First Grow - Seeking opinions on how my buds are developing in week 4

NW_Newbie

Active Member
Hi all..I am brand new to growing and have struggled my way through to week 4 of flowering now but I have virtually no clue as how my buds are looking...or how they should look at this point or any point during the grow.
I am also not a big user either so my bud knowledge has only been learned from the past couple of months while learning to grow online.

I can usually find answers (and many many different opinions) on most things but photos or articles on the the stages of bud development throughout the weeks has been very hard to find for me.

That being said..what I am hoping to get some help with is the following...

1. How are my buds looking for this stage of flowering? They were flipped on April 5th so just over 4 weeks.
Are they too airy? Too leafy? Too small? etc?

If they are not doing that well...any advice on how to remedy the problem would be greatly appreciated,

2. Will the buds continue to grow in size for the next couple of weeks? If so..how mush bigger will they get...10%, 20% etc. How about density? Will they fill in more? etc. Can the plant break if I don't secure it properly?

3. Especially on the skunk #1's...the top center buds are the same distant from the lights (because I bent and tied the plants) but are drying out to the touch much more so than the buds on the outsides of the plants. This is the same for the top buds on the OG Kush which I had to put in between the lights instead of under them due to the height of them. I have recently raised my lights much more than I wanted to just to see if this will help them not dry out..but maybe I should keep them lower and sacrifice them for more buds overall??? I just don't know.

Is this a normal thing? and what should or could be done about it?

My setup is...
DWC under 4 1000 watt HPS (upgraded from 2k to 4k at two weeks into flower).

Started Flower Cycle on April 5th,
Using General Hydroponics Flora Series with Koolbloom, Cali-Magic and Silica

First Video with 7 Plants is 6 minutes long,
Skunk #1, OG Kush (I think), Purple Kush, Kosher Kush and Alaskan Ice.

Second video is two plants and only a minute or two
Here we have a Cinderella 99 in DWC and an Alaskan ICE in soil.
This room was added a few days later when I knew I needed to expand but I forgot to turn up my new digital ballast so it was on 400 watts instead of 1000 watts for the first 2 weeks of flower.


Very much appreciate your time for reading this.
Thank you.
Chris
 

plantsinpants

Well-Known Member
Everything is looking fine , ,,,,, just be patient and wait for "the swell". In the final stage of flowering your buds will swell in size but mostly in density this change happens fast , just dont rush anything....
 

NW_Newbie

Active Member
That's the kind of info I am looking for...thank you.
But..can you tell me a general idea of when the "swell" takes places? And is it different for each strain or do all strains go through a swell?

Honestly...I am going to be stressing bad on when to flush..when to harvest and all that stuff as it is..so having some general ideas of what to expect these flowers to do..or not to do will greatly help. I have already lost 2 of my 11 plants and I have a LOT of money tied up into this first grow so stress level keeps rising faster than my PH used to...lol

If you (or anyone) know of any good reads on this subject I would love to have a look.

Heck I don't even know what mid or late bloom is yet...and I need to change the nutes a bit when that time change happens..lol.
Oh sooo much learning these past couple of months..my brain hurts...lol

Thanks again.
 

Nummingtons

Well-Known Member
Your buds look great for week 4 remember you have anywhere from 4 to 6 more weeks to go plenty of time for your buds to get nice and dense. There is a lot of good videos on YouTube on when to flush and harvest. One thing I can recommend is to react to the plant not how many weeks they are in flower. Meaning get a plant scope this will allow you to look at your tricombs ( not sure I spelled that right). What you are looking for is how many of your tricombs have turned amber in color. For indica I pull earlier because the more amber trics you have the more narcotic or couch locky your bud will be. Sense indica already has that property you don't need to add more to it. For sativa I will let the plant go longer and develop more amber trics because sativa has a more cerebral high the later pull will give your sativas a more chill high but still nice and heady. Or if your really dig the couch lock high or a super cerebral high reverse what I just said. It's all kinds up to you. Good luck man your kicking ass for your first grow or any grow for that matter.
 

NW_Newbie

Active Member
Thank you for the compliments...I have had most people tell me I am kicking ass for my first grow who have seen it but I personally feel I am not doing that well.
Why do I think that?...because of the money I have had to spend and how hard it has been to keep these things alive...even with that I have lost 2 of my 11 already and have plants in Veg that are already too big and have no more room in flower for another almost two months...sigh...lol
I think with enough money anyone can grow big plants...but my grams per watt are going to be sad and who knows if the final product will even be decent. I spend every day fighting fires (that's what I call dealing with major problems) and am getting burned out...pun intended..lol

Put it this way..when I started this I had no grow area setup at all and no equipment other than a couple of security lights but was given 7 clones..so I built a small 5x7 room...that took me a bit of money and time as it is. By the time I was done building that room the clones were already taking up the entire thing.

Then someone who grows told me that I needed a flower area that stayed 100% dark...so I built another room.
By the time that room was done..the plants were too big for both of them...so yep..I built another room.

By this time it was out of control..the plants were HUGE and the couple of experienced growers I know said...holy crap man get those into flower or you will be sorry. Told me about them doubling in size etc....so here comes yet another big room...this time it had to be light proof..so I built that...then the 2 lights were only able to cover two of the plants...so here comes more lights...and with that..more heat...etc. etc...lol

There's much more to this story but just wanted to give you an idea of how this grow has went and why I may stress a bit...lol
Thanks again for the reply and I will be reading up on trichromes and harvest times...when there's no fires to fight (like the heat right now I have to go deal with and the 30 gallons of water I need to go add..lol)
 

Nummingtons

Well-Known Member
image.jpg That's all just growing man it's always something. Too much heat; bugs, powdery mildew, nute burn with this strain, not enough nutes with this strain, and so on. If it was easy every one would do it. Growing is expensive and some times a pain in the ass. You will eventually find your way. Don't fall into the bull shit keep it simple create a good room with plenty of light and plenty of space for your plants, then give them some good food and let them grow. They don't need 20 magic expensive nutes to thrive. Remember half of what you have been told is bull shit lol. Here are some plants I grew with 1 nute and some super thrive in dirt and top watered under CFL lights. You are doing better which is rad. image.jpg
 

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