Taking too long to flower?

[Sensi123]

I'm 21 days into flowering and all i can see is some small green hairs where buds should begin to form, is this normal?
4 plants growing from seed under 600w of duel spec CFL (2 300w bulbs) full strength dutch pro bloom nutes, using LST method think thats all you need to know to be able to help?

cheers!
pics available on request

 

[Stomper420]

Maybe they are male? Pics would help!

 

[JonB]

Maybe they are male? Pics would help!

I was thinking the same i sureeeee hope not tho

 

[Sensi123]

Maybe they are male? Pics would help!

Sorry forgot to mention they were 4 guaranteed feminized seeds

 

[BelieveInJesus]

sort of normal pics? You should have balls of white hairs by now

 

[Sensi123]

My camera is TERRIBLE at close ups, sorry! If you look very closely you can just about see some green hairs.

(2 are only small because they got started 4-5 weeks late) and the Kush plant at the front to the left I topped and it split down the middle of the main stem under the stress of LST so wrapped some gardeners twine stuff around the split and tied it up and its fine just growing taller than the rest.

 

[cobra28widow]

Maybe you have a light leak.. Go in your room and shut the door while the lights are off... if your room is big enough that you can fit in it.. other than that im not sure.

 

[Sensi123]

Maybe you have a light leak.. Go in your room and shut the door while the lights are off... if your room is big enough that you can fit in it.. other than that im not sure.

its a small closet setup, i cant even open the door during lights out let alone get in there haha. i'm going to put some foam strips around the door to block out any possibilities of light leeks anyway though.

 

[BelieveInJesus]

other than light leeks there shouldn't be any factors that retard your flower growth. I would say give it another two weeks and see where you are at.

 

[cheechako]

I'm 21 days into flowering and all i can see is some small green hairs where buds should begin to form, is this normal?
4 plants growing from seed under 600w of duel spec CFL (2 300w bulbs) full strength dutch pro bloom nutes, using LST method think thats all you need to know to be able to help?

cheers!
pics available on request

First of all, if you have pics and you are asking about problems or whatever, just post the pics. If you say "pics on request", you will get responses asking for the pics.

Second, 300W is not much for 4 plants. It is recommended to go for 100-150W per plant as a bare minimum. And, are those really 300W, or is that the equivalent wattage. If it is the later, then you only have about 130-140W, and that really sucks.

Lastly, I can't make out the blurry pics. However, I don't see the lights in the wide shot. CFLs need to be within a couple of inches of the plant. AKAIK, you are better off with lots of small bulbs so you can surround the plant rather than one or two main sources of light.

p.s. "Dual Spectrum" light? I wonder if that means you get only a portion of the lumens that the plant needs compared to the same wattage at 2700K.

p.p.s.

Sorry forgot to mention they were 4 guaranteed feminized seeds

The seeds are guaranteed to be feminized. The resulting plants, however, can still hermie. Not saying that's what happened - but feminized seeds do not always mean female plants.

 

[Sensi123]

First of all, if you have pics and you are asking about problems or whatever, just post the pics. If you say "pics on request", you will get responses asking for the pics.

Second, 300W is not much for 4 plants. It is recommended to go for 100-150W per plant as a bare minimum. And, are those really 300W, or is that the equivalent wattage. If it is the later, then you only have about 130-140W, and that really sucks.

Lastly, I can't make out the blurry pics. However, I don't see the lights in the wide shot. CFLs need to be within a couple of inches of the plant. AKAIK, you are better off with lots of small bulbs so you can surround the plant rather than one or two main sources of light.

p.s. "Dual Spectrum" light? I wonder if that means you get only a portion of the lumens that the plant needs compared to the same wattage at 2700K.

p.p.s.

The seeds are guaranteed to be feminized. The resulting plants, however, can still hermie. Not saying that's what happened - but feminized seeds do not always mean female plants.

If you read properly it says I have 600w spread across 2 300w bulbs for 4 plants. sorry about the shitty close up pics but my camera cant capture anything better.

heres a shot where you can see everything, when the bulbs are only a few inches away from the tops of plants leaf tips begin to turn yellow witch i presume is light stress. by moving them up a few more inches them same yellow lead tips will be green again in a few days, witch tells me the position of my lights is fine.

 

[Scroga]

Had a Similar problem with my querkle....make sure there's no light leaks during darkness, double check your lights timer, try taking it down to 11hrs....also a high nitrogen content in your medium is said to delay flowering.....hope this helps....

 

[cheechako]

If you read properly it says I have 600w spread across 2 300w bulbs for 4 plants. sorry about the shitty close up pics but my camera cant capture anything better.

heres a shot where you can see everything, when the bulbs are only a few inches away from the tops of plants leaf tips begin to turn yellow witch i presume is light stress. by moving them up a few more inches them same yellow lead tips will be green again in a few days, witch tells me the position of my lights is fine.

I missed the 2x... sorry. And I've seen so many posts where people confuse 68W with 300W or whatever.

I still think that is too far from the plants. I try to keep my CFLs almost touching, but I use many 26W bulbs. However, I'm just on my first grow. Like you said - you're lights are fine, so it must be some other issue. You certainly don't need my newbie advice.

 

[Sensi123]

I missed the 2x... sorry. And I've seen so many posts where people confuse 68W with 300W or whatever.

I still think that is too far from the plants. I try to keep my CFLs almost touching, but I use many 26W bulbs. However, I'm just on my first grow. Like you said - you're lights are fine, so it must be some other issue. You certainly don't need my newbie advice.

Sorry I didn't mean to sound ungrateful, but if leaf tips start to turn yellow when the lights 3-4 inches away and turn back to a nice healthy shade of green when the lights 6-8(ish) inches away then obviously im not going to have the bulbs almost touching the plants. also, i would guess my 300w bulbs give off more heat than your many small 26w bulbs. i do have a 400w MH/HPS lighting setup however 2 x 300w CFLs is much much more suited for my current setup. the 400w MH/HPS setup A. runs too hot for the closet, B. uses more electric that I cant afford and C. sticks out like a saw thumb through my bedroom curtains when the closets open.

 

[cheechako]

Yeah - I have a 68W bulb and it is much hotter than the 26W bulbs. Again, though - as far as I know, CFL drops off really quick. We see light, but the PAR just isn't there. I think CFL for flower is bare minimum at best, even with those fancy high end reflectors and 300W bulbs. Your HID light travels the distance and penetrates.

Also, from my understanding of electricity and kWh calculators, 600W should cost more to run than 400W. It shouldn't matter if one is a pair of CFLs and the other is an HID or a washing machine. Wattage is wattage. Now if you run a cooling fan with the HID, then you will of course increase the wattage used.

 

[Sensi123]

Yeah - I have a 68W bulb and it is much hotter than the 26W bulbs. Again, though - as far as I know, CFL drops off really quick. We see light, but the PAR just isn't there. I think CFL for flower is bare minimum at best, even with those fancy high end reflectors and 300W bulbs. Your HID light travels the distance and penetrates.

Also, from my understanding of electricity and kWh calculators, 600W should cost more to run than 400W. It shouldn't matter if one is a pair of CFLs and the other is an HID or a washing machine. Wattage is wattage. Now if you run a cooling fan with the HID, then you will of course increase the wattage used.

Still, the heat given off by a 400w HPS/MH setup is too much for my closet, and when im working in the closet with the door open my bedroom lights up like a Christmas tree through the curtains at the front of my house. i know the 400w setup would produce better results, but for my setup at the moment the 600w CFL setup is much better suited

 

[Scroga]

some peeps give their girls 24-48hrs darkness at the start of 12/12 to force the flowering response....

 

[sacpirate]

some peeps give their girls 24-48hrs darkness at the start of 12/12 to force the flowering response....

i was gonna say the same thing. i would run the 400 in last 4weeks of flower if at all possible. run it at day time so the light is not as visible from street. just keep that fan pushing air out all 12 hours. if possible hit them with something containing paclobutrazol asap as it looks like ur plants are very sativa dominant and could have a 75+ day flower time and 3+ weeks of strech. the paclobutrazol will stop vertical growth and encourage flower onsets.

 

[Scroga]

Chemicals...yumm

 

[Sensi123]

Thanks for the help peeps, I didn't learn that its known to give them a 24/48hr dark period until after i'd switched my light cycle doing so now may cause hermie issues :/
theres 3 lemon skunk and one O.G kush there, at least i think its O.G i cant honestly remember (gift from a friend) shes some sort of Kush anyways!

never heard of paclobutrazol before, will be looking into that, and also considering running the 400 setup for the last few weeks to give them that extra boost like you say.

cheers again