Poor Conditions can slow down flowering.

Anyone who's done some growing knows that poor environmental conditions - particularly during flowering - will have a negative impact on a plant's size yield and potency.

What's not always known is that poor conditions can actually slow a plant's flowering and extend the blooming period significantly.



The plants in these photos are virtually identical - clones cut from the same mother at the same time, which rooted at the about same speed, had the same vegetation time and went into flowering in the same time in the same spot.





While overall conditions have been good, the smaller of the two plants has had a tougher time its whole life, and as its clone sister in the same pot has improved, this has made conditions worse for the smaller one.

The two cuttings rooted in a single piece of rockwool (due to space considerations) and were left there until their roots had intertwined so much that separating them would probably have killed at least one of them. So, just for the heck of it, the two were put into the same pot and set to flower (the larger one was a few cm bigger than the smaller one at this stage).

The larger one might have rooted a day or two sooner, and whatever the reason, its root system was the dominant one in the single piece of rockwool.

This gave the larger one an advantage when the rockwool was put in a pot full of clayballs, and allowed it to take over most of the pot with its root system.

This allowed the bigger plant to grow faster, which meant that its foliage could spread faster and absorb most of the light that was hitting the pot, which gave it extra energy to extend its root system, and so on.





Thus, the smaller plant has had a life of less light and less root growth (while still being pretty healthy in and of itself).

The notable thing here is that the smaller one is not only going to yield less, but that it's clearly a couple of weeks behind its clone-sister in maturity.

Lower light leads to less bud, but the larger plant is at about 5-6 weeks flowering, while the smaller is at about 3-4.

Given that all other factors were identical, this is a nice demonstration that poor conditions in flowering really can increase flowering time by weeks.

Very interesting. I wonder if there will be any difference in the taste/aroma of the two?

Well I guess that settles it, my plants need to get back into the sunshine. These things take long enough to flower as it is. Thanks Ganja 

Yeah Ganga that is a classic example of bad conditions slowing flower time. I have just started a new room and found things where inadequete i.e the ventillation was not good enough and the first 12 plants have been slowed down by 2 weeks, I can tell this cos I fixed the problem and put another 8 into flower and alas they are at the same stage now as the first 12. the first 12 are 28 days gone and the 8 are 15 days gone. The temp was a staggering 36 degree C. but now hovers around 24-27 oC. this is the first time I have done things wrong so my querie is: if I leave them all to crop at same time as they are all now at similair stage, will this effect yield ? or would you advise that I chop them when they have reached 45days as the are afghani's?

thanks for the advice. have also not done anything with PH, it is at 7, would water of PH 6.5 help now or would I be best to keep on going with a ph of 7. this is the first time I never used PH-. As we never had the money for it. this grow has just been flung togeather so we could get started. I wish I had just waited till all was in place. As my ladies are to big for the room too and I have been cracking the heads on them for the past 2 weeks.