Plants taking forever to flower under LED.

Its been 5 months since my Nirvana white widow has been sitting under a 135w blackstar 12/12 and it has yet to show pre flowers. Thats quite a bit of time for me to figure out if its even a male or a female. Does it usually take this long to show preflowers under LED? I saw preflowers after about 2 months under CFLs.

Also, are LEDs exempt from the lumens per square foot rule since it focuses on light spectrum wavelengths? Is a 135w blackstar not enough to cover 5 sq/ft?

5 months!! ^^^ there is something wrong in your grow area. Light leak or using a DIGITAL timer with the Blackstar panel(leds Stay LIT!!!!!).

I would say that. You have proven the theory that LED alone is not sufficient Light.
Put Some more light on your plant, as much ad you can.

Soil or hydro?
how tall is it?
did you top?
Are you using Nutes?
What kind?
are any for flowering?

Bless,
DZ

Are you sure its on 12/12. Not 18/6. Or what psuagro said. Digi timers no good. You should start seeing flowers starting at 8-10 days of flower with led. Hps takes a little longer. Usually 12 - 15 days. I've had light leaks plenty of times and it never caused any problems.. Ie stars , moonlight, city lights outside..

im noob but didnt he say preflower? http://www.420magazine.com/forums/how-grow-marijuana/71168-what-preflowers.html

^^^ yes he did. But he also said in 12/12.

Dogenzengi said:

Soil or hydro?
how tall is it?
did you top?
Are you using Nutes?
What kind?
are any for flowering?

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I put 4 23w cfls in there now.

FFOF for soil
2ft tall
I topped one of the two plants that were in there but i removed that one because it hermied
Im using quarter to half strength FF tiger bloom and big bloom
The one that hermied did show female but when i transplanted into a bigger pot and grow tent those female flowers seemed to die off. then i go to check on them one day and it looked like a pollen sack opened up on it so i removed it.
The other plant, the white widow, is still acting like its being vegged. just now im barely showing sex and from what i see i think they might be pollen sacks.

The grow room did reach very high temps in the high 90s. Would that cause it to not flower? Where the tent is it reflects outdoor temps. I might have to switch to HPS during the winter to keep temps above freezing.

Too high temps will slow growth to a crawl or even stop growth. If transplanted after flowering began. There might be too much nitrogen. That can make flowering lagg if not balanced right with other nutes. So flush (plain water) Only transplant during veg. At latest a week before 12/12. If hermie happens. Kill it.

pollen sacs look like a super mini bundle of bananas before they burst. After they burst they some what resemble oyster shell flour.

well growth wasnt much of an issue. They have tons of ventalation so high temps would cause to to perspire but it had enough water to avoid drying out. They were in very small pots and barely a foot tall then when i moved them to 2-3 gall pots they exploded and got to about 2 1/2 feet tall. I'll give this last plant a few more days but from what i see it doesnt look too good. even if it does turn out female the other plant i removed opened up a pollen sack so i dont know if theres any viable pollen on the existing plant. I might just have to restart and clean the tent of any pollen that might be hanging around on the walls. Probably go with a femmed seed to avoid these headaches and wasted time and electricity.

With ambient temps dropping would you recommend less ventalation to try and keep the heat inside or should i go with an HPS setup?

Dogenzengi said:

I would say that. You have proven the theory that LED alone is not sufficient Light.
DZ

Click to expand...

that doesn't prove anything, he is only applyting a 135 watt blackstar raised up to cover a 5x 5 area. Thats about 100 watts at the plug.
You try to grow anything under 100 watts of any type of lighting for a 5x5 area and you will get crap.

But you are correct it needs MORE LIGHT. I'd also guess there is a significant light leak since its supposed to be on 12/12.

can i ask a small noob question inbetween? Why do you say "kill the hermi", i read somewhere you could constantly remove the male parts and still have buds. Is that wrong? Or because its dangerous when a pollen sack opens up?

I use both LED and other types of lighting and have never had a problem in bloom time with LED. The only difference is the size of the plant, where the LED plants are more compact than say an HPS or MH. Boom time has only to do with the genetics of the plant and the duration of light vs. dark, not the amount of light it receives, You definitely need more lumens to light a 5x5 are than that one fixture. It is probably only good for 3x3 max, 2x2 better. Good luck with your lazy plant

Ventilation is always a good thing. High temps indoor and outdoor are like apples and oranges. There is always more airflow and plenty of co2 outside. Indoor if not using co2. Higher than 87 is detrimental to flower growth. During veg. Plants can handle higher temps better than during flower

watts mean nothing. Look at the a51's 160 watts. Look at captains threads.close to a half p from around 200 watts. One plant too. Apaches are 120 watts..

I'll check for light leaks, i have this tent..

http://www.amazon.com/Aviditi-PTU-68-Reflective-Hydroponic-36-Inch/dp/B004U6WCMY/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&qid=1378666721&sr=8-10&keywords=grow+tent

it has vent flaps on the back and sides about 6 inches off the bottom, thats the only place i think light could get in. I have the led lowered on rope ratchets so its only 6 inches above the main cola. it might be sacrificing light from the other branches but at this point i just want some kind of yield. Maybe i will couple the grow with some cfls lighting the lower branches from the ground?

Raise your light. Leds too close will stunt growth. Read dawgs thread. He has more experience with that scenario. Cfls will help. If you got extra loot. Check out the cree globes at home depot. They work really well. Around $13 each


Lax hermie pollen is no good unless it happens at the end of flower. Pollen sacs can show up anywhere on the plant. If just one sac bursts. You are screwed. Seeded batch. If it happens at the wrong time. You will have immature or dead seeds. There's a small window of pollinating for good viable seeds. Usually between Day 20 - 25

I couldnt imagine getting light leaks from a tent like that. I would probably look at your timer like psuagro[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] mentioned. Even manual timers have this problem. I have manual timers and one of my ufos still glows after lights out. If you can, maybe set an alarm and pull the plug out when you need to and plug it back in at lights on. [/FONT]

My opinion time to let go and start over. I use fem seeds and have never had a problem.

So do LED panels always glow when theyre connected to a digi timer? i used one for a 24hr blackout hoping it would jumpstart flowering. i guess i mistakenly stressed it by triggering 24 hours of veg?? hahaha

EDIT: Also, i think i am seeing little balls at a few nodes at the top of the plant. I also see a ball growing about a centimeter along one of the branches away from the node. Do males do that? i know females sure as heck dont.

oh i just checked and realized at least some of my red leds r glowing too. Looking from above on the plants its pitch black, its glowing but its sooooo low, you sure it will have any effect? I mean what about night time, moon light is like 1000 brighter than that. --------------------------------------------------- ---------------Edit: FIX FOR GLOWING TIMER LEDS: i just figured i may have to Change neutral and Phase Connection on my constant current sources. But instead I first turned the timer by 180° et voila....no more glimming.

lax123 said:

oh i just checked and realized at least some of my red leds r glowing too. Looking from above on the plants its pitch black, its glowing but its sooooo low, you sure it will have any effect? I mean what about night time, moon light is like 1000 brighter than that. --------------------------------------------------- ---------------Edit: FIX FOR GLOWING TIMER LEDS: i just figured i may have to Change neutral and Phase Connection on my constant current sources. But instead I first turned the timer by 180° et voila....no more glimming.

Click to expand...

Yes the Pr/Pfr are very sensitive to near red light in the 600-660nm range. Funny I have never seen any of my leds glowing with digital timers.