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Re-evaluating start dates in Ireland for HFH strains.

C

COOKIE MONSTER

I have been delaying starting this thread for a few months until I was 100% sure and my first batch of plants switched into flowering and none of them flowered prematurely.

So here goes...

HP, HP2 and HFH Danish Gold strains in the first batch were planted at the end of February in a heated green house then moved outdoors when the weather allowed.
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Given that we only had daylight hours of between 9.5/10 hours per day at that time of year you would expect them to go straight into flower once they hit 4 or 5 nodes but this is not the case.
All 3 strains made no attempt to flower what so ever.

March 28th
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April 10th
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April 15th, first few males showing sex, HP2
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April 25th, first of the females showing sex (hp2)
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May 1st Danish Gold females showing sex
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May 12th HP, HP2, Danish Gold females all sexed.
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June 24th HP2 and Danish Gold are starting to flower
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C

COOKIE MONSTER

Heres a few from the 2nd batch planted at the end of April which are only beginning to sex now.

May 8th
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June 20th
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Every plant pictured in both posts was grown under natural light and before anybody says this years plant have started to flower because they are in pots and root bound, take a look at 2010's outdoor thread and you will see that last years plants sown in the soil started to flower around the same time.

Well I hope this is of help to a few of you guys and I would encourage all you Irish HFH growers to try an early batch next year.
Stay safe n happy.
 
esbe

esbe

hybridsfromhell
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Veteran
awesome observations my friend! love and learn every day, the way to go!
 
rocket high

rocket high

Active member
Veteran
i'll defo start early next year .... i was a little late to the party this year i planted out the last week of may and my plants are small.... so it would make sense to start that wee bit earlier.

good info there Cookie ;)

ps thats the biggest stone mushroom in Ireland by the looks of it ..lol :biggrin:
 
V

VonBudí

ヾ(⌐■_■)ノ
Veteran
that danish gold looks great, you got those cross you made running? With the plants started that early and in pots do they ever get root bound, or moved in doors much?
 
C

COOKIE MONSTER

VonBudí said:
that danish gold looks great, you got those cross you made running? With the plants started that early and in pots do they ever get root bound, or moved in doors much?
Click to expand...

Yeah the Danish Gold is looking good, it's had a rough life outdoors with the weather this year but it's a tough strain and well suited to our shitty weather.

Yep I've a few of last years cross (HFH Hash Plant x Sour Queen/White Russian) on the go.
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No real signs of being root bound, pots are reasonably big and the soil/compost mix they are in is quite rich so the roots should not have far to go to find food.

The first batch spent from late Feb to the start of April in the greenhouse, then outside.....if temps hit 6C or lower they came back into the GH.
 
V

VonBudí

ヾ(⌐■_■)ノ
Veteran
great that them getting rootbound isnt a problem, ill try give them an early start next year. What sized pots are they btw?
 
C

COOKIE MONSTER

20-25L pots......but they have gone into the ground now, was having to water every day and got sick of it.
 
C

CatchYourBreath

Hello CM!

Nice thread, You have very interesting genetic's in garden.
I pick up chair and watching.

Good luck
 
C

COOKIE MONSTER

CatchYourBreath said:
Hello CM!

Nice thread, You have very interesting genetic's in garden.
I pick up chair and watching.

Good luck
Click to expand...

:wave: CYB
HFH genetics are very good for my climate, the early flowering on the older plants is helpful to beat the weather and it's a blessing that the males flower well before the females.

Few more pics of both batches

Hash Plant, Hash Plant2 from the late April batch still in veg
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Danish Gold, Hash Plant2 From the late Feb. batch forming nice little buds.
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Ironeek

Ironeek

Member
Nice work as always Cookie. I would have also expected them to go straight into flower when started that early. Given the shite summer we are having (coldest in 40 odd years) the early start seems to have made the world of difference. Beautiful plants. I for one will certainly be revaluating start times next year. Thanks for the share.
 
C

COOKIE MONSTER

Ironeek said:
I would have also expected them to go straight into flower when started that early. Given the shite summer we are having (coldest in 40 odd years) the early start seems to have made the world of difference.
Click to expand...

:wave: Iron, nice to see you bro.

I suppose by rights they should have gone into flower, in Feb when they were planted we were on 12 hours light, same for much of March.
Several much more experienced outdoor growers have told me that HFH strains can be light sensitive so perhaps the lengthening day light hours stopped them from flowering???

Only real way to test this is to plant the few remaining HFH seeds in Oct. when we have the same hours of light but diminishing not increasing.

Time will tell :)
 
gunnaknow

gunnaknow

Active member
COOKIE MONSTER said:
I suppose by rights they should have gone into flower, in Feb when they were planted we were on 12 hours light, same for much of March.
Click to expand...

Hey Cookie, they wouldn't have gone straight into flower when they were planted in Feb because they needed to reach the preflowering stage of development first. In this case, it took about 8 weeks for them to reach that stage, which is pretty typical. By that time it was already early May and the photoperiod was starting to get too long for heavy flowering.

I have no idea what your latitude is so I'll just use Dublin for my calculation because it's roughly in the middle and can be used as a good average between north and south. On May 1st, when your plants were starting to show sex, the day length + civil twilight equalled 16 hrs 23 mins. However, I've been outside with a watch at the end of civil twilight before and came to the conclusion that it might still be a little too bright for plants but that it was dark enough approx. 15 mins later. So you might want to add 30 mins in total (2 x 15) to the figure, which comes to almost 17 hrs.

The plants may have initiated flowering at that point but on 17 hrs and the days only getting longer, they wouldn't have had enough dark to enter full bloom. I've seen this happen before, they just end up flowering really slowly. If yours finish a few weeks earlier than they otherwise would have then perhaps it was worth it though.

If you want them to begin flowering almost as soon as you put them out in Feb/March then they need to have either been pregrown indoors until they have preflowered, or they need to be clones from a mother, which will already be sexually mature. Hope this helped mate.

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=78&month=5&year=2011&obj=sun&afl=-13&day=1
 
S

smokinweedgi

Member
great thread cookie monster and thanks for this info, i held of with start dates this year(hfh seeds mid scotland) cause was worried about early flowering ,will be no worries about this next year u saved me a whole lot of experimenting good luck with your grow
 
C

COOKIE MONSTER

esbe said:
they should be well into flower by now?
Click to expand...

By rights they should be but they seem to have just sat there these past few weeks doing nothing.
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HP2 and Danish Gold from the first batch, hp2 is looking better than the DG
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HP and HP2 from the second batch started at the normal time are barely making any buds
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We have had a bad summer with plenty of rain and cold so perhaps that has retarded growth, but I do think the buds should be bigger.
The little biddy early has had a lot less direct light as it's in the shaded green house but seems to be doing well given the hard life it has had.
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Your genetics are fine, there's no problems there so it must be either the weather or I'm just having a slow season.
Worst comes to the worst sure I have enough plant numbers to do a really nice hash run have gained more valuable experience growing hfh over here in ireland.

Live and learn :tiphat:
 
esbe

esbe

hybridsfromhell
Mentor
Veteran
happy to see cookie bro! they will explode in flowers soon im shure. maby it will show good they didnt start flowering before now due to the massive rainfalls. i think the really earlies are molding away this season
 
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