhausting out there shouldn’t be that much of a difference in temp between the top and bottom of the canopy especially if you’re removing fan leaves to allow for better airflow/light penetration. This isn’t a solution, but it’s why I think your current hypothesis isn’t correct
I’m thinking Temp difference top to bottom is pretty negligible, I’m running a dehumidifier at one end which sucks in the front and exhausts from the top, so air is constantly circulated bottom to top in the room. (btw I checked just now @4.5hrs after lights off with my IR thermometer (Yes, laser OFF) and the top temp at 1.8m (in 2m high tent) is 19.2C with the bottom at 19.1C so I think we’re good there. The residual heat from the dehu keeps the night temps from dropping too low, plus I reset my thermo after lights off to exhaust @ 20C which stops my outside daytime temps from making my (tent) night temps too high. My mornings outside drop savagely to around 1-2C (35-37F) for a few minutes to an hour before rising again. The tent is running semi-sealed with ExhaleXL bags x2 giving me extra CO2 until the thermo triggers the fans to exhaust, the rig usually hums along this time of year lights on at around 25.5C-26.1C with an exhaust cycle of 1-2mins every 8-12min, exhausting more in summer of course, but I let her run a degree hotter then – as its just pointless trying to get too cool here in the aussie heat in a shed (FYI where I am situated now is a bit like Central California meets Arizona so the seasonal temperature shifts mean growing is never a ‘set and forget’ arrangement.)
But off the tangent and back to the original matter, I’m no closer to understanding why it ‘s happening the way it does on the bottom parts of the plant and very rarely above that. But I am taking steps to see if keeping the minimum night temps at least 17C or more may help the stress situation that may be causing it.
Oh and before anyone asks, yeah, this has happened to me both with and without using underlights.
But really, I guess I’m asking those in the know here if I should scrap these lines and move on to new ones. I can only work off seed stock, so it is what it is. Just looking for strong, experienced advice here.
Should they stay or should they go? (to the tune of “the Clash” ‘Do I Stay or Do I Go’;-p)
Short History: I’d been growing and enjoying pot since the 90s here in australia and thought because I had puffed on some pretty nice flower here and there that I knew a little something about weed (compared to many Aussies, I did). Then a friend invited me to embark on a little adventure and took me to the US in 2014.
You find out pretty quickly how much you DON’T know about weed when you walk into your first Denver dispensary. My first 3 were Starbuds, 3-d and The Green Solution (when they were only in 1 place) – a huge shout out to all, I know TGS are still around because I get their newsletter.
Dude! Fuck! Kushes! Diesels! Headband! Golden Goat! Kosher kush! Gorilla Glue #4! Cookies! Candyland! FireOG! Chernobyl! Jilly Bean! Bruce Banner! Shit! Shatter! Topicals! Disposable Pens! Pre-rolls! Distillate! AAAAAAAAAAAAAARGGH!!!!!!!!
(btw I found the quickest way to build me a proper tolerance is to buy 2 things to smoke and 1 thing to eat at every dispensary you visit. DO NOT FOLLOW MY ADVICE-may cause an episode:-()
So long story short, I’m now what you’d call a fully-fledged weed-nerd on my own private mission here now to bring as close an experience to what I found to my people here. (ed-There’s a bit of a back story here I’ll expand upon at a later date.)
That includes premium flower genetics (the-real-fucking-deal ones), concentrates, edibles, topical, tinctures and cannabinoid education, because we are being left too far behind out here in prohibition-land. And if left to the government, we’ll all be made victims to their system, jumping through hoops, paying 5 times the price and waiting 4-5 months for medicine. Because that’s how it works here in Australia, because we’re really progressive (we’re so fucking not sometimes, it does shit me to tears!)
But at the end of the day, I love that I can show/offer people a choice of up to 12 premium flower varieties and blow their mind, it’s pride in my craft And it’s clearly what drives a lot of you other guys too. I fucking love it and I swear I’ll never stop until I die.
I’ll throw up some posts of some of the products I make in the near future.
Thanks for all the replies and advice guys, I really do appreciate it.
Peace DGC
Captain (SpectrumKing fan)
Any female plant showing male traits should be murdered asap.
J all I could see was this comment in the preview box so I had to click. This fucking sucks is right! This is why I don’t fuck with the desert menu.
Fuck it. OK dad. They’re gone. Just have to be on my toes with any and all new ones.
Chem caught me in week 5 last round, I was diligent scanning her top to bottom weeks 2-4 then caught male flowers appearing the week after I’d stopped looking for them. AAAAAAAAARGH! Lots of careful hand-removal of pollen sacs led to successful harvest with only a few stray seeds (690g dry off 4 under 744w of HPS/LED – 209g of which was the Chem)
I just hate it when a strain would be a keeper (for its profile or yield), but is a chucker for its potential to cost you a clean harvest. Oh well, more genetics to run through then.
Next round up then we got Ghost Train Haze #1from RareDankness, Sour D from Reserva Privada, Chocolope from DNA and I’m gonna test the last seed of Moxie’s VCDC that’s left (the current pheno I have is an enormous yielding (750+g/m2 under HPS600DE) 1:1 pheno with 9.5% CBD and 10%THC at 63 days(confirmed by TLC Kits))
I also have a 7-pack of SinCity Treasure Island in the seed-locker, which will be an outdoor pheno hunt next season due to its supposed 4:1 CBD:THC profile (with fairly wide variation in potency). I’m hoping to find a nice high-CBD mid-low-THC variety for medicinal uses that require higher ratios of CBD. So far though, most people who were looking for CBD-only meds had better results with any 1:1 product (flower, tincture or topical) than with any CBD-only meds they were able to get their hands on (via online/black market/etc)
I have blown through a dozen or so other “HIGH CBD” varieties over the last few years (from Dinafem, Barneys, Delicious, CBD Seeds, etc.), with very few plants being one I would ever want in my garden again. So far VCDC has been the only one. Not really a great surprise since we’re only just becoming interested now in what we were inadvertently breeding out for the last however-many generations.
Thanks Man, appreciate the Dad words.
Peace
Just realised that the top pic is backwards… not sure how that happened. I know WAS high but I’m pretty sure I DIDN’T do that!
That pic was uploaded upside down. All I did was flip it right side up. I just mirrored it so It should be as you want it now.
Thanx bro