Hello to all!
The story is that I have two germinated seedlings with early bud set (after the fifth leaf) that had the same rose ‘Eye of the Tiger’ as their mother plant, with different once-flowering pollen donors. This is a nice message first. However, one of the pollen parents contains remontant genes. The other pollen source was R. virginiana which is able to produce remontant descendants depending on the proper genetic constellation. In order to conserve the energy of these two small seedlings and to direct their strength into the formation of roots and leaves, I removed the first bud in the hope that new ones would soon sprout again. Unfortunately, this was a miscalculation. The seedlings are now strong plants, at least six to seven times the size they were when the first buds sprouted and have not yet produced them any more.
I assume that particularly favourable light, soil and temperature conditions provided a stimulus for the otherwise unhereditary remontant flowering. The further version could be that there is a basic disposition to early flowering, but the current, possibly less favorable conditions prevent it from taking place.
I would like to mention that I have experienced something very similar with the only one germinated seedling of the same seed parent last year. Here too another once flowering pollen donor was involved. At that time in same procedure, after five leaves, the first bud was showing-up. I did not cut it, but immediately after it had opened. However, the little seedling plant was probably too weak for this power-generating process and passed. (photo) In the case described above I wanted to be more careful.
Mainly I would be happy to know if you are familiar with this phenomenon? If not, it could also indicate an occasional hereditary property of the mother plant. It is at least striking that the only three sprouted seedlings of ‘Eye of Tiger’, are showing this disruption.
I’m still in my first year so I’ve only had about 15 seedlings bloom so far but I can’t imagine ever having the willpower to nip the first bud. I know how beneficial it is for growth but I’ve never been great with delayed gratification.
But more to your point, since I live in a medicinal marijuana state there is no shortage of cheap, used grow lights. Cannabis grow lights often have two switches for different light wave lengths. Blue light to promote vegetative growth and red light to promote flowering. At first I figured it was a gimmick and always kept them both on for stronger overall light, and I still do this for the most part, but a while back I haphazardly repotted some overcrowded seedlings and, upon seeing them struggle, I reduced the light output by switching off the red “flower” light switch.
Sure enough, the next two weeks of growth were exclusively foliage even on the seedlings that weren’t repotted and, until then, were frequently attempting to bloom. I say all of this because I suspect that the inverse of this is also true. That using red lights on the other end of the spectrum promotes flowering.
Anecdotally, lots of home cannabis growers attest that growing with blue lights encourages their plants to grow without premature flowering, and that switching to red does the opposite. The theory is that the red wavelengths emulate the sun’s light as it turns to fall/spring and is closer to the horizon, prompting plants to flower. But I know better than to take stoner folklore at face value.
Either way, it’s anecdotally possible that red spectrum light can encourage flowering for whatever that’s worth.
Thank you very much for your detailed support! To get the best out of the plants, it is advisable, as you already mentioned, to adapt the spectrum to the respective growth phase: Germination and young plants: 70% blue, 30% red. Vegetative growth: 50% blue, 30% red, 20% green/yellow. Early flowering: 40% blue, 60% red. I’ll try to stick to this as far as possible in my home conditions and have not had any major problems so far. I will now nevertheless pay some more attention to this topic. What can still be improved.
However, it is conceivable in the case described that the genes, which probably do not interact perfectly together due to the wide crossing combination respond particularly with less tolerance to slight deviations in the growing conditions.
I am looking forward to seeing how the development continues.
