Moving plants from inside to outside without triggering flower

[Mountain Goat]

Hi Guys and Gals

I have rooted clones and put them in small pots 3 days after rooting under dome......they have been kept indoors on 18/6 for 5 days.....so from roots showing under the dome till now, they are a total of 8 days old. I want to take 8 of these rooted/potted clones and move them outside and grow them out into 8 x 18 gallon bags with soil.

Current day length is 14 hours light and we hit 14.5 hours by Dec 26.......day length reduces and cannabis flowers outside around April. I am in South Africa. Everything that I have read tells me that they will go to flower with the change from 18/6 to 14/10.

Question.......can I put up 2 x incandescent light bulbs (100w), place them amongst the plants on poles and run them on a timer for an extra 4 hours.....thus having 14 hours of natural daylight and 4 hours of bulbs, totalling 18 hours of light to hold them in veg.
Question........Will the 2 bulbs......weaker than normal sunlight be strong enough to hold the plants in veg or are the plants more clever than I give them credit?

I will use this regime till March and them kill the supplemental lighting and let them flower as per normal season.

The 5 days indoors have been under CMH 315w starting at 5000 lux and now receiving 18000 lux......plants happy and growing like crazy. When I take them outside I will give them partial shade and harden them off.......and pot them up 3 times before they go into the big bags.

 

[Dwight Monk]

They shouldn't flower at 14 hrs light, most strains needs to be closer to 12 before they will. When I first started growing I was at 24 hrs light until I read more on it and agreed with the plants needed to sleep, I dropped down to 16/8 and it didn't trigger them as they didn't flower until I put it at 12 or less lights on time.

 

[Mountain Goat]

I have seen raging debates all over different forums from all over the world and they all seem to go around in circles with very heated debate. The gist of the argument is half agree with your theory and the other half do not agree and are experiencing flower being triggered. Some clever guys advise to match indoor lighting with the outdoor light from the get go....and then do the transfer. I did not do this, doing some outdoor was an after through to use some surplus clones and I have the balance (60 plants) of my crop, which is staying indoors vegging at 18/6.

My personal theory is that 14/10 is that the 14/10 is just "too close" to the 12/12, creates confusion with the plant and the move is enough to trigger flower. I think if the clone rooted outside or a seedling germinates outside at 14/10 you are good to go through the normal outdoor cycle with no premature flower.....but fiddling around moving on the minimal light margins is risky?
I simply don't want to risk a flower trigger and then re-veg.....for me it would just be a waste of time.

I suppose my real question is.....will 2 x household incandescent light bulbs lighting for 4 hours be enough light to fool the plants.....thinking of light leaks in a flower room......I would imagine its enough light? Really looking for confirmation?

 

[BeanTownFan420]

YES! The plants can sense any light over full moon strength.Some say even a flash light on them for a few seconds is enough to prevent the flowering hormone to build.

 

[Lerugged]

Hey man. Hi from cape town. Just did the same but I rooted my cuts on 14/10 schedule. Use a cfl rather than incandescent to supplement the extra hours until it matches the natural light cycle. That should be fine. Just acclimate your cuts in the shade and give more sun each day . They should be good to go. Good luck

 

[Lerugged]

Have youa met the other locals here? @Smeegol , @Strainyourbrain , @Dkmg01 @NoobyMacDooby @Rhys777 .

 

[Dkmg01]

I was summoned

 

[SmokingWings]

Current day length is 14 hours light and we hit 14.5 hours by Dec 26.......day length reduces and cannabis flowers outside around April. I am in South Africa. Everything that I have read tells me that they will go to flower with the change from 18/6 to 14/10.

Yes, just as here in the North American continent we start to notice the plants forming flowers in August, usually by mid August, when the days are 14 hours and the night 10 hours. Our longest day is around the 20th to 22nd of June which should be your shortest day or the calendar beginning of your winter.

I think most of us forget that the times listed for sunrise and sunset are part of the science used by astronomers. As gardeners or farmers we have to remember that the plants go by usable sunlight. When the astronomers say will be 14 hours of daylight we can subtract one hour of weak light in the morning and one hour of weak light in the evening. We end up with 12 hours of little or not enough light to allow photosynthesis to take place and instead the plant starts producing the hormones that trigger and support flowering. The plant needs 12 or more hours of the hormone production. Shorter than that and there is not enough.

The easiest thing to do it just wait a couple of weeks and put the plants outside. That would be about the same as when we start putting our plants outside in May or early June in North America.

I figure that what throws a lot of us off when we try to relate to this is that we keep forgetting that when we grow inside using lights it is an artificial light.

Tidbit of info. The astronomers measure sunrise for any location as the minute that the very first part of the sun hits the horizon line. They measure the minute of sunset when the last bit of the sun drops below the horizon line. We might not see this happening because of trees, mountains, or buildings being in the way.

 

[Smeegol]

I do basically the same except I carry mine indoors for the extra hours of light, but this year I've just kept them outdoors from the get go and some were well into flower and now revegging and some haven't skipped a beat at all...

 

[Mountain Goat]

Thanks you all for the healthy advice.......I am going to go with a CFL to add the extra 4 hours light hours to ensure no flower trigger. I will set the light timer to drop very slowly.......... 15 minutes a week to meet up with the natural light cycle......but I will only try that after a month or two so of good solid veg.

I bought some clones awhile back and they must have been clones taken from flowering plants .......clone supplier did not disclose this to me. They started growing all weird shape leaves, twisted, deformed, one blade and two blade leaves......I assumed this is re-vegging......did not like it and prefer the good ol traditional way clones from vegging mothers.

 

[PaleSun]

@Mountain Goat FYI, go into shady or screened area for the first 5-10 days when you move your babies outside. They'll get acclimated to the sun instead of burn

Salut!

 

[Mountain Goat]

@Mountain Goat FYI, go into shady or screened area for the first 5-10 days when you move your babies outside. They'll get acclimated to the sun instead of burn

Salut!

 

[MrX]

Hi Guys and Gals

I have rooted clones and put them in small pots 3 days after rooting under dome......they have been kept indoors on 18/6 for 5 days.....so from roots showing under the dome till now, they are a total of 8 days old. I want to take 8 of these rooted/potted clones and move them outside and grow them out into 8 x 18 gallon bags with soil.

Current day length is 14 hours light and we hit 14.5 hours by Dec 26.......day length reduces and cannabis flowers outside around April. I am in South Africa. Everything that I have read tells me that they will go to flower with the change from 18/6 to 14/10.

Question.......can I put up 2 x incandescent light bulbs (100w), place them amongst the plants on poles and run them on a timer for an extra 4 hours.....thus having 14 hours of natural daylight and 4 hours of bulbs, totalling 18 hours of light to hold them in veg.
Question........Will the 2 bulbs......weaker than normal sunlight be strong enough to hold the plants in veg or are the plants more clever than I give them credit?

I will use this regime till March and them kill the supplemental lighting and let them flower as per normal season.

The 5 days indoors have been under CMH 315w starting at 5000 lux and now receiving 18000 lux......plants happy and growing like crazy. When I take them outside I will give them partial shade and harden them off.......and pot them up 3 times before they go into the big bags.

yes you can, been doing it for more than a decade, i use 5w 12v LED's on a frame outdoors, since the plants are getting full sun most of the day HID are not needed, only enough light to stop plant plant from going into flower mode, then when plants are at optimal size the added lighting is discontinued as the natural light period comes into 12/12 as it is heading into the cooler mths, you may need to put a cover over your light/s & plants at nite so neighbors do not see like i have to

 

[Mountain Goat]

yes you can, been doing it for more than a decade, i use 5w 12v LED's on a frame outdoors, since the plants are getting full sun most of the day HID are not needed, only enough light to stop plant plant from going into flower mode, then when plants are at optimal size the added lighting is discontinued as the natural light period comes into 12/12 as it is heading into the cooler mths, you may need to put a cover over your light/s & plants at nite so neighbors do not see like i have to

Perfect reply Mr X.......thank you.....the theory all adds up.....just wanted someone who has done this on a consistent basis in practice, to confirm.
Next time I consider do this i will think things through more carefully and root at 14/10 instead of the traditional 18/6.

 

[MrX]

Perfect reply Mr X.......thank you.....the theory all adds up.....just wanted someone who has done this on a consistent basis in practice, to confirm.
Next time I consider do this i will think things through more carefully and root at 14/10 instead of the traditional 18/6.

all good, i personally do 20hrs light/4 hours off, never had any negative from doing that, but whatever works works, good luck there

 

[Lerugged]

Perfect reply Mr X.......thank you.....the theory all adds up.....just wanted someone who has done this on a consistent basis in practice, to confirm.
Next time I consider do this i will think things through more carefully and root at 14/10 instead of the traditional 18/6.

Yeah it definitely Helps to root at that cycle as then you can put your plants out with additional lighting until mid Dec and you shouldn't need any to supplement any lighting after that. Days already 14 hours here but take into account dawn and dusk are weak light so I don't include an hour for that. Direct sunlight hits my deck about 20 min after sunrise and stops 30 min before sunset. Hope that makes sense .

 

[Mountain Goat]

Yeah it definitely Helps to root at that cycle as then you can put your plants out with additional lighting until mid Dec and you shouldn't need any to supplement any lighting after that. Days already 14 hours here but take into account dawn and dusk are weak light so I don't include an hour for that. Direct sunlight hits my deck about 20 min after sunrise and stops 30 min before sunset. Hope that makes sense .

I moved vegging clones (18 hours light) from indoors under CMH's to outside. Semi shade and then full sun.......potted up to 6.5 liter and again to 15 liter. Once the 15 liter pot is filled out, I will end up in 70 liter outdoor bag.....with a mixture of super soil and a little natural compost.
I ran a ripcord flex to a 8w bulb in outdoor waterproof fitting, which I positioned next to the plant......the lighting is on a timer..... on with sunrise at 5am for an hour and on again at sunset 8pm till 11pm.......... she is staying perfectly in veg. Our summer solstice was 21 Dec and now our normal sunlight days will start to shorten.......normal outdoor season flowering is late March into April.....I will probably cut the supplemental lighting around mid-March and just let her fall bang into flower.

Purely as a fun experiment, I took 6 clones off my main indoor crop plants the day that I flipped to 12/12. So they are in the flower room off on the side in a dome.......rooting at 12/12..........once they have rooted and settled into a small pot, I will experiment moving them straight outdoors to natural day length and no supplemental lighting to see if they simply continue to veg through to normal flower season.