For producers to maximize your yields and early finishing potential, it is important to follow some important guidelines when moving your plants outside for the summer season. Not all cannabis plants are the same, and not all cannabis seeds perform the same.
One unique aspect of our CBD, CBG, CBDV, THC, and THCV genetics is they have the ability to finish in early autumn outdoors, allowing for growers to have their plants inside and dry before inclement weather hits. We make this possible by using a finely tuned autoflower as one of the parents in all of our crosses. This means harvesting in September in the Northern Hemisphere as opposed to traditional cannabis genetics which finish in October and November.
Along with added hybrid vigor, it also allows plants to initiate flowering in the middle of summer when light hours are closer to 14 hours a day, as opposed to traditional cannabis genetics which commence flowering at 12 hours of light.
Keep in mind this is not just sunrise to sunset as the pre-dawn and post-set light also plays a role. In addition, our genetics behave similar across the continental US in terms of when flower onset begins and is not just correlated to the length of days.
We do not fully understand the mechanisms - but assume it could have more to do with the changing light spectrum after the solstice that induces flowering.
- Seedlings will go into flower if they are moved outside too early in the spring when day-lengths are not long enough to encourage vegetative growth. Even if plants revert back to vegetative growth, pre-flowering will greatly diminish yields at the end of the season.
- In the northern hemisphere, we recommend moving plants out of greenhouses or from indoors and field or garden planting around June 1. In the Southern hemisphere this would be December 1.
- We strongly discourage planting seedlings outside earlier than May 15 in the Northern Hemisphere, and November 15 in the Southern Hemisphere.
- If you are growing in a greenhouse, or indoors, we recommend a maximum of 18 hours of light on plants prior to moving them outdoors. Some growers choose to scale back their lighting to 16 hours to bring the totals closer to natural day lengths. This reduces the shock, which may cause pre-flowering, when moving plants into the field or gardens.
- If seedlings are planted outside any later than around June 15th in the northern hemisphere, or December 15th in the Southern Hemisphere it will delay flower onset, and delay finishing times. Plants must reach sexual maturity before they can flower.
- If seedlings are started indoors they will need to be hardened off before moving into full sun. This means leaving seedlings in diffused sunlight for 2-3 days and always ensure they have shade in the hottest times of the day.
- Seedlings started in greenhouses generally do not need to be hardened off.
- We plant seedlings outside when they are 6-12" (15-30 cm's) tall, and are easily removed from vegetable seed starter trays.
- Do not let seedlings become overly rootbound or stretch too much prior to putting them outside. Overly rootbound plants take longer to overcome transplant shock, and plants that have stretched too much may break in the wind.
