preflowering question

Hi,

I have been reading a couple of growing guides to plan a growing area and starting from seed.

there is always a section dealing with "preflowering".

It is my understanding that sometimes with the naked eye, but surely with a small magnifier, you can detect small "preflowers" at internodes after a certain age( strain dependent) in the 18/6 and other vegging photoperiods.

This helps in getting rid of potential males before switching to 12/12 and demonstrates the plant's sexual maturity.

Questions:

Does anyone have experience with this skill?

I intend to grow a "white widow" and "jack flash"

How big would you expect these strains to get before showing preflowers?

Would 3" rockwool cubes be large enough for vegging? I intend to ebb and flo hydro for vegging and then transplant into 6" pots with hydroton and dutch leach trays using a top feed system under a 600W HPS with light track in a 2' X4'X8' flowering chamber.

Vegging would be with four 4' T5 tubes (20,000 lumens) in a separate area.

thanks

There will be preflowers, if you can let the plant get mature enough. The problem that I've had is being able to tell for sure. Sometimes it's easy to tell, and other times it's not. I guess that there have been times when I read the preflowers and decided it was female, and was surprised. So because of that I don't rely on them, and use the only true way to know.

I haven't grown those strains before, but if you have the time to grow the plant long enough to wait for preflowers, then why not just root a cutting and flower it?

Those cubes will be fine, but I think you'll find that it's better to give them some veg time to root into the rocks, that will give the plants a better base for the bud weight.

HTH

Thanks for the reply.

When you said to root a clone and floer it I was like "duh!!" of course.

I gues I didn't consider it becasue this will be my first grow and trying to learn to clone and all the other skills semd a bit overwhelming.

My question then is:

After I germinate the seeds and get some well established seedlings, how long do I veg them before taking the cuttings for sexing?

Also, I do intend to veg in the hydroton for a couple weeks before switching to 12/12 since I intend to do a ScrOG and want to fill the screen before flowering.

Thanks Again

I've read somewhere here that for clones you want a 6"-8" branch with at least two sets of leaves, and the heathier the better. Check the faq's.
Good luck, I'm on my first too. I'm just gonna toss the males as they show up in 12/12. I figure it's 50/50.

garden knowm posted that thread about nodes before flowering.

probdune said:

Thanks for the reply.

When you said to root a clone and flower it I was like "duh!!" of course.

I guess I didn't consider it because this will be my first grow and trying to learn to clone and all the other skills seem a bit overwhelming.

My question then is:

After I germinate the seeds and get some well established seedlings, how long do I veg them before taking the cuttings for sexing?

Also, I do intend to veg in the hydroton for a couple weeks before switching to 12/12 since I intend to do a ScrOG and want to fill the screen before flowering.

Thanks Again

Click to expand...

When you have a small seedling, once she has a branch that is at least 4 inches long, you can take it for rooting. I would put the clone under 24 hour light for a week, and then 12/12 until rooted, and showing sex.

When using a screen, you should switch to 12/12 when the screen is half full. The growth spurt in flowering will fill the screen.

Have fun!

Not reccomending this but i took 2 inch clones (2 of my plants had shitty branches, probobly more sativa) from my ladies before i flowered and i got them to survive. well.. most of them. actually, one of the clones from me other lades that were 4" didnt survive. go figure. (well it did survive but it rooted so slow i killed it and used the room for better growing plants.)