Not expecting a hard and fast rule, just curious as to whether anyone follows a general timeframe. I’m planning on stalking my burley around 3or4 weeks after topping...however, having never bothered to bag the flower heads to collect pure seed before, I was wondering how much longer I would need to leave these plants before stalking? Any thoughts?
When to stalk bagged plants?
- Thread starter Davo
- Start date
- Status
Oldfella
Well-Known Member
Hi Davo, I never thought about it but I just bag them and stalk them when I feel I have enough seeds in the bag. Remember that you don't need a lot of seeds unless you are going to sell them or intend to give them away.
Cheers Oldfella
I would say that it is a general maturation frame. It's not unusual for me to end up priming the leaf of the plant (even when the other plants of that variety have been stalk-harvested), so that I can allow the seed head to fully mature. As @Oldfella points out, you don't really need all of them. Each mature seed pod may hold many hundreds up to 10,000 seeds. An entire seed head may produce a quarter million seeds.
The catch is that some perfectly mature appearing seed pods end up empty.
Stalk-harvesting is always a compromise between allowing the upper leaf to reach sufficient maturity vs. damage to bottom leaf caused by longer exposure to the weather.
Bob
skychaser
Well-Known Member
6-8 weeks if you want fully mature seeds.
- Status
