[mort goldman]

SOFT,

I have some swt4 that have been growing in my tent for a while now (no idea of the exact time) and i have three distinct plants. Two are female in which one has auto-flowered almost completely with full on crystals and full buds and the other has the exact same structure that just hasn't auto-ed yet. The third plant is a male that is full as hell, and beautiful (which i just trimmed). This two that auto flowered did so under a 24 hour light cycle. The auto flowering is my own doing through sheer laziness in that i have kept them in 16 oz hempys for what has got to be at least 3 months if i had to guess.

My big question is regarding the auto-flowering female. What is the best way for me to reveg her? I have had about a 50/50 success rate with reveging plants and i want to ensure my best chances of this one coming back. (it is still flowering/growing very slowly). Would i be best off re-potting in a bigger container so i can give the roots some room to stretch out and then take some cuttings and ensure that they have more than enough root space?

And, lastly....
What is my best bet for keeping her as a mother? I have never dealt with a plant that can literally full on flower under 24 hours of light. She looks killer and i can only imagine what she will do once i give her proper light, root space and nutes.

These are some really awesome plants! the smell is out of this world and the structure is unreal! With just a little bit of tying the lateral branches down, i am thinking that this beast will be gorgeous and full of bud. (I cannot post pics on an open board like this just yet, but once i can i will for sure)

Mort

[SOTF420]

The auto flowering is my own doing through sheer laziness in that i have kept them in 16 oz hempys for what has got to be at least 3 months if i had to guess.

Hi Mort, thanks for your post and questions. I will be glad to help. To start, yes if you leave them in a beer cup size container for 3 months then some are gonna autoflower like you are well aware of but hey transplanting is hard work heh? Just kidding man, but not really lol

So on the rootbound auto female one you like that I do not recommend keeping as a specific mother (unless you grow out new clones of her after she fully revegges), she is gonna need to go into a larger container at least 1 gallon in size and best would be a smartpot full of a rich organic mix high in N or other medium you prefer that is well saturated in nutes high in Nitrogen. Increasing container size is of course the best answer but once they are far gone and very rootbound it is about a 50/50 chance at bringing them back over to the good side if they have started to suffer severe nute health issues as a result. When plants are totally rootbound they actually begin to die and as a mechanism of survival start to do everything they can to reproduce and have a future generation survive. This is survival of the fittest in it's purest and most simple form

Now before you transplant take a large cup of water (around 16 oz's is perfect) and add about 1/4 tsp of superthrive in it and stir well then PH adjust to around 6 to 6.5 if necessary. Pour this solution completely over the plants roots (while holding it over the container it's going into) and make sure you soak the center of the medium right where it's being transplanted into liberally. Anywhere roots are going to make contact make sure it get's hit with some superthrive and also water the plant with some for the next week or so just at a much lower dose. 1/4 tsp per GALLON works great.

When you take the plant out of it's current home if you see where roots are severely wrapping around and circling in the cup or container you need to gently pull these away and try to loosen them up a bit from themselves breaking as little as possible which works best with wet hands & wet roots and starting at the bottom. If there is a solid clump of roots on the bottom that is thick to the point water will not get through them nearly then you need to score a line across them with a clean sharp razor or knife and gently break that in half and spread it outwards a bit to stimulate new root growth from them. Trim away any dead roots that are brown or discolored. The idea here is to loosen up the confined root mass and do as little damage as possible before they go in their new much larger home. Otherwise they may continue to be confined in that swirling mass of compacted roots and not reach out properly into the new space.

Lastly you need to prune off all current flowers and new bud growth which is helping the plant to continue to produce flowering hormones. Trim away all major buds and leave as many leafs, branches, and branch tips as possible. You do not have to hack the plant to death here just cut away the flowers and remember all you need to do is get it to start growing new healthy tips to clone from so it might not look perfect after trimming away the buds but that is okay. You just need to maintain as little flower growth on the plant as possible and just like you might do with a male when pulling off pollen sac's that is what you are going to do with the female and her calyx bunches. These of course can be dried and smoked or turned into a concentrate like hash oil if you have enough material and like you said it is full of crystals so don't waste it because it's still good.

So now you have transplanted, and pruned off floral growth, you are returning the plant to a 24 hour light cycle and if possible make sure there are high levels of BLUE light such as that from a Metal Halide bulb or 6500k T5's or similiar and you need to continue to remove any new flower growth that returns in the next 10 to 14 days. The same time it normally takes plants to start flowering is around the same time it's gonna take the plant to STOP flowering. Plus it's going to need to grow out some new roots and stop producing the flowering hormones that are causing it to flower as a survival mechanism. Once it starts to revert back to a veg state you will notice odd looking sometimes single leaf blades that can be twisted and distorted and even covered in trichs. This is expected and just continue to feed it a balanced nutrient that is high in N such as most commercial veg formulas, the higher levels of Nitrogen support new vegetative stem and leaf growth and discourage excess flowering.

So like I was saying this new strange revegged growth is perfectly normal and the plant will soon outgrow this state of flower/veg confusion that is simply caused by hormones in the plant switching around from one stage to another. Continue to water the plant regularly and you can still add a few drops of superthrive to all feedings to speed up the process of reveg but basically once it starts growing out healthy stems and foliage again then you can clone it and treat those as normal non-auto plants although you have now established that this plant IS sensitive to rootbound autoflowering just like the SPG mother was because after all Swt #4 is a very large part SPG genetically. If you wish you can take some of these clones and grow them out as new healthy viable mothers for salad production provided you give them ample rootspace and do not allow them to become severely rootbound again. This is best accomplished by using a smartpot or airpot as opposed to a hard container since it will allow for natural root pruning of the plant as to prevent some of the issues regarding it and encourage the plant to send out more lateral roots from the main stem instead of roots just circling in the container. If possible though in many circumstances it's just going to be best to choose the non-auto when rootbound females for long term mothers as they can be kept in smaller containers but as we all know sometimes the best ones that most closely resemble the SPG clone do in fact have the autoflowering when rootbound survival mechanism.

Finally, when that revegged mother is all bushed back out healthy & green and you have cloned from her enough then you can put her under a normal 12/12 flowering period and get a nice full healthy flowering response and allow her to bloom to completion. She will definitely yield much more and of a much higher quality than what you have seen from her in the rootbound autoflowering state. Remember the happiest and healthiest plants grow the biggest sweetest frostiest buds!


I hope this has helped and as always, MUCH love! Please get us some pics when you can and let us know how she goes brother. Always here also if you have anything further.

[mort goldman]

Thanks for the detailed response SOFT, I love it.

Is it possible that topping the plant a few weeks back could have kick started regular veg growth? As i am looking at this beauty it looks like it has started to reveg slightly (which i think helps my chances at a total reveg to take new clones). I have single bladed leaves starting to grow from the tops of the flowers which look like they too are growing a bit.

On to my next question.

The whole plant (block of roots included) will pop right out of the cup with little to no coaxing. As i inspected the roots all i noticed was a tiny hint of green coloring (which i am guessing is algae as the cups aren't 100% light proof.), but other than that the roots are all white and beautiful. I should be okay popping this out and loosening the roots and transplanting what was once a perlite hempy into a smart pot with coco and perlite as long as i follow the instructions you posted earlier?



Also, once this reverts back to total vegetative growth and i get healthy clones and i want to keep one as a mother, what precautions can i take to ensure that i keep the plant from auto-flowering again?

[mort goldman]

Just an update SOTF,

So i took some of your advice and trimmed everything save a few shoots and let the girl reveg. (i however could not bring myself to trim the roots just yet)

After a few weeks she started throwing out new growth and reveging. I was fortunate enough to get several cuts that rooted with the quickness. After a week or so of regular growth she reverted back to flower which leads me to wonder if this may be SPG dominant.

Either way the rooted cuts will be getting a week or two of veg in some coco hempys (to establish roots) and i will toss them in my flower tent to fill in some gaps in my vert grow.

I am still not 100% sure how i feel about posting pics on the internet, but if i can get a cheap new camera in the next couple of weeks i may toss a few up.

Thanks for the advice and the sweet seeds, bro!

Mort

[mort goldman]

Originally Posted by SOTF420

Increasing container size is of course the best answer but once they are far gone and very rootbound it is about a 50/50 chance at bringing them back over to the good side if they have started to suffer severe nute health issues as a result. When plants are totally rootbound they actually begin to die and as a mechanism of survival start to do everything they can to reproduce and have a future generation survive. This is survival of the fittest in it's purest and most simple form

Also, i have to call shenanigans on this bit right here haha.

This plant would root in my compost heap, an veg solid with a flashlight. I really cant believe how vigorous this one is. I just hope it flowers half as well as it veg's