There is a difference between pre flowers and buds. If you are just vegging some plants from seed,usually around 5 weeks or later you will get the pre flowers. You can veg them as long as you want,those arent buds. One problem lately is if you get seeds from of breeder or a broker,unless you fully trust that source,you don't know what you have.I unfortunately ordered some Master Kush,mango,and Northern light seeds. After just over 2 weeks of veg under 24 hours of a 600 watt metal halide,I started seeing a bunch of males,then I started seeing the other master kushes getting white hairs. I yanked the males,and was happy to see the white hairs.BUT,the white hairs never stop growing,and before I knew it half of my Master Kushes were budding.
The only explanation is auto flowering plants.So,I had just flipped my HPS to 12/12,and I moved a small MK plant into the new veg area,and I see it is covered with crystals on top,where it had a tiny little bud. So then I have to decide if I am going to put the light back on 18 or 24 hours of light and bud the auto flowers,or keep it on 12/12 and bud the non auto plants.Of course I am going to leave it on 12/12 and see what happens. I am pissed!
I am not the only one this has happened to. I got perfectly sealed breeder packs of Master Kush,and half of them are auto flowering plants.How the hell does that happen? There are so many breeders and people out there crossing every strain with every other strain they can find.They are ruining the gene pool.When I started growing in the mid 80's, you never had any problems with genetics. They were either indica or sativa,and you picked what you could grow in your area and everything was fine.We didn't need to get seeds from breeders to grow killer weed. Now,you order something simple and legendary like northern lights,and you end up with a plant that you know is not NL,or is just some lame phenotype that you don't even want to grow again.It's always something like massive variation between phenos,hermies,way longer flowering times than advertised, or seeds that are advertised as female,that turn out not to be. If you are going to Buy seeds from any breeder or seed bank.Take my word for it.Do tons of research if you are not sure about them.SPEND,SPEND,SPEND the extra money to get a pure or stabilized strain from a reputable breeder,unless you like playing the pheno guessing game,and waiting to find a keeper.
