Why are my buds smelling bitter/peppery around Sep. 15

PJ Diaz said:

Water is precious. Excess moisture in soil can lead to root rot.

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We're not in a drought anymore, i'm in coco and perlite/lava rock...the mixture is pretty airy, but I can imagine moisture causing an issue...idk. The point was to try it on one plant and see how it reacts, the rest of my girls aren't getting flushed...so we'll see.

growerNshower said:

We're not in a drought anymore, i'm in coco and perlite/lava rock...the mixture is pretty airy, but I can imagine moisture causing an issue...idk. The point was to try it on one plant and see how it reacts, the rest of my girls aren't getting flushed...so we'll see.

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Regardless of a drought that’s a lot of fucking water to do , not to harp on you too bad man. So your logic is flush it with a shit ton of water, steal it of it’s nutes and all this because the smell was off?

In your defense I’ll say I’ve went outside and thought maybe they smelt weird but as long as they seem healthy and growing leave it be. Today I went out to the weird smelling one and after touching it gently was embraced with the best sweet/citrus smell I looooved.
Did you gently bend one open? Look inside for any signs of rot? Otherwise I really don’t see why you would want to starve plant of nutes. Let them fuckers live. I haven’t seen anything backing up flushing more than if you have a nute issue and that’s the last step anyone wants to take because it starves them . Most recommend just continuing and having them adjust to the new levels of feed rather than flushing too, I’m a newb and ik that your just putting it under unneeded stress when it’s most CRUCIAL to provide it with them. Airy buds here we come.

May be strain dependent. I just harvested a nice pepper toned plant... I consider that classic earthy smell. Maybe you should open up to new smells aye? You may have to get a nose full of smells you’ve never smelt before... and you better like it! Seriously though your probably just making it harder for it to produce buds , at this point might not affect it , like a heavy water . But soon it will have No food and start eating itself . Which you don’t want, it won’t have any fam or sugar leaves to soak up the sun.
Don’t be afraid to gently bend buds open/ get up close and personal and look all over the plants in the deepest parts too grab it by the tip and sorta bend it the other way . after all, it is YOUR medicine, and bending them is worth it so you can diagnose the problem, and you won’t even notice it in the end!
Have fun, and don’t send me your water bill.

growerNshower said:

We're not in a drought anymore, i'm in coco and perlite/lava rock...the mixture is pretty airy, but I can imagine moisture causing an issue...idk. The point was to try it on one plant and see how it reacts, the rest of my girls aren't getting flushed...so we'll see.

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Well, we're not necessarily out of the drought yet just because of one good year of rain. We don't yet know what this winter will bring.

I guess I'm confused about how you're feeding the plants. If you're growing strictly organic, your soil shouldn't be light and airy, it should be full of humus. Did you top dress only, onto a coco/perlite mix? Usually it's best to make sure you have a complete soil to start and then top dress throughout the grow.

Were the indoor plants grown with the same soil and nutrients?

Are these all seed plants or clones?

growerNshower said:

We're not in a drought anymore, i'm in coco and perlite/lava rock...

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PJ Diaz said:

Well, we're not necessarily out of the drought yet just because of one good year of rain. We don't yet know what this winter will bring.

I guess I'm confused about how you're feeding the plants. If you're growing strictly organic, your soil shouldn't be light and airy, it should be full of humus. Did you top dress only, onto a coco/perlite mix? Usually it's best to make sure you have a complete soil to start and then top dress throughout the grow.

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Yeah, sorry, I buried the details at the top, it’s 20% coco, 10% perlite, 10%lava rock, 30% turkey compost, 30% mushroom compost. I top dressed as per original post..pH a little high where the roots are air pruned at edges of pot (7-7.5), but in middle a nice 6.5. The medium is kind of a hybrid soil I guess, I’ve used this style last two years and it drains really well, so overwatering isn’t usually a problem, they love the air, the plants get huge, but obviously I’m not dialed in completely.

mushroom compost can be high in salts depending on the quality of it. You should get a soil test done for next season since you are using so much soil. The test will pay for itself by saving you from buying unnecessary amendments and you can eliminate soil imbalance as a variable for causing issues. Water quality can be an issue too...sometimes other things can be present that a harmful that won't be detected by a ph or TDS meter.

420feverigothemunchies said:

Regardless of a drought that’s a lot of fucking water to do , not to harp on you too bad man. So your logic is flush it with a shit ton of water, steal it of it’s nutes and all this because the smell was off?

In your defense I’ll say I’ve went outside and thought maybe they smelt weird but as long as they seem healthy and growing leave it be. Today I went out to the weird smelling one and after touching it gently was embraced with the best sweet/citrus smell I looooved.
Did you gently bend one open? Look inside for any signs of rot? Otherwise I really don’t see why you would want to starve plant of nutes. Let them fuckers live. I haven’t seen anything backing up flushing more than if you have a nute issue and that’s the last step anyone wants to take because it starves them . Most recommend just continuing and having them adjust to the new levels of feed rather than flushing too, I’m a newb and ik that your just putting it under unneeded stress when it’s most CRUCIAL to provide it with them. Airy buds here we come.

May be strain dependent. I just harvested a nice pepper toned plant... I consider that classic earthy smell. Maybe you should open up to new smells aye? You may have to get a nose full of smells you’ve never smelt before... and you better like it! Seriously though your probably just making it harder for it to produce buds , at this point might not affect it , like a heavy water . But soon it will have No food and start eating itself . Which you don’t want, it won’t have any fam or sugar leaves to soak up the sun.
Don’t be afraid to gently bend buds open/ get up close and personal and look all over the plants in the deepest parts too grab it by the tip and sorta bend it the other way . after all, it is YOUR medicine, and bending them is worth it so you can diagnose the problem, and you won’t even notice it in the end!
Have fun, and don’t send me your water bill.

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Thanks for the thoughtful response. Our water is pretty cheap up here, but I’m not out here trying to kill the trout either. I didnt put the extra 200 gallons through it (since we had rain coming, blasted me btw) just the initial 80-100 gallons...you know one full bathtub...and then I skipped a shower that day ;p. And don’t worry, I’ll never grow any almonds (read: 1900 gallons water per pound).

But yeah, I’m not really a noob, maybe intermediate. I’ve grown 100+ strains in my life, so I know when the plants are smelling off. Thing is, genetics determine the potential, but environment is limiting. Other thing to consider is that plants (not just cannabis) can change their terpene profile to combat stress...heat, cold, insects, mold. So, a master grower figures out the perfect conditions to allow the plant to express itself in its full glory...that’s what I’m after.

At this point, I’m inclined to think the peppery smell is a stress response to heat, cold or mechanical damage from the heavy rain we had a couple weeks ago...and maybe even moisture stress...

waterproof808 said:

mushroom compost can be high in salts depending on the quality of it. You should get a soil test done for next season since you are using so much soil. The test will pay for itself by saving you from buying unnecessary amendments and you can eliminate soil imbalance as a variable for causing issues. Water quality can be an issue too...sometimes other things can be present that a harmful that won't be detected by a ph or TDS meter.

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That’s good advice, I’ll def do a soil test before next season. As I posted above, I’m leaning toward temp stress or mechanical damage, since our rains were pretty heavy last couple weeks. I’m on a southwest slope by the way, and the sun is a mf’r....nights have been in the 50s, but direct sun feels like 110...and I’ve noticed buds directly in sun more peppery than shaded buds

Thundercat said:

Were the indoor plants grown with the same soil and nutrients?

Are these all seed plants or clones?

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Clones, similar soil and nutes but not same...good point. I will have to make some better comparisons next season.

Not sure about cause/effect, but 2 days ago I topdressed all my girls with some bat guano and langbenite (1/2 cup each per 100-200 gallon pot) and a teaspoon of rainbow mix pro (for micros), after mixing briefly in 5 gallon bucket of water. Not sure if this is why, but I'm noticing a better nose on most of my plants. The buds in the sun still seem depleted of the pleasant terps, so I'm guessing the heat is evaporating the terps/plant is transpiring them out. I guess what is left after the pretty terps leave are the nasty bitter flavors that then dominate the nose? Maybe the flowers are producing incidentally nasty-smelling compounds to protect from sun damage?

In any case, perhaps I was in a slight K/S/Mg def and the langbenite helped stink things up...I read a thread elsewhere that suggests S/Mg are highly influential in terp production...any thoughts?

Yeah, you might just have some evaporation of the more volatile terpenes due to the intense heat.
I woul probably top dress with some gypsum and worm castings. Should help fix your soil and it has sulphur that enhances terpene production.

waterproof808 said:

Yeah, you might just have some evaporation of the more volatile terpenes due to the intense heat.
I woul probably top dress with some gypsum and worm castings. Should help fix your soil and it has sulphur that enhances terpene production.

Click to expand...

I like the worm castings idea, I was thinking the same thing. However, I was a bit hesitant to use gypsum, since I used a lot of oyster shell flour and fish bone meal throughout the season, I was concerned about overdoing the Ca, and potentially locking out Mg...but idk, maybe adding gypsum with the langbenite would keep mg/ca in balance but give an extra boost of sulfur? Just looked up their solubilities in water and it seems gypsum << langbenite, so perhaps it will work well...

waterproof808 said:

Yeah, you might just have some evaporation of the more volatile terpenes due to the intense heat.
I woul probably top dress with some gypsum and worm castings. Should help fix your soil and it has sulphur that enhances terpene production.

Click to expand...

I top dressed some of my girls with a thin layer of EWC, mixed with 1/2 cup/gallon each: langbenite, gypsum, bat guano. Last meal...

waterproof808 said:

Yeah, you might just have some evaporation of the more volatile terpenes due to the intense heat.
I woul probably top dress with some gypsum and worm castings. Should help fix your soil and it has sulphur that enhances terpene production.

Click to expand...

what do you think about hitting a couple of those with 5 gal of water with 5 tbsp of molasses, see how the microbes in the ewc can assist? I’m thinking harvest will be 1-3 weeks depending on variety...

No matter where you are in the world, water is a precious commodity. Soon there will be no more left. Dont be that guy

Joncoh101 said:

No matter where you are in the world, water is a precious commodity. Soon there will be no more left. Dont be that guy

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do you quote netflix' series "rotten" by that? however it's happening... tell me how good capitalism really is...

Joncoh101 said:

No matter where you are in the world, water is a precious commodity. Soon there will be no more left. Dont be that guy

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Thanks. Yeah I’m not sure if there will be no more water left soon (LOL) that sounds highly speculative and fear mongering...do you have a peer reviewed reference for this? What algorithm and data was used to model this? Are you an earth/water scientist? I know people fight over water all over the world...people steal (read divert) water from other land, it’s a major issue. But I think you have to be a little realistic too. Where do you think the water I put in my plants is going? Other than transpiration and a small amount of surface evaporation, I’m pretty sure a good majority of it is percolating down to the water tables/aquifers that feed back into the rivers that fill up the lakes and reservoirs down the hill. Where do you think the water is going? One major issue with water crises around the world is that water is not evenly distributed. That means, we have a ton of it up here, more than we can use this season probably and the reservoirs can only hold so much. It’s not like we can just pump whatever we don’t use to Cape Town...and if we hold onto it too long up here, then the reservoirs overtop and we get flooding....not saying we should just use it all up, but be realistic. IMO, urban overdevelopment, industrialization, water diversion are the primary causes of water shortages...that’s maybe where you should put that bright eyed puppy energy you got.

In any case, I didn’t put more than a bath tub of water into ONE plant ONE time, for educational purposes. That’s 2 cups of coffee worth of water...1/30th the amount of water require to make a pair of jeans...a handful of almonds worth of water.

Just so you know, I’m anti consumerism, I use only dry amendments for my gardening, I try not to drive when I don’t have to, I don’t run the water when I do dishes or brush my teeth, I don’t buy new clothes until mine are falling apart, I don’t drink bottled water unless it’s my only option...I do what I can.

EDIT: oh yeah, I pee outside too, so that saves about 1.2 gal/flush (~6-8 gallons/day...so I made up that flush water in 10 days just on that alone)...and no lawn here buddy, we let the annual grasses dry up and do their thing.

I’m not THAT guy...but you should try not to be THAAAT guy. Looking forward to your data on the world being out of water soon, and I hope you don’t wear cotton, drink coffee or eat nuts...otherwise you’re a major hypocrite.

EDIT: while we're on the subject, I'm actually really interested in developing a permaculture setup, but that will take a couple years to build. Since we're on a hill, I think we may be able to collect the water runoff into a pond and use a solar powered pump to get it back up the hill.

growerNshower said:

I know people fight over water all over the world...people steal (read divert) water from other land, it’s a major issue....

water is not evenly distributed. That means, we have a ton of it up here, more than we can use this season probably and the reservoirs can only hold so much...

be realistic. IMO, urban overdevelopment, industrialization, water diversion are the primary causes of water shortages...that’s maybe where you should put that bright eyed puppy energy you got...

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• that´s why i´m still for carpet-bombing each of the high-roller-gov´s around the world... haha jk * thankfully i know how it is not to have an permanent accesibility to clean drinkwater [once i drank water from the tap and there came a fucking cockroach or something and i swallowed it] or not to take a bath each day. And i´m fucking happy not to live that kind of live anymore
• i think that's the major issue at all, but srsly i've seen alot of hipsters, eco-wanna-make-the-world-better-dipshits who just talk and don't seperate theyre garbage. fucking hypocracy, man
• it's sadly always about how fat, ignorant, rich people try to get more money. Actually you can call it a physikal law already, make poor guys poorer in order to make the rich guys richer.

happy growing guys

*not

majjy_rane said:

• that´s why i´m still for carpet-bombing each of the high-roller-gov´s around the world... haha jk * thankfully i know how it is not to have an permanent accesibility to clean drinkwater [once i drank water from the tap and there came a fucking cockroach or something and i swallowed it] or not to take a bath each day. And i´m fucking happy not to live that kind of live anymore
• i think that's the major issue at all, but srsly i've seen alot of hipsters, eco-wanna-make-the-world-better-dipshits who just talk and don't seperate theyre garbage. fucking hypocracy, man
• it's sadly always about how fat, ignorant, rich people try to get more money. Actually you can call it a physikal law already, make poor guys poorer in order to make the rich guys richer.

happy growing guys

*not

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Ugh, yes...this.

I hate capitalism.

I wish we could all just help each other out...seriously, who gets joy out of a fat steak you took out a starving family’s mouth?

Here’s an idea, let’s play a game where we all try to trick each other out of food, water and resources and whoever has the most toys at the end wins! Weeee....fucking humanity.

growerNshower said:

Ugh, yes...this.

I hate capitalism.

I wish we could all just help each other out...seriously, who gets joy out of a fat steak you took out a starving family’s mouth?

Here’s an idea, let’s play a game where we all try to trick each other out of food, water and resources and whoever has the most toys at the end wins! Weeee....fucking humanity.

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dude that was one of the most fucked up feeling ever still kinda feel the feets of that fucker in my throat when i´m thinking about that...

totally feel you! however man gotta go, ain´t nobody gonna pay for my bills

i used to be one of those rainbow-pukers aswell, you know, like taking all the leftovers after work and give that to our local soup kitchens and picking up garbage from rivers, calculating my co2 emmision and try do keep it low and so on and call me weak or whatever but it just doesn't make any difference if you look all over the world [forests intentionally get burned down, air getting polluted, rivers getting fucked up] or how do you see it? not to mention what people do to each other...

sorry for my poor english but i don't this one