Is it ok to completely stop feeding?

snoeman032

Well-Known Member
559F3B8A-4F14-40EC-8E00-0A05505CF77D.jpeg B2B42546-4424-41B9-8DE8-8F063ADB0421.jpeg 804A39DE-07C9-490D-82F7-B5C1A2BB7132.jpeg 96AA0E8C-FD42-4BA0-B6E6-EA520BFD6F26.jpeg F7520398-DB28-43E6-ABA6-547C1FAAF16C.jpeg 559F3B8A-4F14-40EC-8E00-0A05505CF77D.jpeg I am on the 5th week of flower and I’ve went too heavy on nutes. I’m curios if I can completely stop feeding for a week or few days?
 

z3rgling

Well-Known Member
If you overfed, not feeding for a few days or a week would be a great way to keep the little bit of nute burn you have from getting worse. Your plants look great other than the tiny bit of burn you have
:clap:
 

Flowki

Well-Known Member
What is it you are feeding and how much?. Somebody will be able to tell you what you should back off a little on. I don't think you should stop nutes fully. I'd take a pot shot and say it's boost time and you added too much, or it began messing with ph. But tbf the issue looks very slight.
 

Midnight Warrior

Well-Known Member
I completely stopped feeding at week 6, and it added a month and then some for them to finish (Still not done). Don't make the same mistake I did. Maybe cut back if you have burn, but don't stop feeding.
 

snoeman032

Well-Known Member
I use the heavy 16 bud a, bud b, prime, and fire. My ppm was over 2000! So you think if I cut the nutes to around 1000? I usually feed one day feed the next day and then water. I may try feed,water,water? Hell I don’t know
 

snoeman032

Well-Known Member
What is it you are feeding and how much?. Somebody will be able to tell you what you should back off a little on. I don't think you should stop nutes fully. I'd take a pot shot and say it's boost time and you added too much, or it began messing with ph. But tbf the issue looks very slight.
I’ve been adding boosters. How often should I use boosters?
 

Dr. Who

Well-Known Member
I use the heavy 16 bud a, bud b, prime, and fire. My ppm was over 2000! So you think if I cut the nutes to around 1000? I usually feed one day feed the next day and then water. I may try feed,water,water? Hell I don’t know
All strains require different feed levels.
Some are so close you never will notice.

What your finding, is that these need a little less. I suggest you cut the nutrient your adding to water for a feed solution, down by 25% and try that..
See how they react and adjust again if needed...

This is called dialing in. You dial in your feed to the strain....You should have a notebook and be recording these things.....Once you find your dial in for this strain. It will be in that notebook forever.
Easy to refer back to in the future.

Good luck......BTW. They don't look that bad. The N looks a bit high in some pictures.....Hence the overall lowering of nutrient in the mix..
 

Thundercat

Well-Known Member
I couldn't tell what medium you're in, but many people will alternate feedings with plain waterings to help prevent things from getting to hot. What Dr. Who said is spot on though, this is that dial in process we all have to learn with new strains.
 

Mr Blamo

Well-Known Member
I been using mega crop and bud explosion.
Great results.
Last 2 weeks of a plants life they just get 6.5 water.
Works great for me.
 

Thundercat

Well-Known Member
I completely stopped feeding at week 6, and it added a month and then some for them to finish (Still not done). Don't make the same mistake I did. Maybe cut back if you have burn, but don't stop feeding.
Was that a plant you were growing from clone? How do you know it "added a month"? You realize breeder times are just rough guidelines? Are you counting your time from 12/12 switch or from when they actually started flowering because those are 2 different things.

It's a very common pot grower mistake to count from 12/12 but that creates a totally inaccurate an arbitrary "flower time". Plants typically take 7-21 days to transition from veg to flower. The flower period does not start until the plant tells you it does by starting to make flowers. This is the most common reason new growers harvest early and are on these forums trying to figure out why their plant isn't ready. Real breeders also know that flowering begins at flower-set, but their time frames are still just guides because their farm and phenotypes are different from your garden and phenos.

I've grown lots of plants with a variety of nutrients and never seen that much drastic of swing in harvest. I suppose maybe you shocked it real hard some how and that stopped growth, but just cutting off the nutrients really shouldn't have done that.

Total environment can have a massive impact on harvest times. I've had a cold winter that I couldn't deal with well. It slowed my plants atleast 3 weeks maybe more, they are still cooking.

Side note I feed my plants till harvest. People praise the results!
 

Midnight Warrior

Well-Known Member
Was that a plant you were growing from clone? How do you know it "added a month"? You realize breeder times are just rough guidelines? Are you counting your time from 12/12 switch or from when they actually started flowering because those are 2 different things.

It's a very common pot grower mistake to count from 12/12 but that creates a totally inaccurate an arbitrary "flower time". Plants typically take 7-21 days to transition from veg to flower. The flower period does not start until the plant tells you it does by starting to make flowers. This is the most common reason new growers harvest early and are on these forums trying to figure out why their plant isn't ready. Real breeders also know that flowering begins at flower-set, but their time frames are still just guides because their farm and phenotypes are different from your garden and phenos.

I've grown lots of plants with a variety of nutrients and never seen that much drastic of swing in harvest. I suppose maybe you shocked it real hard some how and that stopped growth, but just cutting off the nutrients really shouldn't have done that.

Total environment can have a massive impact on harvest times. I've had a cold winter that I couldn't deal with well. It slowed my plants atleast 3 weeks maybe more, they are still cooking.

Side note I feed my plants till harvest. People praise the results!
From seed, the problems with the slowed finish is all my fault. Stopped feed at week 6 and flushed esch plant at week 7 with RO water. After 2 weeks and no signs of any new growth on the buds or anything figured I shocked them by stripping them of all their nutrients so tapered the nutes back up. They started yellowing prematurely and I don't even know if the nutes helped after the fact, but I'd like to think they did. Think they will make it to finish, I have a post in Harvest & Curing. But I think they'll make it. 125 days and counting.
 

Thundercat

Well-Known Member
From seed, the problems with the slowed finish is all my fault. Stopped feed at week 6 and flushed esch plant at week 7 with RO water. After 2 weeks and no signs of any new growth on the buds or anything figured I shocked them by stripping them of all their nutrients so tapered the nutes back up. They started yellowing prematurely and I don't even know if the nutes helped after the fact, but I'd like to think they did. Think they will make it to finish, I have a post in Harvest & Curing. But I think they'll make it. 125 days and counting.
Well it sounds like you had a host of issues. I can assure you that stopping the feed was not what caused your issues though. It was the overfeeding and then the flushing. Flushing can easily damage root systems if not done right. To much is just like overwatering and drowns the roots. Sounds like you had several weeks of shock they were dealing with. Had you just stopped feeding for a week and watered regularly with plain(ph'd) water you would have been much better off I think. However the over feeding was still the main issue.

Here in the case of the OP, the over feeding is VERY slight, so I wouldn't be super worried, they might even grow into that amount of food, but its tough to say. I'm inclined to just give a plain water feeding, and them maybe backing off the next feed like Dr. Who said and see how they do.
 

Midnight Warrior

Well-Known Member
Well it sounds like you had a host of issues. I can assure you that stopping the feed was not what caused your issues though. It was the overfeeding and then the flushing. Flushing can easily damage root systems if not done right. To much is just like overwatering and drowns the roots. Sounds like you had several weeks of shock they were dealing with. Had you just stopped feeding for a week and watered regularly with plain(ph'd) water you would have been much better off I think. However the over feeding was still the main issue.

Here in the case of the OP, the over feeding is VERY slight, so I wouldn't be super worried, they might even grow into that amount of food, but its tough to say. I'm inclined to just give a plain water feeding, and them maybe backing off the next feed like Dr. Who said and see how they do.
These are the pics I took last day I quit feeding. It's my own fault and I don't blame anything else but myself. Lesson learned.
 

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Renfro

Well-Known Member
BTW, if you do stop feeding and are using super clean RO water you should add at least 100 PPM of nutes to avoid hurting the roots.
 
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