Foxtailing / Dreading

[VerdantGreen]

hi all - this isnt a specific problem but i wondered what the experienced growers knew or do about reducing this.

plants that grow with a fairly regular bud structure until around halfway through flowering and then have a secondary growth spurt where the individual calyx chains stretch.

i realise that a large part of this is down to genetics but i have also heard that it can be caused by too intense light, high temps, too much nitrogen and a few other things.

what works for you? or id this something to be encouraged rather than discouraged? - i find it makes the buds messy and delays harvest.

mine is 250 HPS cabinet grow. Temps are lowish to medium. strains that have done it were my sativa pheno blueberry and sharksbreath.

the sharksbreath was from a friend and i noticed it foxtailed in his garden and wondered if i could reduce this in mine.

thanks
V.

 

[ganjafish]

From my understanding it's simply genetics, there is nothing you can do either way.

 

[VerdantGreen]

From my understanding it's simply genetics, there is nothing you can do either way.

thanks ganjafish, i agree that it is mostly genetics, but this blueberry of mine did not foxtail when grown in a greenhouse last summer - then when i ran it indoors i found the buds sent out new stalks in mid flowering, with little single blade leaves on them. Subcool said it was because the light was too intense but others seemed to disagree with him.

so i thought i'd ask the experts here

 

[cellardweller]

lightleaks will cause this as well and sativas are known for it..
Im no expert, btw..

 

[stihgnobevoli]

might be some merit to this light intensity thing. as my buds are getting closer to the light the ones nearest the bulb are foxtailing. then again could be high heat radiating from the bulb.

 

[VerdantGreen]

lightleaks will cause this as well and sativas are known for it..
Im no expert, btw..

thanks, useful info, i think i could rule this out for my own grow but i'll double check that.

 

[VerdantGreen]

might be some merit to this light intensity thing. as my buds are getting closer to the light the ones nearest the bulb are foxtailing. then again could be high heat radiating from the bulb.

yeah, light seems to link the last two replies. My stretchy bb was i bit too close to the 250 hps bulb because i ran out of headroom. thanks

the leaves hadnt faded that much by harvest (10 weeks) so i think if it started to run out of nitrogen a bit sooner that might help reduce it.

can anyone comment on nutrients and how they might affect foxtailing??

 

[catman]

Is it undesirable? Less yield or what is the gripe?

I got some and my micro plants where like 3'' from a 150w bulb.
That is equivalent to 12'' from a 1000w
10'' from a 600w
7'' from a 400w
5'' from a 250w


I had one do it earlier than the rest and it happened several times like so..it was pretty good smoke.

and this one just sprouted out one tail out of nowhere.

So, is it nature or nurture (caused genetics or caused by environment)?

It could be combination of both or could be two mutually exclusive causes. Or it could be all of the above which is what it seems like.

 

[VerdantGreen]

thanks catman - they are some lovely buds and the foxtailing is well within the range of acceptability - a natty dread??

what i am talking about is more of a new shoot from the buds that actually has single blade leaves as well. almost like the buds went into a small second stretch period - then they tend not to fill out or the rest of the bud matures well and you have to harvest anyway

i think that you are right when you say it is a mixture of genetics, environment and nutrients. m wish i'd taken a photo of it now.

 

[stihgnobevoli]

on inspecting one of my plants. a small runty guy in organics, its foxtailing on the lower nodes which are like a foot or so from the bulb, it sits under a 50whps. maybe genetics, i dont recall any foxtailing in the moms of the seeds i grew the clone from. i didnt finish the grow of the clone mother i had to chop early. i dont think its excess N, the 2 clones im using with lucas formula all have foxtails and the leaves are really green from too much N. but the organic one isnt anywhere near as green but still foxtails.

 

[h^2 O]

yeah sounds like you've got some unwanted sativa genes in there. Death to sativas!

 

[10k]

light leaks and excess N in flowering can cause the buds to send out runners

 

[VerdantGreen]

light leaks and excess N in flowering can cause the buds to send out runners

thanks 10k. would you say it is ok to feed with a (biobizz) bloom fert that is 2 - 6 - 3.5
through most of flowering or would you say that is still too much N for some plants and may cause these runners?

 

[stihgnobevoli]

yeah sounds like you've got some unwanted sativa genes in there. Death to sativas!

lol who doesnt want sativa genes? give em to me i love a good sativa buzz. this one i call sasha is a mexican sativa crossed with an unknown male that was mostly indica.

 

[10k]

thanks 10k. would you say it is ok to feed with a (biobizz) bloom fert that is 2 - 6 - 3.5
through most of flowering or would you say that is still too much N for some plants and may cause these runners?

No. That's not too much N imho.
But a light leak can cause the plants flowering to send out the wispy looking runners, sort of like its trying to reveg.

Another thing that can make a cola shoot out a side bud, like in that picture catman posted, is when one of the colas sugar leaves gets deformed or somehow broken off. The cola will shoot out a bud'let out the side of the cola, just like if you had removed a fan leaf on a vegging plant, the plant auxins will make it branch out sooner when that fan leaf suddenly disappears. Same thing happens in a cola if one of the sugar fan leafs gets removed or damaged enough.

Just for shits and giggles, try carefully removing every other bud leaf alternating side to side on a medium small cola... The bud will end up looking like a medusa 'snake head' budding out in several directions instead of staying in one big tight cola. Looks real freaky.

 

[groady-ho]

i thought foxtailing had more to do with what strain it is or sat or indie..i have some plants at idk 50-60 days and one is starting fox tail alot and one is not..different strains also..

 

[pineappaloupe]

yeah sounds like you've got some unwanted sativa genes in there. Death to sativas!

You are a moron, or your sarcasm doesnt pass through the interwebs.

 

[SAMSEED]

foxtailing is in the bontanical world and happens to alot of flowers throughout the plant world , for example lavender does this very nicely .

peace

 

[stihgnobevoli]

blast from the past.

after having grown a lot more plants since 2009 i think the foxtailing is maybe related to nutes more than environment and temps. the ones i noticed that foxtail the most seem to be lacking something in flower, not nitrogen though. but too much nitrogen can cause foxtails too in a way. i thought too much nitrogen late flower might have been the culprit at first when i started looking at nutes as a cause. i'm gonna have to research some more but i think something that too much nitrogen can lock out, might be whatever nutrient we're looking at here.

wanna clarify i've noticed 2 types of foxtailing, natural plant structure and one cased by something lacking in the plant, or stress foxtailing. some plants naturally seem to foxtail in specific points on their buds giving them a unique look. like i think sour bubble is one. sorta looks like a crown on top. the stress foxtails is when the buds don't have any structure and just turn into buds made of foxtails. i think when this is seen (lotta examples in free your budshots) it's because there is something wrong in the nute profile. i have experienced it myself on a plant grown 2x but second time around all the buds foxtailed out and the smoke was shitty and it didn't frost up like it should, even though it was pale at chop it didn't burn right after weeks in the jar. something was definitely missing that should have helped it finish correctly and form buds properly.

 

[cough_cough_eer]

My plants always foxtail in the summer so I think high temperature has something to do with it. Also Low light ( time to change the bulbs), makes them stretch and foxtail too.