willy_mugobeer
Well-Known Member
So, wondering if anyone else had this experience this year.
Growing in central Ohio. Four plants on the side of our house (hooks in the eaves/rope between those/twine down to the ground) ... and four over in the neighbor's yard (metal framework from old fencing ... about 12 feet high.)
In contrast to last year, this year I decided to NOT clip the first shoots, and just let them go zooming right up from the first bines that showed their wonderful little purple/green heads in the spring. Well, trouble is, it was a pretty mild winter here in Ohio, so they started coming up in early-mid April.
All the bines ran up about 10-12 feet in like three weeks. (Y'all know about how fast they can grow.) Then, it's early May ... and the days are still pretty short. So all the plants started producing cones, WAAAYYY too early, and the plants were still a lot smaller than they could have/should have been.
Got some production off that harvest (maybe 6 ozs. dry?) ... and on one plant, managed to get a second harvest (gonna go pick it now) by cutting back most of the bines and training up the second growth that resulted. Still ... only going to get about a pound of dry weight this year, as opposed to last year's 3.5 lbs or so.
Moral of the story is ... photoperiod is really important, and you don't want to create a situation where they're ready to go into flowering growth before summer even arrives. Hold them back until daily sunlight is long enough to keep them in vegetative growth; that way they'll get huge, and flower in the later summer-fall like they're supposed to.
Growing in central Ohio. Four plants on the side of our house (hooks in the eaves/rope between those/twine down to the ground) ... and four over in the neighbor's yard (metal framework from old fencing ... about 12 feet high.)
In contrast to last year, this year I decided to NOT clip the first shoots, and just let them go zooming right up from the first bines that showed their wonderful little purple/green heads in the spring. Well, trouble is, it was a pretty mild winter here in Ohio, so they started coming up in early-mid April.
All the bines ran up about 10-12 feet in like three weeks. (Y'all know about how fast they can grow.) Then, it's early May ... and the days are still pretty short. So all the plants started producing cones, WAAAYYY too early, and the plants were still a lot smaller than they could have/should have been.
Got some production off that harvest (maybe 6 ozs. dry?) ... and on one plant, managed to get a second harvest (gonna go pick it now) by cutting back most of the bines and training up the second growth that resulted. Still ... only going to get about a pound of dry weight this year, as opposed to last year's 3.5 lbs or so.
Moral of the story is ... photoperiod is really important, and you don't want to create a situation where they're ready to go into flowering growth before summer even arrives. Hold them back until daily sunlight is long enough to keep them in vegetative growth; that way they'll get huge, and flower in the later summer-fall like they're supposed to.