New to This! Week 3 Flower

heyas all,

so this is my first time growing. I'm using a 250w MH on a 12/12 on/off i have pics attached (sorry for the crap ass quality.) The top most buds are getting frosty, trichromes can be seen with the naked eye. I've done a lot of things wrong with this grow (I'm learning). I know MH isn't the best option for flowing and I didn't get the light until a couple months into veg. so the plant isn't as big as it should or could be.

basically my question is: are these buds looking OK for starting week 3 flower tomorrow? Like I said, they are starting to get frosty and there are flowers are everywhere, but should they be bigger by now? Please any and all advice is extremely sought after. lol

I'm not a fan of cutting off fan leaves, but otherwise, they look pretty good, and right about where they should be, at this point. Good work man, especially for a first attempt.

your buds would have been a lot bigger if you didnt take off all of those fan leaves.

hmm, now I was told the exact opposite by the guy who gave me the clone (he's come over and every time he comes over he takes leaves off) he said that you want to take the leaves of for 2 reasons, #1 get more light to the middle and lower nodes and #2 divert energy from growing leaves bigger to the flowers themselves. so you'd recommend no more removing leaves just let her go?

Just let her go. By cutting leaves you are removing the engine that makes the buds. Plants need two things to produce big fat tasty nuggs- a well developed healthy root system and lots of green foilage. There are other ways to get light to lower bud sites, such as making moveable reflective panels and positioning them in the area where they reflect on the lower parts of the plant, or low stress training- simply gently bending/moving the fan leaves to allow light into the lower areas of the plant. You don't need to tell the plant to divert energy into making buds, it does that on its own. It needs those leaves for co2 respiration etc to make the buds.

Also, don't worry about the MH too much. MH can be used from start to finish. In fact, the first 2 weeks of flower I use the MH to ensure root growth, leaf production and stem strength. I switch to the hps for weeks 3-6/7 and back to the MH to finish them off, or if I'm feeling lazy I let the hps finish them..sometimes I use the MH all the way through. Always had good results.

Good luck, plants look good for your first grow!

JohnTheFarmer

thanks for the compliments all, do you think it's too late (at week 3) or if I let her go can I reverse any effects the removing of the leaves might have caused?

for week 3 of flower those r right on schedule bro. look nice. those r going to be fat for sure.

They're going to be fine, just don't chop anymore leaves.

what i do is i cut the leaf that is pointed to the middle to make it clearer there

LOL @ the leaf thing


This could be argued all day long, and all I can say, is that I've seen some nice plants that have been trimmed(your's aren't too bad, btw), and I've seen some really messed up plants, because they've been trimmed improperly, and to this day, nobody has ever shown me any proof that a trimmed plant will outproduce and untrimmed plant. I've seen some that may have equalled untrimmed plants, and the rest were worse, so to me, common sense says to leave them alone, because they do great when untampered with. Why add risk, when the benefits are nothing except equality? That's the way I see it, anyway.

That being said, I do, on occasion, remove a leaf or two from my plants, but that's mostly because, like most others, I love to fuck with them.haha Otherwise, I believe it doesn't do a damn thing, except maybe make them look purtier(less clustered), and risk slowing things down, by removing their crucial solar panels. So, if you absolutely must remove them, do it sparingly, because I can tell you that there is definitely a point where removal will hurt them, especially if a bunch are removed at once. I got a little carried away once, when I was told how great it was to "let the light in", removed the majority of fans leaves in one sitting, and ended up with a bunch of fluffy buds, while it's sister plants turned out awesome. That was enough proof for me, and now I don't mess with them anymore.

with the exception of maybe dead leaves or just really nasty looking ones, I'm going to just leave her alone. BTW "solar panels" is hysterical LOL also what do you mean by fluffy?

They look very nice, What stain are they?

thanks! purple widow! can't wait

edit wow I'm stoned, im smoking on purp right now....it's gonna be Blue Widow lol

digitalkhaos said:

with the exception of maybe dead leaves or just really nasty looking ones, I'm going to just leave her alone. BTW "solar panels" is hysterical LOL also what do you mean by fluffy?

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"Fluffy" as in 'airy' or 'not dense', similar to those you get when using insufficient lighting, or at the lower budsites. "Popcorn buds", I believe most call it.