The Importance Of Veg Time In Relation To The Triggering Of Flowering

skunkushybrid

skunkushybrid

New Member
In the short amount of time I've been growing I've fairly recently discovered the importance of giving your plants a good veg.

A lot of things come into play during veg, but the main one IMO is pot size. It is my belief that certain roots will stretch as far as they can go (or to a specific limit in outdoor grows) to see how big they are going to get. If you try and trigger flowering before this has been determined IMO you are adding what could be weeks onto your flowering time.

I have 2 dwc grows on at the mo'. On the smaller one is 6 plants, with 3 sharing 18litres of water each. They had a four and a half week veg' due to space blah blah. They were begging to be flowered, pistils all over them. After 48 hours flower they looked like a soil grow at 2 weeks.

On the larger grow is 11 plants. 4 sharing 56litres, another 4 doing the same... and 3 sharing 96litres. They had a 3 week veg (btw all these plants came from the same mother) and have now been flowering for a day less than the smaller grow. Yet, despite their immense size in relation to the smaller grow, they are nowhere near as developed as the smaller grow. It is my belief that a plant will flower when it's ready and if you try and force it too quickly you are adding time to the flowering cycle as the plant is only getting 12 hours to finish growing.

The bigger the container, the longer the veg'. My question is: do all plants 'beg' to be flowered? Do all strains show sex once they have been vegged long enough? which it is my belief that the size of the container dictates when this will happen, so long as it is of a minimum size of course. The sog method works because the plants are given their small pot size and then forced into flower, the roots have already filled the space so it is easy for them to recognise that it's time to flower.
 
joekikass

joekikass

Well-Known Member
in my experience with my current grow i would have to agree with this . I have 9 plants all started in 3 groups of three aprox a week apart in 6" pots . the first group got 4 to 5 weeks veg and the roots had filled the 6" pots they were started in ,the second group the roots were well spread and the third the roots and soil was pretty loose when transplanted . meaning the third group only got 2 solid weeks veg and the root still developing. I put them all on 12/12 two weeks ago and the first 6 have nice bud development and large root mass in the pots . The three with the least veg time i know are still developing root mass and are just starting to show buds and i believe another week would have been beneficial to these plants development before inducing flowering .
I will mention that the first 3 were bag seeds and planted them first for sexing the next are feminized 2 skunk specials , 1 sour nl x haze and the last 3 fem grapefruit which i have grown before highly successfully with only 2 weeks veg time After that shit yes proper development in veg cycle is very important quality , yield and length in flowering .
 
VictorVIcious

VictorVIcious

Well-Known Member
I just put 4 poorly taken widows in flowering after having them vegging under floros for two months because of space etc. Two weeks into flowering they are budding all the way to the bottom of the plant. I'm still learning. I wanted to make sure they were going to be healthy. I took the bottom five branches for clones which cleared out the bottom 1/3 of the plants. I plan on leaving them in veg longer as well from the results I'm seeing. I agree, with some strains its better to veg them a little longer. VV
 
iToke

iToke

Well-Known Member
Just to clarify, a plant in a smaller pot will be ready to flower after about 4 weeks but a plant with a pot twice the size will take about 6-8 weeks?
 
F

fdd2blk

Well-Known Member
good thread. keep it coming.


i think plants are like goldfish. they grow to their pot size. i think they send out "seeker" roots that tell them what's ahead. if they find the edge of the pot they tell the plant. now the plant knows it can only reach a certain size. once it reaches that size it focuses more towards flowering or preparing to flower.

i think you are on to something here.
 
skunkushybrid

skunkushybrid

New Member
fdd2blk said:
good thread. keep it coming.


i think plants are like goldfish. they grow to their pot size. i think they send out "seeker" roots that tell them what's ahead. if they find the edge of the pot they tell the plant. now the plant knows it can only reach a certain size. once it reaches that size it focuses more towards flowering or preparing to flower.

i think you are on to something here.
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Yes! that was it exactly... although now I've changed my mind... sort of. And it's all your fault fdd'. I look at your trees in those little pots, and now I think that I can veg' a plant in a half litre container for 4 weeks. I've got the experiment running now as we speak. From clones, after a 4 week veg' I would normally expect around an oz and a half to 2 oz in coco.

These pots are really only supposed to be used for a one week veg' cycle, whereby I could expect around a q to a half oz per plant.

Basically, I'm keeping them in the same pots but quadrupling the veg time. I'm hoping that by doing this I'll quadruple the bud output too. So I should get at least an oz per plant, while keeping them in those little pots.
 
iToke

iToke

Well-Known Member
Lol this could be a breakthrough and you could revolutionize the way people grow weed!!
 
trapper

trapper

Well-Known Member
i was growing in 5 gal pots and two gal pots at same time,the biggest colas came from the 2 gal pots,i believe it was because the roots filled the pots and recieved 5 extra feedings in an 8 week cyclye,the ones in the 5 gal pots only recieved 5 nute feedings its entire grow,the 2 gal had about 13 which allowed me to flush twice in the 8 weeks so they never had nute block,they were all vegged for 6 weeks from clones.i was reading an article in a grow mag last night were the grower feeds his soil plants 5 days a week flush on the 6th and rest on the 7th,i wonder has any one done this.the guy was growing under 10 1000,s for a caly medical club.that way when the plant uses the nutes it wants right away,it may not get it for another week with a normal feeding cycle.interesting to know,maybe the writer got it wrong,because every one always talks of over watering and stuff,.
 
Mr. Bud

Mr. Bud

Well-Known Member
trapper said:
i was growing in 5 gal pots and two gal pots at same time,the biggest colas came from the 2 gal pots,i believe it was because the roots filled the pots and recieved 5 extra feedings in an 8 week cyclye,the ones in the 5 gal pots only recieved 5 nute feedings its entire grow,the 2 gal had about 13 which allowed me to flush twice in the 8 weeks so they never had nute block,they were all vegged for 6 weeks from clones.i was reading an article in a grow mag last night were the grower feeds his soil plants 5 days a week flush on the 6th and rest on the 7th,i wonder has any one done this.the guy was growing under 10 1000,s for a caly medical club.that way when the plant uses the nutes it wants right away,it may not get it for another week with a normal feeding cycle.interesting to know,maybe the writer got it wrong,because every one always talks of over watering and stuff,.
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I'd just place the bet that he's using a rather loose soil mix maybe?
 
L

lookout

Active Member
Are we talking about seeds or clones or both? And if you are using only using clones do you just count a week or two weeks right when you replant it?
 
skunkushybrid

skunkushybrid

New Member
trapper said:
i was growing in 5 gal pots and two gal pots at same time,the biggest colas came from the 2 gal pots,i believe it was because the roots filled the pots and recieved 5 extra feedings in an 8 week cyclye,the ones in the 5 gal pots only recieved 5 nute feedings its entire grow,the 2 gal had about 13 which allowed me to flush twice in the 8 weeks so they never had nute block,they were all vegged for 6 weeks from clones.i was reading an article in a grow mag last night were the grower feeds his soil plants 5 days a week flush on the 6th and rest on the 7th,i wonder has any one done this.the guy was growing under 10 1000,s for a caly medical club.that way when the plant uses the nutes it wants right away,it may not get it for another week with a normal feeding cycle.interesting to know,maybe the writer got it wrong,because every one always talks of over watering and stuff,.
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the plant will drink as much as it needs to. It seems logical to me that a large plant with a small root system will need to drink more. Although personally, I wouldn't flush at all... at least not till the end. This is only because i water from the top.
 
trapper

trapper

Well-Known Member
skunkushybrid said:
the plant will drink as much as it needs to. It seems logical to me that a large plant with a small root system will need to drink more. Although personally, I wouldn't flush at all... at least not till the end. This is only because i water from the top.
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i also believe it had something to do with the heat,it was the hottest time of the year,so the many waterings could of cooled the plants.i just was amazed by the differance,as well the ones in the little pot were started flowering while still in 4 inch starter pots.but if i had enough lights and money i really would love to do an experiment.but i will down load pictures to show the differance this week when my son comes home for thanksgiveing,he knows how to down load pics.
 
skunkushybrid

skunkushybrid

New Member
trapper said:
i also believe it had something to do with the heat,it was the hottest time of the year,so the many waterings could of cooled the plants.i just was amazed by the differance,as well the ones in the little pot were started flowering while still in 4 inch starter pots.but if i had enough lights and money i really would love to do an experiment.but i will down load pictures to show the differance this week when my son comes home for thanksgiveing,he knows how to down load pics.
Click to expand...
Funny you should mention that...
8)
Day 13

These are in 0.5litre pots, from clone... day 13 of veg'. The plant in the first pic' is 11" high. the second pic' clearly shows that there is still plenty of veg' time left in these little pots...

Mistakes have been made. My biggest was right at the start where i treated this like a sog grow. This isn't a sog grow, merely a normal grow in tiny pots. So I've planted too many for a start (there's 18, and I've encouraged stretch... fuck. So what I'm going to do is allow an extra 5 days to the growth, and lower the light to prove to me that these stems can get a little sturdier.
 

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FilthyFletch

FilthyFletch

Mr I Can Do That For Half
Hmmm interesting. I think it may vary from type of grow and seed vs clones. I find growing in dirt I gtet bigger tighter node growth much faster then in small pots.In aero doesnt matter 10 days veg and its outta control root and plant growth dont need more then 10 days.In dwc or bubbleponics I find that the veg growth is slower becasue of 2 issues.The deeper the res the further the roots have to hang and grow before hitting the water and getting 100% sunmersed which then energized the growth but is slow at first. In a short res the roots hit water faster making quicker growth. I think the main thing is the age of the plant and its maturity as I grow with small clones to start which are about 2 inches but in actual age came from full month or 2 old mothers making the the same age and ready to go flower.These pictures show my current dirt grow now at day 12 in soil at about 10 inches tall in 3 gallon pots with roots trying to come out the bottom of the pots. The in the last 3 days have begun heavy internode bushing and will go flower in a week.
 
godspeedsuckah

godspeedsuckah

Well-Known Member
skunkushybrid said:
In the short amount of time I've been growing I've fairly recently discovered the importance of giving your plants a good veg.

A lot of things come into play during veg, but the main one IMO is pot size. It is my belief that certain roots will stretch as far as they can go (or to a specific limit in outdoor grows) to see how big they are going to get. If you try and trigger flowering before this has been determined IMO you are adding what could be weeks onto your flowering time.

I have 2 dwc grows on at the mo'. On the smaller one is 6 plants, with 3 sharing 18litres of water each. They had a four and a half week veg' due to space blah blah. They were begging to be flowered, pistils all over them. After 48 hours flower they looked like a soil grow at 2 weeks.

On the larger grow is 11 plants. 4 sharing 56litres, another 4 doing the same... and 3 sharing 96litres. They had a 3 week veg (btw all these plants came from the same mother) and have now been flowering for a day less than the smaller grow. Yet, despite their immense size in relation to the smaller grow, they are nowhere near as developed as the smaller grow. It is my belief that a plant will flower when it's ready and if you try and force it too quickly you are adding time to the flowering cycle as the plant is only getting 12 hours to finish growing.

The bigger the container, the longer the veg'. My question is: do all plants 'beg' to be flowered? Do all strains show sex once they have been vegged long enough? which it is my belief that the size of the container dictates when this will happen, so long as it is of a minimum size of course. The sog method works because the plants are given their small pot size and then forced into flower, the roots have already filled the space so it is easy for them to recognise that it's time to flower.
Click to expand...
Everything I have read points too a longer veg time. The plant will show its pre flowers when its ready. One plant I had took almost 2 months the other 2.5 months. After 1 month I transplanted both of them into 3 gallon containers. I have tried the 12 / 12 from seed and was not impressed at all.
 
trapper

trapper

Well-Known Member
skunkushybrid said:
Funny you should mention that...
8)
Day 13

These are in 0.5litre pots, from clone... day 13 of veg'. The plant in the first pic' is 11" high. the second pic' clearly shows that there is still plenty of veg' time left in these little pots...

Mistakes have been made. My biggest was right at the start where i treated this like a sog grow. This isn't a sog grow, merely a normal grow in tiny pots. So I've planted too many for a start (there's 18, and I've encouraged stretch... fuck. So what I'm going to do is allow an extra 5 days to the growth, and lower the light to prove to me that these stems can get a little sturdier.
Click to expand...
thats what i found,i let them get to 14" high in the .5 starter pots,they got really rootbound but the colas were huge,compared to the ones in the 5 gallon pots,even though they were vegged the same time 7 weeks,i found that the roots in the 5 gallon at harvest never really made it to the outside of the pot,while the ones that went from the starter cubes to two gallon pots one week in flower had a perfect root system.my buddy does not believe that those colas were produced the way they were,and they were sitting on the perimeter of the lights,because i was thinking of moveing them outside.sometimes we forget how big we can grow a plant before it needs transplanting,heck fdd plants look like jail builds,all upper body(bushy plant) with no legs(pots).
 
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