Why Are My Trichomes Still Clear?

[etruthfx]

I guess you haven't seen a lot of my page long posts yet.

I only recently finished off a 2 year battle with mites I got from plants rescued from a freezing greenhouse. I knew they were there along with the thrips and rampant PM. I quickly dispatched the last two but those mites were a bitch. My own fault for not being more consistent and thorough about keeping to a spray schedule.

I just used Safer's End All II I bought as a concentrate then added 10ml/L canola or neem oil to each batch. Every 4 days for 4 or more treatments got rid of them. I kept all plants up in the spare bedroom where it all started and left the grow room empty but kept the heat at 80F for a month so any eggs would hatch and the buggers would starve. Must have worked as I'm bug free 8 months down the road in both rooms. I never sprayed or sterilized the rooms at all. I've been growing in that basement room every day since I bought this place 18 years ago come November.

I knew better but in my arrogance threw caution to the wind and it kicked my ass for a while. All good now tho.

As long as it's good now, that's what matters. It's recommended to rotate foliar sprays so the mites do not build a resistance to it. My family member had a severe infestation and I helped them recover it using this method here, just some ideas to think about. Based on the ingredients of plant therapy, but added your self. Per 1 gal
3-4 Tbs Plant Therapy
2-3 Tbs 71% Isopropyl Alcohol
1-2 Tbs Soap (Yes little bit of Dawn Dish soap, wetting agent/coverage, or Dr. Bronners specifically for plants)
2-3 Tbs Yucca Extract Wetting Agent
2-3 Drops Peppermint Extract
2-3 Drops Rosemary Extract
This recipe is for a severe infestation. I promise if you have webs on your plants and you use this regimen every 3 days for 2 weeks then resume 1 time weekly, all pests will be eliminated and if you keep up weekly they will not come back. Make sure you defoiliate fan leaves before foliar spraying, and never leave leaves on the ground or any foliage or drying plants nearby because they will hop off the dead plants onto the living ones, and even come out of the trash bag.
This is my own home brew remedy. It's based on the ingredients of Plant Therapy, only more concentrated than comes in retail. Lately I've been wanting to use more essential oils and don't use Iso/Soap unless you know you have bugs. Plant therapy contains peppermint extract. Sns90 contains Rosemineric Acid. Utilizing ideas from the shelves and incorporating them into my own grow.
Use while lights are off.

Spider mites, White flies, Nematodes, Scales and other insects destroy plant cells by sucking out their fluids or chewing up the cell walls. SNS-209™’s unique formula works by allowing the plant to uptake a small amount of rosemeric acid from the rosemary plant. As the plant distributes the rosemeric acid throughout its cell walls, a barrier is soon constructed. When an insect starts to suck or chew on the plant it comes in contact with the rosemeric acid and causes the insect to stop eating and move on.

 

[OldMedUser]

Safer's with added oil kills by suffocation and bugs can't develop resistance to that. It won't kill the eggs so that's why it's so important to hit them repeatedly before new hatchings are mature enough to start laying eggs.

Even with other treatments it takes many generations for any bug to develop resistance so I don't put much credence in that theory.

Not my first ride at this rodeo but that last bull was a tough one.

Whatever works is what we all should use tho. Bugs suck in the grow room!

 

[etruthfx]

Safer's with added oil kills by suffocation and bugs can't develop resistance to that. It won't kill the eggs so that's why it's so important to hit them repeatedly before new hatchings are mature enough to start laying eggs.

Even with other treatments it takes many generations for any bug to develop resistance so I don't put much credence in that theory.

Not my first ride at this rodeo but that last bull was a tough one.

Whatever works is what we all should use tho. Bugs suck in the grow room!

Safers a better alternative for the soap for sure. Thanks for the recommendation.

 

[oill]

How hard should it feel?

Like hard bud that you buy from the shop... if you squeeze it and go... oh yeah that's firm.... then her good

 

[rkymtnman]

Here's a question....

When I'm checking my plants with my loupe, do the tiny sugar leaves sticking out of the buds at the top count?
Or, should I only check the trichomes on the calyxes?

Thanks.

have you tried switcing your light cycle? go from 12/12 to 11/13. the extra hour of dark sometimes kicks them into finishing. and if you are running CO2, stop that.

 

[GiovanniJones]

have you tried switcing your light cycle? go from 12/12 to 11/13. the extra hour of dark sometimes kicks them into finishing. and if you are running CO2, stop that.

Ok, that's an easy change I can do tonight. I've heard that some well-known growers and breeders normally do 11/13 for everything. Some even do 10.5/13.5.

 

[rkymtnman]

Ok, that's an easy change I can do tonight. I've heard that some well-known growers and breeders normally do 11/13 for everything. Some even do 10.5/13.5.

i just do 12.5/11.5 to make sure they get a full 12 of dark.

have you mentioned what lights you are using?

 

[GiovanniJones]

have you mentioned what lights you are using?

Optic 8+
When I started to consider growing, in order to grow CBD strains for CBD oil, my dad said he'd help me build my grow room and shelled out the cash for a nice light.

Now that I'm in late-flower, they're on full-blast. All three knobs are set to 10!

 

[GiovanniJones]

Hey guys, keep in mind that this is just me second grow.

My plants are at exactly 10 weeks of flower tonight. More accurately, they're at 10 weeks of 12/12, and really it's been around 8 weeks since they've started to show their pistils.

Some of the indicas look about done to my rookie eyes, such as my PeakSeedsBC Northern Lights and my PeakSeedsBC Kush Northern Lights. Some amber trichomes on the tiny sugar leaves at the tops of the plants, but yet not on the calyxes.

Keep 'em going or chop 'em? What do you think? Am I being an impatient rookie?

 

[Bignutes]

Leave them, they'll get nice and dense. When you see them change you'll know it's time. I'm a big fan of reducing light schedule, right now my girls are 11/13.

I just tried cbd spiff berry tonight, fuck me my new favorite! Blueberry (my bedtime fav) crossed with cbd kush.

 

[GiovanniJones]

Thanks for the advice. Here are the two of the more ripe looking plants in my room right now.
Would you harvest these based on how the buds look? Sugar leaves are showing amber trichomes and pistils are mostly dark.

 

[GiovanniJones]

And here’s a JOTI Purple Kush that’s a little behind the two I just posted. At ten weeks of 12/12, this is what most of the plants in my room, all indicas, look like.

 

[Thundercat]

And here’s a JOTI Purple Kush that’s a little behind the two I just posted. At ten weeks of 12/12, this is what most of the plants in my room, all indicas, look like.

View attachment 4510412

Nope not ready, 3ish weeks, i doubt its any less.

Also always check trichomes on the actual buds not the leaves. Leaves mature faster and easily get damaged giving a false impression of maturity. Also don’t look at just the top most buds, look at the whole plant for an average maturity level.

 

[GiovanniJones]

Nope not ready, 3ish weeks, i doubt its any less.

Also always check trichomes on the actual buds not the leaves. Leaves mature faster and easily get damaged giving a false impression of maturity. Also don’t look at just the top most buds, look at the whole plant for an average maturity level.

Thanks Thundercat. What about the other two pics I posted? What do you think?

 

[Thundercat]

Thanks for the advice. Here are the two of the more ripe looking plants in my room right now.
Would you harvest these based on how the buds look? Sugar leaves are showing amber trichomes and pistils are mostly dark.

View attachment 4510410 View attachment 4510411

I’d say these look like they are in the harvest window. Letting them go a bit longer would probably still be ideal. You can check the trichomes on the buds and see how they look and decide on the final harvest date.

 

[OldMedUser]

In those first two pics the trichs are almost all milky but still a lot of clear ones too.

In the 2nd pic there seem to be quite a few underdeveloped ones too where the balls don't look full yet but many plants will have a mix of big and small.

I'd be looking at chopping those in the next week or two. Even now if I were waiting for the space for other plants. They're ripe enough to go but you may get 5 - 10% more if you wait a couple weeks.

That Purple Kush is a f'n hash plant for sure! Super dense number of trichs everywhere. Way better than the one I grew a couple years ago but not sure who was the breeder. Super squat bush that just didn't fit with the majority of plants I grow so didn't bother keeping the strain going. Hope you got a cut or two of that one. Pretty sure you're gonna like it and want more.

I can't see the trichs as clearly but it doesn't look like it needs more than 2 weeks. I don't wait for amber as it never seems to come and they will age and go amber after cropping too so it's a waste of time and power to me.

Nice job!

 

[GiovanniJones]

Thanks everyone here for all the helpful comments. This is only my second grow, but I've grown a lot of strains in each grow so that I can learn better which strains work well for my needs. I think I have seven different strains in the room now and my first grow was similar. I know that it would be better, especially for a newb like myself, to focus on one or two strains at a time, but what the heck, it'll all turn into good bud anyway.

What I can say for sure is that breeder flowering time recommendations generally seem two to three weeks short, if going by the onset of 12/12.

 

[OldMedUser]

What I can say for sure is that breeder flowering time recommendations generally seem two to three weeks short, if going by the onset of 12/12.

That's pretty much true for all and the general consensus is they are going by the onset of buds which can be 2 or 3 weeks after flipping to 12/12. Outdoors that makes sense as you're not sure when flowering begins until you see buds forming. I pretty much only grow indoors so I want to know how long a certain strain takes to finish from the flip so I can use that info to time future grows of the same.

Did you take cuts of that PK?

 

[GiovanniJones]

Did you take cuts of that PK?

Nope. I'm not at the point in my learning where I feel like dealing with taking cuts yet, but there have been a few plants like this one that would have been good candidates. PeakSeedsBC's Kush x Northern Lights looks pretty amazing too, as well as Lucky 13's Grand Daddy Purple that I grew last year.

 

[OldMedUser]

Nope. I'm not at the point in my learning where I feel like dealing with taking cuts yet, but there have been a few plants like this one that would have been good candidates. PeakSeedsBC's Kush x Northern Lights looks pretty amazing too, as well as Lucky 13's Grand Daddy Purple that I grew last year.

I've lost some killer phenos by not taking cuts. It's easy as hell. You could always try to reveg her after cropping and that's easy too. Just ask and I'll spell it out for you.

Snip yourself a couple of sample hits and see how the buzz hits you.