What Am I Doing Wrong?

OK, here it is:

I've been growing pretty steadily for the last five years or so but I'm still not all that happy with the results. My plants seem to do OK and I even harvested 5 oz. off of my first plant, but.......I'm not getting the quality I'd like. I've previously used bag seed but have, over the last year or so, gained access to quality clones but with only marginally better results. The problem is that my plants don't finish right and end up tasting harsh. They don't seem to ripen fully and I never get cloudy trichs, only clear ones and only the associated mild "heady" buzz, no sleepy body buzz at all. My buds look great, lots of hairs but no cloudy trichomes, only clear ones, they refuse to mature fully. The buds also end up tasting harsh even after a full six weeks of curing in glass jars. I watch my temp and (water/nute) pH closely and I use distilled water exclusively. I'm using 100% perlite in flower pots and General Hydroponics nutrients, sparingly, I might add. Lights: 400w MH for veg, 400w HPS for flower with two, two-bar fluorescents on the sides, in about a 2 ft x 4 ft area, three to five plants, usually.

What am I doing wrong?

HELP!!!

Any advice will be greatly appreciated and thanks for taking the time to read about my woes.

M.C.

P.S.> I just bought some Pro-Mix soilless and worm castings and was planning to try a dirt grow.

how long did you flower them for?
are you growing sativa's? as they take way longer to finish.
could also be strain, what strain are you growing?

THSnow and some Hawaiian strain, heavily Indica, flower for eight weeks but as long as twelve, in an attempt to get it to ripen. All or most of the hairs turn red but they refuse to mature further. I've smoked the stuff the clones came from and my stuff is not like it, not nearly as good.

PS> This has essentially been the same result across all of my grows, several different strains, so I must be doing something wrong.

OK ok... you are curing or drying all wrong if you are getting harshness... even the shittiest of herb can taste smooth with the proper cure. Second, no matter what, in peak maturity, you will end up with cloudy/amber trichomes. Lastly, what is your nute regimen?? GH base only wont do you any good.. you need a few P-K boosters (Phosphorus and Potassium).. so to address all 3, I will start with the first one.. the cure..

1. Dry in a COOL, DARK area with MILD airflow. Stagnant air is bad.. at least have some air moving a bit. You want about 70 Degrees with 60% humidity for the first 3 days. After that, lower the temp (60-70 degrees) but raise your humidity to about 70%. Humidifiers work awesome.. so do buckets of water . The trick is to strive for the longest dry possible... after that the cure is a cakewalk. Youll know theyre done when the branches snap. I prefer jaring my nug after about 90% of my stems snap. The ones that fold over add that extra moisture to ensure my nug will not finish like beef jerky.
Cure using an air tight mason jar. For the first week, burp (open them up) your jars and move the nug around to prevent them from sitting in the same spot for too long (mold prevention). After week 1, a burp every day or other day will do you just fine. THIS I GUARANTEE will ensure properly cured, smooth, great tasting buds.

2. When to harvest. BUY A 40x SCOPE OR JEWELER'S LOUPE. They're like 6 bucks on amazon.. fucking get one. No matter the strain, looking at your trichomes will always determine time to harvest. I prefer about 5-10% Amber... leaves me with about 80+% milky and the rest clear. Remember different strains will mature at different rates... some plants will be from the bottom up.. others top down.. some will mature entirely. Most importantly... PULL YOUR PLANTS BEFORE YOUR LIGHTS COME ON. Terpenes (the odors and tastes -- "personality") becomedepleted near end of day.. while plants are respirating.. or sleeping if you will.. they will boost up their terpene levels and begin to emit smell soon as the lights come on. Buy the fucking Loupe.

3. Nute regimen... this could be the sole reason your buds suck. GH is a fantastic brand to work with. I own like 4 GH shirts.. and I personally prefer GH base because of its stability. Ill need to know exactly what your nutrient regimen is to be able to diagnose your nute problem. Sounds like youre depriving them of a lot of things they need to get that extra boost for some killer nuggetry. There are some amazing finishing products out there, I hope you are using a few.

Sorry for the book.. I like to be thorough. Hope this helps. Let me know what youre feeding schedule is and I can further assist in remedying this crappy-nug problem. Let's get you some fire!

-Grish

Very helpful post. Thanks a lot. Nobody can argue or have second guesses with a very clear explanation. Cheers!

Well, the perlite seems to hold nutes so I only give nutes about every third watering, maxing out at about 500 ppm. I know this sounds light but I burned my stuff when I first started and the runoff showed like, 2400 ppm, so I'm paranoid about over fertilizing. I do use jeweler's loupes for looking at my buds. They're cheap and I have to stack them to get the magnification I need but I can clearly see the trichs with them, and no cloudy ones, just clear ones. Early on I had a plant that wouldn't ripen so I kept letting it go in the hopes it would, it never did, it just kept growing compound buds till it eventually started to die so I went ahead and took it.
...and please, no apologies for the long reply, I really appreciate your taking the time to write it and the detailed info you gave.

Couple of things, nutes will not improve the potency of your bud. If you are checking the trichs and they are clear they are not ready to be harvested, hence rubbish smoke. On your next grow, come on here and post pics of where your at and someone will give advice on best course of action, you can post from the start of your grow to the end to get feedback so please just ask when required not when its too late. Your lights are good so no reason why you cant grow good bud. The temps can affect potency and other factors so best to feed us the info as your growing and we can all chip in to help.

Here are my guesses....

The perlite that you are using is like the miracle grow time released. It is a veg based nutrient.
What is happening is you have too much nitrogen and not enough phosphorus. When that happens, your fruits/flowers/buds do not ripen and your flowering time is greatly increased.
Unfortunately it is tough to work with time-released nutrients. You need to up your phosphorus without burning it up.
The best possible thing is to either transplant into fresh soil that doesnt have that perlite in it. Or on your next attempt do not use that perlite.

It is certainly not a cure issue considering your buds are not maturing before the cut.

Nah, I stay away from the stuff with nutes already in it. I buy these huge bags of perlite at my local nursery for about $23. As for the nutes, I follow the directions on the GH bottles for the ratio. I do three parts growth, two parts micro and one part flower for the veg cycle, then reverse the ratio for the flowering.

Oops, I think I got the nutrient added perlite from another post and mixed that in somehow when I actually logged in to reply to some things.
Anyway, my suggestion would be to stop using the grow nutrient completely two weeks before suggested harvest. See if that makes a difference.

Damn I also said potassium in my last post, phosphorus is what it should be. I edited in the original post.

OK, so I already bought the stuff for a dirt grow and man, the worm castings are expensive! Any ideas on the ratio of Pro-Mix to worm castings? Would 60/40 be enough to get me through a grow without using hydro nutes?

Thanks again for all the great advice.

Hrm I may have confused you. When I said stop using the grow nutrient, I mean just the "veg" nutrient.
Keep using the flowering nutrients, but stop using the veg nutrients completely once you get 5-6 weeks into flowering.
That will keep your nitrogen levels low and your phosphorus levels high which will help ripen the buds.
I use worm castings in soil and I dont actually measure it, but I would say about 2 cups per 3 gallons of soil is what I use.

Update:
I've had to completely start over from seed. My buddy I was getting my clones from had a furnace failure and his entire crop froze and died, including the mothers.
So, here's what I've done:
I germinated four premium seeds and now have them planted in a mix of 1/3 perlite, 1/3 Pro Mix and 1/3 worm castings. They've been give NO nutes, only pH'd distilled water, and they seem to be doing great.



I am also fully convinced that I received good advice here and that my problem has been phosphorus deficiency all along. I even had a plant turn purple and red one time which apparently indicates a severe phosphorus deficiency. So, I need to supplement P during flowering. What say you about this product:

http://www.scotts.com/smg/goprod/miracle-gro-bloom-booster-flower-food/prod70352/

NPK: 15-30-15


...or this product:

http://www.domyownpestcontrol.com/hiyield-super-phosphate-0180-p-3811.html?zmam=70093104&zmas=1&zmac=2&zmap=3811&gclid=CMOB9uOI5bsCFahDMgodikYA8g

NPK: 0-18-0


...or this product:

http://www.bonide.com/lbonide/backlabels/l969.pdf

NPK: 0-45-0!


Thank again, I've never gotten anything but good advice here.


PS> Don't let the pic fool you, there's plenty of light, a 400w MH just about a foot above them. My camera just tones down the light a a bunch and makes the pic look a little dim.
This is 15 days out from a seed with a root sticking out.

Bumpety bump.

looks healthy, is that day 15 above ground ?

Yeah, 15 days since I transplanted the germinated seeds.

Did anybody mention the smoke might be harsh from lack of flushing nutrients for the last week?

And man that's just weird; I mean usually if you just give them enough time they'll mature. I've never heard of a plant staying healthy that didn't gradually, eventually finish up.

I mean I just don't know what you could do that would keep them from maturing.

Did anybody mention the smoke might be harsh from lack of flushing nutrients for the last week?<br><br>And man that's just weird; I mean usually if you just give them enough time they'll mature. I've never heard of a plant staying healthy that didn't gradually, eventually finish up. &nbsp;<br><br>I mean I just don't know what you could do that would keep them from maturing.

WARNING, DANGER!!
Do NOT use those supplements! WAY to high a P.....SKIP the miri grow too!

Your from Aussie land and I don't know exactly what you have available there......BUT, there is CYCO that's made right there!!!!! It has a good rep from those I know who have tried it here in both hydro and soil.
If you can afford it, I would highly suggest you try it.....As a hydro nute. I would run it as directed and for soil I would run it at 1st day feed nute, next day straight water, repeat.

As Thor said. Are you washing before harvest?
I might ask what are your;
Temps?
Light times? For veg and flower.
strains?
Humidity?
Do you use C02? or supplement C02 in any way?
How often have you changed out your bulbs?
How tall do they get in that 2x4 space?

Search the site for good soil mix's that are available to you there that people use here (I know mine is not)...look for how they mix/use them.
Consider DWC if you can control the temp to 70F and bellow. Don't want roots to get to temps above 70F in DWC.

I'm trying to close in on the problems cause..and not getting what I'm needing to see it.

A 600 might help some. But the 400 should work OK...

You purchased decent soil and worm castings - which as you said are expensive but can be worth every penny - so why not go organic soil all the way. It can be cheap too - banana peel tea for potassium supplement, wood ashes for phosphorous, etc. Take a look in the organic section and see what people are doing. I can also recommend a good book - True Living Organics by the Rev. It's not expensive and has step by step explanations for organic container soil growing - a really easy informative read!
It's not hard to make your own worm castings either....and far superior ones to commercial. Have fun and good luck.