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EARLY SEXING
It’s possible to tell the sex of a plant early, and thus move male plants out of the main growing area sooner by covering a plant’s lower branch for 12 hours a day while it’s in a constant
light vegetative state. Use a black paper bag or equivalent to allow for air flow while keeping out light. Be sure to set up a regular cycle for these covered branches. If light is allowed to reach them during
the dark period, they may not indicate early at all. Use a magnifying glass to look at the early flowers sex type. A male plant will have a small club (playing card) looking preflower with a small stem under
it. A female flower is usually a single or double pistil, white and wispy, emerging from an immature calyx. Some people like to pre-force plants when they are 8” tall, in order to weed out the males. When
growing outdoors, many growers do not wish to devote
time, space or energy to male plants. Just put the plants on a 12 hours light cycle for 2 weeks, separate the females from the males, then revert the light cycle back to 18-24 hours to continue vegatative
growth for the females. Keep in mind, this is a time consuming process and can put the plants back 2 weeks in growth. Don’t pre-force plants unless you have lots of time. Just cover one branch per plant with
black paper (light tight, breaths air) 12 hours every day under constant light to force pre-flowers and differentiate early.
REGENERATION
It is possible to harvest plants and then rejuvenate them vegetatively for a 2nd and even 3rd harvest. A second harvest can be realized in as little as 6-8 weeks. Since the plant’s stalk, and
roots are already formed, the plant can produce a second, even third harvest of buds in a little more than half the time of the original harvest. When harvesting, take off the top 1/3rd of the plant. Leave most
healthy fan leaves in the middle of the plant, cutting buds off branches carefully. On the lower 1/3rd of the plant, take off end flowers, but leave several small flowers on each branch. These will be the part
of the plant that is regenerated. The more buds you leave on the plant, the faster it will regenerate. Feed the plant some Miracle Grow or any high nitrogen plant food immediately after harvest. When you intend
to regenerate a plant, make sure it never gets too starved for nitrogen as it is maturing, or all the sun leaves will fall off, and your plant will not have enough leaves to live after being harvested.
Harvested plants can come inside for rejuvenation under continuous light or are left outside in Summer to rejuvenate in the natural long days. It will take 7-14 days to see signs of new growth when regenerating a plant.
As stated before, and in contrast to normal growth patterns, lower branches will be the first to sprout new vegetative growth. Allow the plant to grow
a little vegetatively, then take outside again to reflower. Or keep inside for vegetative cuttings. You now have two or three generations of plants growing, and will need more space outside. But you will now be harvesting
twice as often. As often as every 30 days, since you have new clones or seedlings growing, vegetative plants ready to flower, and regenerated plants flowering too.
Regenerating indoors can create problems if your plants are infected with pests. It may be best to have a separate area indoors that will not allow your plants to infect the main indoor area. An
alternative to regenerating indoors is to regenerate outdoors in the Summer. Just take a harvest in June, then allow the plant to regenerate by leaving some lower buds on the
plant, and leaving the middle 1/3rd of the plant’s leaves at harvest. Feed it nitrogen, and make sure it gets lots of sun. It will regenerate all Summer and be quite large by Fall, when it will start to
flower again naturally. |
