When do you start counting the flowering cycle?

I have read that seed companies will tend to rate the flowering time of a seed when conditions are perfect. So an 8 week strain will often take 9-10 weeks. But I have not found anything conclusive that explains when to start counting the weeks.

Is it when you switch to 12/12 or once they start to show flowers?

By showing flowers in this context, I am not talking about the pre-flowers you see when a vegging plant has matured. but rather ... the first sign of flowers 2-3 weeks after starting a 12/12 cycle.

Thanks in advance,

--Karm

This is the way most seed companies do it..

They have two different ratings for flowering times, one if for indoor and the other for outdoor.

For indoor, most start when you flip to 12/12. Outdoor is a month rating (ie: mid-October)

Plants from seed may take longer if they are not sexually mature yet when you flip to 12/12. Clones don't usually have that issue.

Then again, the next guy will tell you that it's when you start to see flowers. That's just wrong IMO. If it was true, that means I have a Jack Herer pheno that flowers in 42 days (first flowers show 7 to 10 days after 12/12 flip - harvest at 50 to 55 days after 12/12 flip). Impossible.

flowering time can be affected by so many factors hydro growers normally finish very close to the flowering cycle as advised by seed company although sometimes longer sometimes shorther periods. with soil it can be longer normally. most growers how ever harvest by the trichromes or should do as looking at your trichs will tell you the optimum time to harvest your plants. so in short there can be too many determining factors on how long a plant should be flowered for. if you harvest by trichs you will get it spot on everytime. and the flowering time stated i believe it starts from the day you put it into 12/12.

Turn the lights off and cut 'em down when the trichs are where you want 'em. GENERALLY it's around 8 for indicas and around 10 or more for sativas. Go by the color of the trichs not the calendar.

That's what I do.

The capitate-stalked glandular trichome changes color as it matures. Newly formed and immature glands are clear, glands reaching optimum THC production are cloudy or milky and amber trichomes have already passed their peak. By looking at the trichomes you can also determine the best time to harvest your plants. When most trichomes have gone cloudy and a few amber ones have appeared, the plant is at its peak.






CANNABINOL (CBN)




Cannabinol is the primary degradation product of THC and increases in concentration with plant age. The concentration of this product in the bud is heavily dependent on the time of harvest. Harvesting the bud at a late stage also means that the concentration of CBN in relation to THC will be higher when compared to the peak of THC production.

CBN is only mildly psychoactive and can cause "fuzzy head", drowsiness, disorientation and sleepiness in the smoker, properties that can be considered unpleasant in nature compared to the clear high of the THC.




In other words ....... watch your trichomes ... they will tell you when to harvest.

Don't get too stuck on the color of the trics. I've had plants with trics cloudy/amber, although the plant clearly wasn't ready for harvest. I've also had plants which stay cloudy past peak harvest time. It's all about the big picture, not the color of trics only.

Generally, people on the forums here and seed sellers count the days from when they first see active flowering 10-20'ish days after switching lighting to 12/12... and not from when 12/12 lighting was started.

WolfZen said:

Generally, people on the forums here and seed sellers count the days from when they first see active flowering 10-20'ish days after switching lighting to 12/12... and not from when 12/12 lighting was started.

Click to expand...

Then how do you explain my Jack Herer harvested at 50 days after flipping to 12/12?

AMCHEESIER said:

The capitate-stalked glandular trichome changes color as it matures. Newly formed and immature glands are clear, glands reaching optimum THC production are cloudy or milky and amber trichomes have already passed their peak. By looking at the trichomes you can also determine the best time to harvest your plants. When most trichomes have gone cloudy and a few amber ones have appeared, the plant is at its peak.

In other words ....... watch your trichomes ... they will tell you when to harvest.

Click to expand...

..then again there's the latest high times article (March 2012) called Resin Factory, which they talk about the clear tricomes being the at their peak:

"Dr. Paul G. Mahlberg who found that THC in the resin head is at it's peak when it's still clear - not opaque and certainly not amber. Dr. Mahlberg stuck a tiny syringe into the bulbous head of the trichome and extracted it's contents, then analyzed it for THC. The result: Without a doubt, THC is at it's highest before the trichome turns opaque."

Thanks for the replies everyone. In my case, the 7th week starts today (flipped on 12/27). I have 5 OG Kush, 5 AK47, 2 Northern Lights and 2 Giant AK48s that I vegged from seed since late September. All are in DWC under 2x 1000 Watt air cooled HPS lamps. The AK48s showed signs after flipping first at about 1.5 weeks. The rest took a full 2 weeks. The flowers have not grown as well as I expected. There are a few things I can think of that might have caused this:

1) I had my nutrients balanced out very well. I watched ppm and PH closely from day to day and adjusted until they neither dropped or increased much. I could pretty much run with no fluctuations in PH or PPM for a full week. (Nutrients in this case started with the Lucas formula of 8/16, then the 1:2 ratio was adjusted with the appropriate amount of water to reach this equilibrium state. Plants were beautiful and growing very, very aggressively
2) I am an engineer by trade, and have taken a very scientific approach to learning. I was happy enough with my grow that I decided to augment with CO2. I put my lights and CO2 (tank) on a timer, and stopped my intake and exhaust every 1.5 hours during lights on, filled the tent with ~1500ppms and left the fans off for a full 10 minutes. A couple of weeks ago, the cold temperatures in my garage subsided, and I think the average temp in the tent might be a bit on the hot side.
3) The equilibrium state I describe above does not seem possible when you elevate potassium and phosphorous. I noticed for instance, that shooting powder increases the ph in my reservoir. So if the plants take up more water and leave nutrients behind, my ph goes up now rather than going down. At first I thought this was an indicator of a problem, and treated it like a slime or algae problem (my plants are under a SCROG, so I cannot inspect the roots).
4) I did some aggressive trimming at weeks 4 and 5

I think I might have stunted them due to some or all of these issues listed above. My question now is, can stress extend flowering in a way that the surge in flower growth normally expected in the last two weeks simply happens later? Im sure the total yield will not be as much, I guess I am just hoping I still have a chance of getting decent yields out of this grow ...

the growing science is advancing everyday and im not disputing what your saying. but i have harvested like this for a number of years and never been dissapointed..

i start counting the day i see the first pistol AFTER flipping 12/12 (not preflower pistols)

everyone is different though

2¢

matthebrute said:

i start counting the day i see the first pistol AFTER flipping 12/12 (not preflower pistols)

everyone is different though

2¢

Click to expand...

Interesting ... I have read that others count this way as well. Do you find that your flowering times closely match those provided by seed companies or no?

never really grew from seed company (current grow is but still in veg stage)

but my last bagseed grow i started counting from that day and it seemed accurate, i did chop a little early (7 weeks) and they were pretty much there but another week or so definatly would not have hurt them.

like i said lust my 2¢ as i dont have many harvests under my belt. i guess its just a matter of preference but i look at it like this, the plant is not actually flowing until that first pistol pops through, if the plant is preflowering when you flip then i would go by flip date, makes sense to me, all this trichome shit i think is way over hyped and just regurjitated crap that people believe to be an exact science. personally i think you can tell just by looking at it..

I emailed subcool today, and asked this exact question. I'll post his exact response shortly, but in brief he says it starts with the 12/12 flip. As a professional breeder,he should know.

PJ Diaz said:

I emailed subcool today, and asked this exact question. I'll post his exact response shortly, but in brief he says it starts with the 12/12 flip. As a professional breeder,he should know.

Click to expand...

And here's the official answer straight from from the breeder's (TGA Genetics) mouth:

I am not sure why people dont get thisflowering starts the day the lights go 12/12 not on some observational guess on the growers part


Sub

Click to expand...

PJ Diaz said:

Then how do you explain my Jack Herer harvested at 50 days after flipping to 12/12?

View attachment 2057484

Click to expand...

I would explain it as you saying you harvested your Jack Herer at 50 days after flipping to 12/12. What's the confusion?

Edit to add: I agree with SubCool and you by the way. I don't get why more people just don't use the objective 'days post-12/12' convention and put an end to the confusion either. My first post wasn't a statement of opinion about which convention is better, just an observation that people tend to exclude the transition period here on these forums and even in the description for flowering times on websites that sell seeds.

This topic has been peaking my interrest aswell. Justnow I have a grow journal that I'm listing the days of flowering as a slashed number (EG) 34/54. This is to convey (days since first sign of flower) / (days since 12/12 flip). The 34/54 is referring to my Pineapple Chunk that says 60days till flower by the breeder. Now she is looking almost ready but not quite at 34/54. I see the harvest falling in the middle, ie - at like day 50/70. When it takes a plant almost three weeks to show flower the gap between the two numbers is huge and the ambiguety of days till harv increases, if your plant only takes 1week to show flower its really only a small issue.

Basically I'm beginning to use an average of the two numbers when growing in soil (as soil I'm told will always be slower)

One important note, microscopes are good and trichomes do help you get better understanding of where your plants at. But theres a more accurate (and obvious) way. Take a small sample, (I take about a wet g and dry to .3) when its near harvesst time. If that shit gets you blasted, its ready. Congratulations, you just did the most scientifically accurate and cheap test to see if it has a good cannabinoid balance.


I said this on a thread about trichs and they started gettin pissed. Ppl still fear new ideas?

I was just about to write something to that effect dawg92,..but yours was a little on the gentle side so, your truth stands,..and I fully agree !! Sometimes youth can be, well,..you know !!