Devastation of a tiny light leak

944s2 · Oct 30, 2017

just a quickie about how even the smallest light leak could cause chaos,,,
i realised at week 2 of bloom that i had shade on the top right hand side of the room,,not bright light or streaks of light just shade lighter then the darkness,,my fault as we have been spending time away,,,
My alarm bells sounded,,, so after a few hours of checking i had to cut 13 plants down followed by another 3 plants a couple of days later,although i may have been too hasty with the last couple,,
very luckily the herms balls were all pulpy so no damage done,
Now down to 36 plants from 53 and the room actually looks better,just sprayed with bio boost accelerator with lights off and they look very healthy,
Around 35-40 plants is the best number for this room i believe and running 7-8 different varietys from fem seed is too risky as i have been warned, when something like this happens,,,,,many of the older varietys in this room were rock solid and didnt turn,,,,,,
So back to 3 or 4 varietys with the odd testers for the future,,,,,s2

DocTim420 · Oct 31, 2017

My thinking is...if a tiny "light stress" made them flip to hermie, then it would be a matter of time before another "unexpected" stressor would do the job.

My last seed run was real disappointing, an incredible hermie ratio that almost equaled the "boy/girl" number (unstable genetics????). Some hermied in veg but most hermied in flower and I think using lamps with a goodly amount of UVB (7.2k Kelvin) for the first few weeks in flower kinda pushed the issue. Those that did not hermie shown attributes of strong amazon long legged ladies worthy to be "brought home to mama" (aka "keepers").

Weird · Oct 31, 2017

I haven't had that issue in what seems to be 20 years and I often fuck up with the lights or oepning the door etc

I have to go through my flower to get to my veg, I normally have them in the same room

944s2 · Oct 31, 2017

Yeah Weird,,,
A door opened for a few secs or a timer issue is something we have experianced but a sustained period of shade above the darkness is what done us,,,,
Thing that bothers me slightly is the fact that those that went to the darkside were testers and new varietys and the older varietys remained rock solid but with having 53 fem beans and 7 ta 8 different varietys then its not suprising we had this outcome,,,,s2

944s2 · Oct 31, 2017

DocTim420 said:
My thinking is...if a tiny "light stress" made them flip to hermie, then it would be a matter of time before another "unexpected" stressor would do the job.

My last seed run was real disappointing, an incredible hermie ratio that almost equaled the "boy/girl" number (unstable genetics????). Some hermied in veg but most hermied in flower and I think using lamps with a goodly amount of UVB (7.2k Kelvin) for the first few weeks in flower kinda pushed the issue. Those that did not hermie shown attributes of strong amazon long legged ladies worthy to be "brought home to mama" (aka "keepers").

Hey Doc,,,
in my pics of other runs this is something that hasnt occured where its resulted in losing so many females so for us its the shade that caused this,,,,,s2

DocTim420 · Nov 1, 2017

The conflict I have about light leaks is what happens in nature...like full moon. I think both of us have seen bright moons in the middle of night, so bright that you can read by the "moonlight". That can be one huge light leak source.

And for us that live in the city, we this contraption called streetlights. About a third of my outdoor veggie garden is illuminated at night by a streetlight--and after about 20 years of growing various plants in my raised boxes, I have yet to see any variation between plants "illuminated" vs "non-illuminated" at night.

I vote the reason for the increase of our "hermie" problems with cannabis is due to unstable genetics (breeder).

944s2 · Nov 1, 2017

DocTim420 said:
The conflict I have about light leaks is what happens in nature...like full moon. I think both of us have seen bright moons in the middle of night, so bright that you can read by the "moonlight". That can be one huge light leak source.

And for us that live in the city, we this contraption called streetlights. About a third of my outdoor veggie garden is illuminated at night by a streetlight--and after about 20 years of growing various plants in my raised boxes, I have yet to see any variation between plants "illuminated" vs "non-illuminated" at night.

I vote the reason for the increase of our "hermie" problems with cannabis is due to unstable genetics (breeder).

There is a possibility that the genetics could be the cause but i wont call out peeps genetics especially when i know them irl until i am 100% sure it was the primary cause but yes doc the thought had crossed my mind on more then one occasion and even more so when the older varietys remained "rock solid",,,,,,,,,
Our next run in this room will be very interesting as now i have taken measures to ensure totally no light leaks so we shall see,,,s2

DocTim420 · Nov 1, 2017

Two sides of the coin.

Heads: Do I initiate stress to identify and cull potential hermies?
Tales: Do I gingerly avoid stress and pray for no hermies?

I know, paying good money for seeds may cloud the objective part of one's mind...but when the "male ratio" and "hermie ratio" are damn near equal--one has to scratch their head and say WTF! Fast-rewind 15 years ago...I ran my first 100 seed run and not one hermie in the bunch...just half boys and half girls. Last years' run I even got hermies in veg--they did not need to wait for a 12 hour photoperiod to show their game. A buddy of mine (different seeds) kinda got similar results last month...25 males, 15 hermies and 10 females.

Chevy cHaze · Nov 1, 2017

Crazy Shit and a pity you had to cut them down s2.
Although I grow in a flimsy tent I have never had a problem with hermies from light leaks.
If I stick my head into my flower compartment with lights out, I can even see a bit of light coming in from the veg compartment (one tent- three compartments) and even that has never been as issue.
I'll have to take this more seriously in the future I guess, or a your growing Cookies hahaha ?
All the best and eternal darkness to you Sir !
(at least during lights out)
CC

944s2 · Nov 1, 2017

Chevy cHaze said:
Crazy Shit and a pity you had to cut them down s2.
Although I grow in a flimsy tent I have never had a problem with hermies from light leaks.
If I stick my head into my flower compartment with lights out, I can even see a bit of light coming in from the veg compartment (one tent- three compartments) and even that has never been as issue.
I'll have to take this more seriously in the future I guess, or a your growing Cookies hahaha ?
All the best and eternal darkness to you Sir !
(at least during lights out)
CC

Hey Chevy,,,
i do think i was a tad hasty with a couple but so many balls i wouldnt risk it and running two good sized rooms perpetually and not experiencing this on such a scale was a wake up call re= future runs
thanks for the kind words mate,,,, :tiphat:

s2

Weird · Nov 1, 2017

In the past when I did experience hermies some of the common denominators where heat stress, co2, chemical feed and light intensity

it seems that the plants stresses I experienced in the past because of less plant stress

in my instance it seemed to strongly correlate with the addition and proper maintenance beneficial bacteria more than any other factor

810FireFarm · Nov 1, 2017

it was the genetics, not the tiniest of leak...the moon varies in brightness by cycle and cloud cover...not causing herms

many of seed co's sell unstable seed lines

mack 10 · Nov 1, 2017

Sour lines are known for this too.
Sucks @ S2, but I'm sure the other lady's will fill out more
With the better spacing, now.

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Devastation of a tiny light leak

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