Practice run. Wish me luck!

Thanks Mid. Well, time for an update. Unfortunately my news is mixed. I gave the girls a watering of only Big Bloom and water on Friday after noticing what appears to be nute burns - the leaves were curled downward, almost claw like. I monitored them all Saturday and noticed no improvement. In fact, it looked like the edges around the leaves, especially the lower one but some of the mids as well, were browning. Overall the leaves seems dry. I tested the soil yesterday for moisture and after verify it was sufficiently dry, I watered them with plain water (unchlorinated). I am pretty sure my problem is overfertlization, and specifically too much nitrogen. So I have backed off the Foxfarm products for a few days, to see if they rebound. I have a soil testing kit and I'll PH the soil tonight. Otherwise, you can see from the pics that the buds are doing nicely so far. I'll also post a few more in my gallery.

What I am not seeing are those frosty trichomes that other buds have. I don't know if it's just the strain I'm growing or if it's that fact that it's too early? The girls have been flowering now for 27 days. Any thoughts?

Nice journal. I am growing three for the first time, too. Mine are a week old and two of them lay down after being in the sun for a few hours. Did you see that with yours early on?
Thanks!

hearmenow, don't worry about the trichomes just yet.... its a little too early to be thinking about seeing nevermind analyzing them yet. Your buds are young and appear to be healthy. In another 2 weeks or so start keeping an eye out for those trichomes. And another thing, I had the same problem with the leaves. Its the amount of ferts you are feeding your babies. Youve got the right idea about using plain water for a few days. Hope this helped!

Ganz, thanks for the advice. It helps. Stick, I don't remember my plants laying down. I don't know where you are located but maybe it's just too hot for them. I am in South Florida, so I doubt where you are is hotter if you are in the US. A couple things you might want to consider: make sure you insulate your pots. If it's a plastic pot (as most are), it can heat up in the sun and actually damage or kill the roots. Place your pot into a bigger pot or wrap some cardboard around your pot. Also, make sure there is movement of the air around the plants, i.e., a light wind. You might also want to rotate the plants, so the sun isn't beating down on one part. Good luck.

Anyway, I watered the girls this morning again with plain unchlorinated water with molasses. They look better than they did earlier, so I definitely think they needed a breather from the ferts. I will water one more time with plain water and then slowly introduce the ferts if they continue to do well.

The buds on the bigger plant are really starting to look impressive. The bud on the main cola looks like it's about 3" long and about 1.5" wide - nice and thick. This plant also has 2 other shoots with similarly sized buds. There are also smaller buds breaking out all over the plant. I think I will get a nice yeild from this plant. Unfortunately, I don't know how potent the smoke will be because there is no strong smell from this one.

The smaller one is also coming along. The main cola is starting to thicken. The buds on the lower branches appear smallish, though, probably dime-sized. This plant is clearly not as further along in flowering as the other. They are definitely 2 different strains - the taller one being more sativa dominant than the smaller one. The smaller one is more christmas-tree shaped, with bushier lower branches. So here are some updated pics from this morning. I think you can see how big the buds on the main colas are. Any comments or feedback welcomed.

Thanks, dude. I am in north florida, so I know it's not as intense as your environment. I really thought I was doing them a favor by giving them sun.

Those pics are great...I want some!

Sun is the best light, stick. The light is able to penetrate deep into the canopy of the plant, compared to CFLs or even HPSs. Just make sure your pot isn't getting too hot. That was happening with mine. I'd check on it during the day and the plastic was hot! If the plastic is hot, it'll transfer that heat to the soil and hot soil is definitiely not good for the fragile root system. For example, if you are using 3-gallon pots, get 5-galloners and place the 3 gallon into the 5 gallon. This will provide insulation to the smaller inner one. When you said it's "laying down" do you mean it's droopy? Because that's an entirely different problem and could be over-watering. Good luck and let me know if this helps.

hearmenow said:

What I am not seeing are those frosty trichomes that other buds have. I don't know if it's just the strain I'm growing or if it's that fact that it's too early? The girls have been flowering now for 27 days. Any thoughts?

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Wow you've got some serious burn problems there dude - definitely over-ferted, you've also got some N def in some of the very lower leaves too.

Over-fertilisation is one of the most common mistakes new growers make and unfortunately it's one of the worst from the plants perspective. It's an easy mistake to make because the manufacturers guidance on feeding schedules is nearly always way out of whack to what the plants actually need. When growing new strains and using unfamiliar nutrients you should always start at a 1/4 doseage from recommended and work from there by observing how the plants react - you can always up the dose if you need to.

One of the best ways of working out nutrient doseages is to use an EC meter. Measure the EC of your irrigation water it can be anywhere between 0.4-0.8 EC, add a 1/4 nutrient strength solution and remeasure the EC again it should be between about 1.0-1.8 EC, you should never go above about 2.0 EC in soil.

Regarding trichomes, at 27 days you should start to see some trichome development fairly soon as it usually starts in or around the 4th week of flowering, although it depends largely on the strain you're growing and how optimum the growing environment has been - over-fertilsation isn't going to help the plant and will slow down it's growth, so that may be having an imact on trichrome development.

Other than that, the plants look okay

Thanks for the feedback, baby. Very helpful. I am seeing some improvement from over the weekend, so hopefully they are out of the danger zone.

The plants looked like they were recovering from the nute burns over the weekend. I watered plain water with molasses on Thurs. The buds on the taller one really seemed to swell. And whereas it seemed to have no smell before, now it definitely has a distinction skunk smell. And I don't mean that dank skunk smell, I just mean a plain old nasty skunk smell. Almost disgusting to me to smell it. The buds on the smaller one's main cola also seemed to swell but the other buds haven't really shown much change and they appear a little smallish. On both plants the pistils are starting to turn reddish brown. On the smaller plant, the pistils generally appear to have a purplish hue, where they haven't browned yet.

Anyway, I watered the girls yesterday (Sunday) with a little Superthrive and 1 tsp of Big Bloom added to 1 gallon plain water. After watering, I was examining them closely and I noticed very tiny cream colored eggs on the underside of the leaves on the lower 1/3 of the taller plant. They were maybe the size of a pinhead. On closer examination, I noticed tiny little black bugs crawling around! I sprayed both plants with an insect spray that's supposed to be safe for fruits and veges.

Anyway, here are some updated pics of the main buds. I'll post a couple more and in my gallery.

A few more of the grow area and of the plants. I'm using primarily natural sunlight for my 12 hours of light but occasionally I will put them under the lights if the weather is bad or we have people over.

If you want more trichos, add some molasses to the feeding. 1 tbs per gallon of water, then after a week boost it up to 2tbs, this should help you a bunch, and swell your bud up, nice and big. Unsulpherd molasses works the best : ) good luck hear me

Thanks, Jack. You must not have read my earlier posts. I've been adding molasses even prior to flowering. I read where the plant benefits even during vegging from the sugars. I was at 1 tbs/gallon and when I put them into flowering, I increased to 2 tbs/gallon every 7-10 days.

I forgot to mention something that I also noted this weekend. As I posted earlier, I think I have the girls too much ferts when I first started using the Foxfarm products. I backed off those and gave them plain water for a week. The taller plant has lost all of it's fan leaves. At first I thought it was my fault but the smaller one hasn't lost any and more importantly, there is a lot of new growth on the taller one, even though it has no fan leaves. There is a lot of new green healthy growth around the bud sites. Additionally, all along the main stem, I am still seeing little new leaves sprouting. Actually, on both plants. On some of these little new sprouts, they are already flowering too. I don't expect these to produce any significant bud but it's nice to know the plant is still healthy enough to do this.

hearmenow said:

I've been adding molasses even prior to flowering. I read where the plant benefits even during vegging from the sugars. I was at 1 tbs/gallon and when I put them into flowering, I increased to 2 tbs/gallon every 7-10 days.

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Molasses seems to be a popular additive amongst many growers on this site, although I suspect that not that many actually know why, and it's not because the plant uptakes all that sugar/carbohydrate either

Molasses serves two very specific functions -

1) In soil grows (it cannot be used in hydro, because it's too viscuous and beneficial microbes in hydro aren't always beneficial although there are similar commercial alternatives for use in hydro ) it feeds the 'micro-herd'. The 'micro-herd' is made up of beneficial microbes and bacteria that feed on the organic nutrient elements breaking them down into a chelated form for uptake by the plant. The carbohydrates and sugars in molasses 'feeds' this colony of microbes and allows them to multiply - the more microbes, the more quickly organic nutrients get broken down into chelates and the quicker the plant can uptake them.

2) It contains small quantities of minerals, both mobile and immobile elements, which acts as a low level nutrient fertiliser. For this reason you need to be careful at what level you use Molasses along side other fertilisers otherwise you can overdose your plants.

The break down of nutrients for 1 cup (337g) of molasses is -

Calcium 691 mg
Iron 15.9 mg
Magnesium 816 mg
Phosphorus 104 mg
Potassium 4933 mg
Sodium 125 mg
Zinc 1.0 mg
Copper 1.6 mg
Manganese 5.2 mg

Small quantities mostly, but still very useful trace elements. Notice, there's no Nitrogen in there making Molasses particularly useful in flowering where lower levels of Nitrogen are required.

Hope this helps people understand how Molasses is beneficial to their plants.

Great info. When I first learned of adding molasses (by one of VM's posts), I was skeptical. I never rely solely on what someone here posts. I researched on other sites, some that are not pot specific, and learned that it does have a positive impact on growth. I hadn't read anything about microbes, though, so this is some good new info. Thanks.

Baby, any opinion on the loss of fan leaves but continued new growth on the taller plant? The buds continue to increase in size each day. The main cola is starting to lean a little to one side from the unbalanced weight and thickness of the bud.

now when u guys say molassas, do u mean the stuff u can just get at the grocery store?

hearmenow said:

Baby, any opinion on the loss of fan leaves but continued new growth on the taller plant? The buds continue to increase in size each day. The main cola is starting to lean a little to one side from the unbalanced weight and thickness of the bud.

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Hearmenow

Not sure what info you're looking for, but I'm happy to give you an opinion.

Fan leaves perform two primary functions 1) They act as 'energy receptors' ie their large size captures a high percentage of light energy falling on the plant which the plant then uses with co2 to produce carbohydrates and sugars. 2) They act as mobile nutrient 'silo's ie they act as storage respositories for mobile nutrient elements. This way the plant can store not immediately needed mobile elements in the fan leaves and move them or relocate those mobile nutrients to elsewhere on the plant - usually new growth when required. That's why the fan leaves tend to be the first to show mobile element deficiencies.

The upshot of all that is basically that the plant now cannot process as much light as it could before and it's lost its mobile nutrient stores. This doesn't mean it's going to keel over and die it just means its growth will slow down, because it cannot process as much light, nutrients, co2 and water as it did before, but it will still continue putting out new growth.

Also be careful about your feeding of this plant, it cannot process as much nutrient intake as it did before it lost it's fan leaves and it's also lost its mobile nutrient stores, so you may need to ease back on the feed of that plant - monitor it and see how it goes.

The plus side of course is that the lower down bud sites now no longer have any shading and will get more light - hence the increased size of those buds.

Yes, the very same. Look for the Grandma labelled one. Black Strap.

Thanks for that feedback. I also had read where near the end of the flowering cycle some strains will focus all the energy on bud production in a last ditch attempt to become fertilized and that's why some strains cannot be regenerated (no fan leaves left). Also, even though there are no lower fan leaves, some of the leaves surrounding the bud are actually as large as the fan leaves were and are generally much greener and healthier looking. You don't think these leaves serve the same purpose as the fan leaves?

babygro said:

Hearmenow

Not sure what info you're looking for, but I'm happy to give you an opinion.

Fan leaves perform two primary functions 1) They act as 'energy receptors' ie their large size captures a high percentage of light energy falling on the plant which the plant then uses with co2 to produce carbohydrates and sugars. 2) They act as mobile nutrient 'silo's ie they act as storage respositories for mobile nutrient elements. This way the plant can store not immediately needed mobile elements in the fan leaves and move them or relocate those mobile nutrients to elsewhere on the plant - usually new growth when required. That's why the fan leaves tend to be the first to show mobile element deficiencies.

The upshot of all that is basically that the plant now cannot process as much light as it could before and it's lost its mobile nutrient stores. This doesn't mean it's going to keel over and die it just means its growth will slow down, because it cannot process as much light, nutrients, co2 and water as it did before, but it will still continue putting out new growth.

Also be careful about your feeding of this plant, it cannot process as much nutrient intake as it did before it lost it's fan leaves and it's also lost its mobile nutrient stores, so you may need to ease back on the feed of that plant - monitor it and see how it goes.

The plus side of course is that the lower down bud sites now no longer have any shading and will get more light - hence the increased size of those buds.

Click to expand...

hearmenow said:

Also, even though there are no lower fan leaves, some of the leaves surrounding the bud are actually as large as the fan leaves were and are generally much greener and healthier looking. You don't think these leaves serve the same purpose as the fan leaves?

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Oh absolutely they serve the same purpose - all the leaves on the plant are light receptors. However, it's the primary job of the large fan leaves due to their large size to soak up the most light. If you actually watch the plants fan leaves carefully over a period of time, you'll notice that the leaves actually change position to angle themsleves into the very best position to recieve the most light.

The fact that your plant has plenty of leaves left is the reason it's still putting out new growth and those buds continue to fatten up But it's ability to process light with co2 has still been diminished due to losing those light receptor fan leaves.

Quite recently I read a very long and very detailed discussion document on the advantages and disadvantages of removing large fan leaves in flowering and there were some very interesting comments made. The concensus however was very much that removing fan leaves deliberately was counter-productive. The additional light the bud sites receives was offset by the plants dminished ability to process light with co2.