Cold Restart--Does Such A Thing Exist? Near-Death-Chilling

[pic book]

i let the plants get down to 37 degrees.  They are four weeks into flower... why does not matter.  Will they come back, matters a lot.

any exp with plants coming back to finish with full buds after such abuse?

[Guanotea1]

How long at the temp?

 

Plants can handle ice water flushes both foliar and in the root zone and recover in a few days if not hours.

 

Other than that no personal experience.

[+washtenaut]

I shuttled plants around to an outdoor holding area for a time when I was moving once (yes it was locked and enclosed).  They did fine until one day when I think it got down to around 50F.  They drooped and did not recover for me after that exposure.

 

Good luck.

[Kingdiamond]

Ive gone down into the high 40s once with negative results slowed the flowering schedule killed my yields and a plant threw seeds good luck.

[MrShpongle]

My biggest concern would be hermies.  That's a lot of stress halfway through flowering.  I'd expect your yield to be lower, too.

[ilynnboy]

I think they will be fine.

25 years ago I used to flower in an uninsulated attic with no heat except the lights.

This was during the winter.

Always made my harvests, never a failure.

Just warm them back up slowly.

Rapid changes are what causes the damages when returning back to regular growth as growth will cease under that cold of conditions.

Did that for 2 winters.

Of course I had a seedling mat to keep the soil somewhat temperate.

That and a 400w HPS was all the heat I had.

Temps were regularly in the lower 40's.

Slow growth but back then slow was better than none.

Good memories of a cold garden where you could see your breath most times when the lights came on.

Maybe they were just tough strains, who knows.

[+washtenaut]

Hey ilynnboy, where you growing christmas trees or cannabis in that attic?

[ilynnboy]

Too funny

Actually it was a 16th generation Vermont skunk x Hawaiian indica.

She was on the cover of High Times magazine in the early 90's

Absolute Wheelchair smoke.

And an unknown Skunk variety.

Along with some Jamaican red's and crosses between the 'Goo' ( what we called the Hawaiian ) and the Jamaican red.

I wish I still had those beans...

Edited December 13, 2013 by ilynnboy

[trichcycler]

your healthy plants are pretty tough. I've seen snow on outdoor grows before.  You could take some smaller cuttings and root them to preserve your genes. let them get to warm temps first then carefully cut any flowers off of them, and root as normal under 24 hours and 77+f. they'll keep in a pot under a small cfl or t5 during winter indoors, and you can transplant in spring. I always had best luck force flowering with a barrel to lock out light for a couple days, perpetually through the summers to avoid the late cold season.

 

good luck

i let the plants get down to 37 degrees.  They are four weeks into flower... why does not matter.  Will they come back, matters a lot.

any exp with plants coming back to finish with full buds after such abuse?

[trichcycler]

I find it very difficult to hermie a plant here. I've tried huge light stresses, big ph swings, ice temps, heat, nothing. I've seen them appear from unknown or new trial seed packs before, without any type of stress though.

When I want to fem seeds I leave a couple buds on a  plant with a few leaves and harvest the remainer. I let that girl just keep going with normal care, a few weeks later a couple male fingers (technically not a hermie)appear in the buds, and I gather the pollen, and hit some choice girls with it. I hate chems, and am scared of the mystery mineral sprays

My biggest concern would be hermies.  That's a lot of stress halfway through flowering.  I'd expect your yield to be lower, too.