Is Finola really day-neutral?

[Bzh guerilla]

not true autoflowering f1 hybrid crosses based on lowrider and photoperiode but semi-autoflowering like some landrace (Moroccan, or with a mighty mite origin) with true autoflowering.
it was selected to flower under 18 hours of light or perhaps less, but the genetic basis is totally different. They flower from 2 and a half months or mid-July or 5 to 7 knots per month (47° north).
This is why a backcross with a full auto is not the solution that I will follow even if I had considered it too.

In my opinion :
semi-autoflowering + autoflowering

selection of semi-autoflowering (triggering of flowering from 18 hours of light).

in f3 selection of full autoflowering (lowrider type).

 

[kendermag]

not true autoflowering f1 hybrid crosses based on lowrider and photoperiode but semi-autoflowering like some landrace (Moroccan, or with a mighty mite origin) with true autoflowering.
it was selected to flower under 18 hours of light or perhaps less, but the genetic basis is totally different. They flower from 2 and a half months or mid-July or 5 to 7 knots per month (47° north).
This is why a backcross with a full auto is not the solution that I will follow even if I had considered it too.

In my opinion :
semi-autoflowering + autoflowering

selection of semi-autoflowering (triggering of flowering from 18 hours of light).

in f3 selection of full autoflowering (lowrider type).

It is probably a difficult task to stabilize a semi-autoflowering trait, since it seems to be a quantitative trait.

Unlike the autoflower, early or late genes, which are more manageable, many other genes seem to be involved that also influence the critical photoperiod.

 

[kendermag]

On Sunday I planted 30 Bx1 seeds and 1 CBD 20:1. A while ago I just transplanted them into small pots (0.5 L) and the CBD 20:1 into a 1.5 L pot.

The idea is to see if 50% are really autoflowering, and in the process make some Bx2 seeds for the next test, by pollinating the CBD 20:1 plant with the selected Bx1 male.
I will also pollinate the Bx1 females and keep seeds from the plants that look best.

The schedule may be something like this:

 

[kendermag]

A plant with 3 leaves has appeared, another one also appeared in the F1.
I'll discard it later.

Today I will set them to 24h, until now they have been at 18h.

Growth with this 75w light is slow, but soon they will begin to run out of space.

If everything goes as I hope, once the non-autoflowering ones have been discarded (50% of them) and a single male has been selected, there will be about 8 females and one male left.

At the moment Fast Bud Auto 20:1 is the smallest of the plants (large pot).

 

[kendermag]

In this Bx1 generation supposedly 50% real autoflowering plants should appear.

To be able to clearly identify them, they will have a 24-hour light photoperiod from now on.

Under 18 hours of light I have seen that both the original Finola females and those of the F1 cross (with autoflowering) begin flowering, although it is not a forceful flowering, but rather they release some flowers while they continue growing.

Finola and F1 males, on the other hand, do flower normally under 18 hours of light, but I think it is a common behavior in Cannabis, perhaps a sex-linked gene that increases the critical photoperiod compared to females.

At the moment my hypothesis is that the semi-autoflowering trait of the Finola variety, and probably with some landraces that show this behavior, is not related to the Autoflower1 gene of common autoflowering varieties nor with the fast version ones.

Proof of this is that no real autoflowering strains have appeared in the F1 generation (auto x “semi-auto”).

In my opinion, what best fits is to think that the critical photoperiod is governed by a broad set of genes (polygenic trait) that allows continuous variation of critical photoperiod from 12h to 18h or probably more (>20h?).

The fact that the F1 inherited this semi-auto trait could be due to the semi-auto trait being dominant, or to the influence of the autoflower1 gene, since these F1s are also fast-version... how fucking crazy... they would be semi-auto and fast-version.

I know that what triggers flowering is the hours of darkness, but I prefer to talk about hours of light because it is clearer for me, please forgive this inaccuracy.

 

[kendermag]

Day 19, some males are starting to sex. I have placed those that I believe are males, on the right, so that they cast as little shadow as possible to the rest.

Fast Bud CBD 20:1 is the least vigorous... and like the other 2 plants used in previous generations, it has some defect with the leaves that causes them to bend and twist.

This has spread in some plants from its Bx1 offspring.

From now on I will probably not use the Bx2, and start inbreeding the Bx1 ones, only autos, vigorous and not showing this shit... this is a hobby and I don't want my eyes to bleed when I see them.

 

[Farmer John]

Ah, Finola. Our pride and joy.

Finola (hemp) - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Pics from 2019

 

[Get Glass Distribution]

Hello everyone, in July last year I planted several strains of hemp in my house (carmagnola, kompolti, tiborszallasi and finola). The first 3 were bigger and slower than I expected. However, I was fascinated by Finola's behavior.

Indoors the males flowered extremely quickly, I had never seen anything like that, dwarf plants with sacks in just 17 days.

The autoflowering trait was not what I had known in common cannabis plants, so I decided to read more about it.

Curiosity led me to make a cross between an autoflowering CBD variety (CBD Auto 20:1 from Fast Bud) and finola. The process lasted 71 days from seed to seed.

34 days ago I planted these F1 seeds with the intention of seeing their behavior, and crossing these F1 again with another Auto CBD 20:1 to simulate a backcross (it is not a real backcross since it is not the same recurring parent, but a sister).

I planted the 20:1 mother 12 days before the F1 to allow for greater flower development prior to pollination.

This is what I have observed in these F1:

- The beginning of flowering of the males has been delayed about 4 days compared to the original Finola. The Finola males sexed at 17 days, and these F1 did so at 21. In both cases pollination began 7 days after sexing.

- The time difference between the sexing of males and females is still very wide, more than I have seen in other varieties. However, this difference is smaller in the same F1 that I have also planted outdoors (42ºN) where they receive fewer hours per day than indoors (18/6).

This makes me think that the autoflowering trait is not the same as in common varieties, where flowering lasts practically the same regardless of the photoperiod.
This fits with the official Finola documentation, which indicates harvest times of 130, 100 and 70 days for latitudes of 60º, 50º and 40º respectively.

Aside from the climate and cold, I think the determining factor is that they have a very high critical photoperiod (maybe near 24h), but they are not really day-neutral plants like common autoflowering ones.
This high critical photoperiod would be responsible for the speed of flowering initiation of this strain.

The literature usually speaks of critical photoperiods of 12 hours for southern varieties, 14 hours for intermediate latitudes, and up to 18 hours for more northern ones. It could be that Finola is between these 18 hours and a real autoflowering plant.

I have read this study where they talk about having identified a second locus (autoflower2) responsible for the Finola trait, which is different from the autoflowering trait of the usual strains (autoflower1).

A FLOWERING LOCUS T ortholog is associated with photoperiod-insensitive flowering in hemp

They speak that while autoflower1 is recesive (aa), autoflower2 is suposed to bee dominant (BB)

If this were true, in the next cross (20:1 x F1) 50% real autoflowering plants should appear.

Assuming aa / BB alleles for Autoflower1 / Autoflower2:

In the actual cross F1 (aabb x AABB) 100% of plants shoul be AaBb
In the next cross "BX1" (aabb x AaBb) should be 4 genotypes, 2 of them real autoflowering (aa in autoflower1):
25% aabb
25% aaBb
25% Aabb
25% AaBb

This is just a guess, since I could be wrong... autoflower2 could not be a single gene like autoflower1, finola could have the autoflower1 masked, or something else... in any case I am eager to harvest these seeds and try them, which will be near September.

I am not an expert and I would like you to discuss my arguments, and thus be able to better understand this incredible strain.

I end the post with some literature:

"The photoperiodic induction of flowering (photoperiodism) can be used to classify plants as short-day (SD) plants, long-day (LD) plants and day-neutral plants. In SD plants, flowering occurs after periods of uninterrupted darkness, while in LD plants, flowering occurs in response to light periods longer than a certain critical length. C. sativa is considered a quantitative SD plant, with genotypes displaying a range of photoperiod thresholds for floral initiation (Amaducci et al., 2008a; Amaducci et al., 2012)"

"Some genotypes have been reported to flower under 18 h of daylight (Chen et al., 2022), while most indoor commercially grown C. sativa plants require a 10-12 h uninterrupted dark period to induce flowering (Salentijn et al., 2019; Moher et al., 2021)."

"Plants from the putative subspecific taxonomic grouping C. sativa var. ruderalis are reported to differ from the photoperiod-sensitive C. sativa var. sativa and C. sativa var. indica subspecies, with flowering induced in response to maturity (e.g., autoflowering) (Gloss, 2015)."

"Ruderalis type plants are termed ‘autoflowering’, owing to their day neutral flowering behavior, and these genotypes are thought to be responsible for the ‘autoflower’ trait in C. sativa populations (Gloss, 2015)."

"It has been proposed that this trait follows a recessive, Mendelian pattern of inheritance, however, there is limited peer reviewed research on this topic (Green, 2015; Toth et al., 2022; Kurtz et al., 2023; Leckie et al., 2023)."

"Hemp photoperiod insensitivity (or ‘autoflowering’) is a recessive Mendelian trait (1:2:1). The Autoflower1 locus was mapped to cs10/CBDRx v2 Chr 1 (17.74- 22.94 Mb) (Toth et al., 2022)."

"Heterozygous Autoflower1 individuals were intermediate for flowering date and homozygotes exhibited earlier flowering behavior (Toth et al., 2022). This is consistent with the segregation of the autoflower trait in other F2 populations (Leckie et al., 2023)."

"Autoflower2 is a locus associated with photoperiod insensitivity in the hemp cultivar ‘FINOLA’. Autoflower2 appears to be dominant given the ability of heterozygotes to flower under continuous light, but the segregation for flowering time within allelic groups suggests that there are additional genes involved in photoperiodic control of flowering. (Dowling et al., 2023). Autoflower2 is distinct from the previously described Autoflower1 on chr01 which was identified in a photoperiod-insensitive high cannabinoid-type hemp accession (Toth et al., 2022)."

"Autoflower1 and Autoflower2 are clearly functionally and phylogenetically distinct from each other. Autoflower1 and Autoflower2 are located on chr01 and chr08, respectively. They fail to complement each other in segregating F2 populations which include non-flowering plants when grown under continuous light. While Autoflower1 is recessive (Toth et al., 2022), Autoflower2 is dominant (Dowling et al., 2023)"

Hi bro! thanks for sharing, Yes, Finola is day-neutral meaning that it flowers according to its age rather than the light cycle. I think many growers find it very reliable, particularly in areas with unpredictable light.

 

[kendermag]

Ah, Finola. Our pride and joy.

Finola (hemp) - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

View attachment 19074018 View attachment 19074019 View attachment 19074020
Pics from 2019

Wooooooooooow!!!
I see that you have planted a few more than me

What latitude was it? Do you remember what date the females started flowering?

Thank you very much for sharing

 

[Farmer John]

Not my plants, a field near the coast in southern Finland theres a large number of fields here, I can go and document them next season with data&info.

 

[kendermag]

Hi bro! thanks for sharing, Yes, Finola is day-neutral meaning that it flowers according to its age rather than the light cycle. I think many growers find it very reliable, particularly in areas with unpredictable light.

Hi bro!!

It's considered day-neutral, but I don't think is the same as common autoflowering, where flowering start/duration is more predictable.

The official Finola documentation indicates harvest times of 130, 100 and 70 days for latitudes of 60º, 50º and 40º respectively.

This enormous difference does not exist in common autoflowering strains, which is why I think they really have a very high critical photoperiod, maybe close to 24 hours, but they are not totally insensitive to the photoperiod.

Thanks for sharing opinions!!

 

[kendermag]

Not my plants, a field near the coast in southern Finland theres a large number of fields here, I can go and document them next season with data&info.

Ok so near 60ºN.

According to official documentation, it is recommended in latitudes of 60º to plant them in mid-May, and they begin to flower 25-30 days later (mid-June)

I just verified that in mid-June in those latitudes there are around 18 hours of daylight.

The harvest should be 130 days after sowing, that is in mid-end september.

 

[Farmer John]

Ok so near 60ºN.

According to official documentation, it is recommended in latitudes of 60º to plant them in mid-May, and they begin to flower 25-30 days later (mid-June)

I just verified that in mid-June in those latitudes there are around 18 hours of daylight.

The harvest should be 130 days after sowing, that is in mid-end september.

Thats about right, pics were taken 10th of august