Placing cuttings outdoors is a good way for gardeners to ensure that they are going to have the right number of female cannabis plants. This is the biggest downside of planting seeds in the spring. There may be some seed failure, or in the case of ‘regular seeds’ there will probably be males in the mix. Female seed are a thing as well, but sometimes the stresses of outdoor cultivation can cause them to show intersex traitsOften called 'hermies' or 'nanners;' Unpollinated female can... More (staminate (pollen) flowers on a female plant).
Plant your seeds indoors during the months of January or February. If you start from regular seeds you’ll probably want to start them in January so you have time to sex the plants before taking cuttings to move outdoors.
When the young plants are 5-6 nodes tall, snip the top and make a cutting. Once the cutting has rooted (or before), induce flowering immediately by switching your lights to 12/12 (on/off). Within a couple short weeks you’ll be able to sex these young cuttings. Discard the cuttings and/or the parent plant as necessary. The remaining plant(s) will serve as your parent stock for the year. Keep them healthy and transplant them to bigger pots as needed. Every time a branch gets about 3-4 nodes, snip the top. This will create a lot of potential clonessoft-tissue cutting of a cannabis plant. A misnomer. More but you’ll want to stop doing this about the last week of March.
Mid-April, take the cuttings you intend to place outside. Root them, and transplant into a 2 gallon pot. By the end of May, they’ll probably be around 18-24″ tall and getting unruly.
First week of June, start to harden them off to sunlight by placing the pots in a shady area at first. No direct sunlight for the first couple days. Over the course of the week get them more and more light. A shade cloth (or 2) over your grow area will serve you well. I prefer this method as it will allow you to transplant earlier.
By the second week of June they should be in their final home and by June 21 they will be starting to flower already. This method usually results in a slightly earlier harvest time, but much of that will depend on fall weather.
I’ve found that this is the best general method that will work for almost all varieties. Some varieties don’t mind being put out sooner. However, there are some varieties that, if you put them out too soon, will start to flower then attempt to revert to vegetative phase because the nights continue to get shorter. Remember, indoors your lights are probably on a 18/6 (on/off) cycle. Outdoors at that time of year we the nights are 10 hours long which will trigger many varieties to flower.
Tell us how you’ve done it in the past.
Happy Harvests!
— The Lit Farmer —
