Hi Folks,
I thought I would share a few of my experiences of growing autos under glass in a poor climate (well I think it is anyway). To start with a little background on the climate is probably helpful. The frost free season is usually about 4 months, and average temperatures during this time are probably about 13 deg C. Average annual rainfall is in the order of about 1 m. We get lots of heavily overcast weather, but it does get warm and sunny occasionally, if only briefly.
I grew some of the following strains:
Flash - Jet47 & Cobra
Short Stuff - MI5 & Himalayan Blue Diesel
Barneys Farm - Little Cheese & Sweet Tooth
Auto Seeds - Polar Express
??? - Auto Amnesia
The plants had to be kept fairly discreet in the greenhouse, so I kept it fairly crowded with "ordinary" greenhouse crops, and I found this to be a reasonably effective cover. The downside to this is the build-up of disease (particularly moulds) throughout the season. Trying to find more resistant regular vegetables might improve this situation considerably, as would growing less stuff in there (but that might compromise the cover).
Early on the plants were started indoors along with the regular veg, but went out to the greenhouse well before it was warm enough for any tender crops. The larger plants fared considerably better whilst it was cold, in terms of more rapid development. I would aim to get all plants to about the 4th set of leaves before putting them out again. I wasn't until probably a month after the last frost that seedlings started to fare OK in the greenhouse, but some plants close to flowering did fine much earlier. Little Cheese seemed to be rather more cold sensitive than Jet47.
Those plants which flowered independently of any day length triggers (which was by no means all of them) were harvested after around 3 months. In most cases I would have liked to leave them a while longer but the threat of bud rot meant that an early harvest seemed like the best option in most cases. Bud rot wasn't really an issue until after mid summer, so plants harvested very early in the year didn't show much (if any) rot, although had supplies been better I would have certainly have left some of them longer too. By far the most susceptible to bud rot was Auto Amnesia, I also felt it had pretty poor root growth too. This strain in particular might need a better climate to be worthwhile.
I had read that it is generally not considered to be a good idea to germinate autos to grow outdoors after midsummer, but I had quite a few plants which were not showing any signs of flowering despite others started at the same time having been harvested already. Considering the possibility that these reluctant flowerers might not produce anything I dispensed with the fine advice and started some more off anyway. I eventually got a harvest off everything, but even the late started seeds were harvested before the reluctant flowerers.
The reluctant flowerers were mostly MI5 (3/5) and a solitary HBD. These got to a fair size before I was able to sort a means of forcing them, and it meant that they were still flowering very late into the season. By this time the light levels were rather poor, and the buds consequently not great (very fluffy), although I think that this makes them slightly less susceptible to rot.
It was possible to produce decent buds, but I think that it depends predominantly on when the good weather comes, how long it stays, and the stage of development that the plants are at when it arrives. Unfortunately it is not uncommon for us to get a week of more without any direct sunshine, and when this occurs after a period of good weather the dense buds formed in the good sunshine seem quite susceptible to rotting (presumably because they are so dense).
All of the plants seemed to suffer much less than the "regular veg" from the usual greenhouse pests like greenfly and whitefly, although some were hit a little early in the season it wasn't bad enough to be a serious concern. I certainly wasn't tempted to use any pesticides, although I kept quite a few sacrificial flowers which will (allegedly) attract those kinds of pests. When I saw an infested one I just kicked it outside, and it seemed to work out as an OK strategy.
So, for a few conclusions:
I wont bother with Auto Amnesia again (outdoors anyway), none of the others were so bad that they've been struck off the future possibilities list. I was surprised at the number of reluctant flowerers from Short Stuff, the packets had no batch numbers, packing dates or use/sow by dates so I have no way of knowing if they were from an early generation of these strains. I'll be a bit wary of them next time. I will aim much more towards an earlier harvest, probably starting everything in the warm next time. I'll also be rather more organised about forcing any reluctant flowerers in future so that they can be finished a rather more timely manner next time. I'm wondering about trying to do a little breeding to end up with something that might be a bit more robust in the local climate (especially with regard to bud rot), but to be honest I'm not sure that I can be bothered, it could be a lot of hassle and take a long time. But are there any reliably rot resistant strains available?
Cheers, The Doctor
"Sharing One"
I thought I would share a few of my experiences of growing autos under glass in a poor climate (well I think it is anyway). To start with a little background on the climate is probably helpful. The frost free season is usually about 4 months, and average temperatures during this time are probably about 13 deg C. Average annual rainfall is in the order of about 1 m. We get lots of heavily overcast weather, but it does get warm and sunny occasionally, if only briefly.
I grew some of the following strains:
Flash - Jet47 & Cobra
Short Stuff - MI5 & Himalayan Blue Diesel
Barneys Farm - Little Cheese & Sweet Tooth
Auto Seeds - Polar Express
??? - Auto Amnesia
The plants had to be kept fairly discreet in the greenhouse, so I kept it fairly crowded with "ordinary" greenhouse crops, and I found this to be a reasonably effective cover. The downside to this is the build-up of disease (particularly moulds) throughout the season. Trying to find more resistant regular vegetables might improve this situation considerably, as would growing less stuff in there (but that might compromise the cover).
Early on the plants were started indoors along with the regular veg, but went out to the greenhouse well before it was warm enough for any tender crops. The larger plants fared considerably better whilst it was cold, in terms of more rapid development. I would aim to get all plants to about the 4th set of leaves before putting them out again. I wasn't until probably a month after the last frost that seedlings started to fare OK in the greenhouse, but some plants close to flowering did fine much earlier. Little Cheese seemed to be rather more cold sensitive than Jet47.
Those plants which flowered independently of any day length triggers (which was by no means all of them) were harvested after around 3 months. In most cases I would have liked to leave them a while longer but the threat of bud rot meant that an early harvest seemed like the best option in most cases. Bud rot wasn't really an issue until after mid summer, so plants harvested very early in the year didn't show much (if any) rot, although had supplies been better I would have certainly have left some of them longer too. By far the most susceptible to bud rot was Auto Amnesia, I also felt it had pretty poor root growth too. This strain in particular might need a better climate to be worthwhile.
I had read that it is generally not considered to be a good idea to germinate autos to grow outdoors after midsummer, but I had quite a few plants which were not showing any signs of flowering despite others started at the same time having been harvested already. Considering the possibility that these reluctant flowerers might not produce anything I dispensed with the fine advice and started some more off anyway. I eventually got a harvest off everything, but even the late started seeds were harvested before the reluctant flowerers.
The reluctant flowerers were mostly MI5 (3/5) and a solitary HBD. These got to a fair size before I was able to sort a means of forcing them, and it meant that they were still flowering very late into the season. By this time the light levels were rather poor, and the buds consequently not great (very fluffy), although I think that this makes them slightly less susceptible to rot.
It was possible to produce decent buds, but I think that it depends predominantly on when the good weather comes, how long it stays, and the stage of development that the plants are at when it arrives. Unfortunately it is not uncommon for us to get a week of more without any direct sunshine, and when this occurs after a period of good weather the dense buds formed in the good sunshine seem quite susceptible to rotting (presumably because they are so dense).
All of the plants seemed to suffer much less than the "regular veg" from the usual greenhouse pests like greenfly and whitefly, although some were hit a little early in the season it wasn't bad enough to be a serious concern. I certainly wasn't tempted to use any pesticides, although I kept quite a few sacrificial flowers which will (allegedly) attract those kinds of pests. When I saw an infested one I just kicked it outside, and it seemed to work out as an OK strategy.
So, for a few conclusions:
I wont bother with Auto Amnesia again (outdoors anyway), none of the others were so bad that they've been struck off the future possibilities list. I was surprised at the number of reluctant flowerers from Short Stuff, the packets had no batch numbers, packing dates or use/sow by dates so I have no way of knowing if they were from an early generation of these strains. I'll be a bit wary of them next time. I will aim much more towards an earlier harvest, probably starting everything in the warm next time. I'll also be rather more organised about forcing any reluctant flowerers in future so that they can be finished a rather more timely manner next time. I'm wondering about trying to do a little breeding to end up with something that might be a bit more robust in the local climate (especially with regard to bud rot), but to be honest I'm not sure that I can be bothered, it could be a lot of hassle and take a long time. But are there any reliably rot resistant strains available?
Cheers, The Doctor
"Sharing One"
