So I’m a new indoor grower, although I did manage to harvest some nice plants outside, many yrs ago. I know what a plant goes through and can determine when it’s ready to harvest……but the indoor game is all brand new……so bear with me.
I have 3 autos growing in 100% Ocean Forest, under a HLG QB 320w LED. Currently in week 15 and based on how the plants looked a month ago I thought I would have them curing by now.
Most of the grow went fine…I made some rookie mistakes but the plants managed to progress.
Up until they were flowering good I only gave water.
Then I began w/ Fox farms bottled nutes.
I was always on the lighter side and never fed more than around 1000-1100 ppm. My tap is 140ppm. They progressed rather slowly but I could see the end in sight. I began lowering the nute levels.
Then I think I made a big mistake…:.i defoliated heavily. I took almost every fan leaf.
That was about 10 days ago and since then all the remaining leaves have either died or yellowed. What baffles me is since before the defoliation the buds just haven’t progressed. I stare at them every day but they look the same.
I was convinced I had a lockout. So on Monday I gave them a mini flush. I ran just water through until my trays were full……I tested and that ppm was 1400-1500. The ph was 5.8 to 6.2.
So I emptied the trays and ran another half gallon through……filled the trays again. This time it was around 800. I wish I’d continued but I was late having to get somewhere, so that was it.
I’ve done nothing since and they don’t look any different. 3 plants and one is a very different pheno. The two others are very similar.
You’ll see a pic of each. Two are very close to being ripe…:.the other has tons of long pistils that have been that way for weeks.
I need some serious help here….I can’t chop them looking like they do. One more little spurt would do the trick.
Thanks to all that chime in.
I’m not an auto grower but that sounds like an awful long time to me.
Well the breeder timelines are not the most accurate, but 15 weeks is a bit on the long side….they’ve made hardly any progress over the last 3 weeks……they’re just kinda stuck. I really need someone to give me some sound advice on how to push them over the finish line.
Here’s What You Can Expect During Those Last 2 Weeks of Flowering
- To Flush or not To Flush? …
- Prune Those Leaves. …
- Drop the Humidity. …
- Drop the Humidity Even More in the Last 2 or 2 1/2 days. …
- Drop the Light Hours, Too. …
- Stop the Nutrients. …
- Crank Up the Sugar (Molasses) …
- Know When to Harvest.
Thank u for the tips. Unfortunately when I pruned those leaves I got a bit too scissor happy. I took too many fan leaves and now all of the remaining leaves are dying. This would be fine if the plants looked like they were gonna finish, but they have essentially locked up. Actually since before the defoliation they have been idle. In my original post I mentioned that I gave them a mini flush three days ago and the ppm readings were very high on the first runoff (1500) and came down to 800 on the second one.
I don’t know what to do here….they aren’t far from being ripe but I’m afraid they may die before they go through anymore progression.
Their water uptake is much less now, so it’ll be several days before the medium requires any. All I know to do is hit them with a light dose of nutrients and hope they will uptake them and advance a little.
I’d love to hear what others think……thanks so much.
First your bud looks awesome, second this is what the plant does, slows down and starts dying, the fewer white pistols is the sign it is doing a last ditch to get pollenated. Flush your pots with some good microbial, like Recharge, or Billions, the microbes will help adjust the PH and will also help with final nutrient uptake, if the plant is willing it will put on a little growth spurt, if it’s done it’s done. Just let it go till the trikes are the color you like for the kind of high you like and then chop em. Recharge and Billions have complex sugars in them to feed the microbes, which will use up the remaining nutrients better. They won’t die before the resin cures. Just adjust your watering to meet their needs moist but not wet. Mine are at that stage also, using a little less water, not quite as far along as yours, but getting close. It’s an annual, it comes up, grows like crazy…slows down, matures and then dies.
The only difference is your auto has genes in it to force it to flower before the cold comes again cares not about the daylight. The Ruderalis gene came from plants that naturally grew in the northern climes, where the summer is short, but the daylight is 24 hours. It’s just doing it genetic programming.
Marty
Hey that sounds like some sound advice. I’ve used recharge off and on since about mid grow….and will def throw some more at them at the next watering….and add in a smidge of tiger bloom….
I can’t help but wonder about the fact that I’m in week 15…today is day 102 since sprout……and what I did to make them take so long. I know the breeder timelines are BS….my seeds said 9-10 weeks seed to harvest. I see a lot of diaries where folks grow autos and harvest anywhere from 1-3 weeks early, probably b/c they don’t know any better and are just following that breeder timeline. But going an extra 6 or 7 weeks is certainly not the norm.
I kept my conditions very middle of the road….my temps were always in the 70s for lights On, and hi 60s lights off. I never did anything crazy, except for the wholesale defoliation recently. I have a 6” exhaust that pulls a ton through my passive intake…and my airflow is very ample….one oscillating fan blowing over the top of the canopy and a small fixed fan blowing underneath a vented grill that the plants sit on, so the roots are not on the cold floor.
I would bet good money that I’ve had some sort of lockout for past 4-5 weeks……I thought about it at the time but was always told not to flush or water the Ocean Forest to runoff because of its amended nature. But after 10-11 weeks wouldn’t those amendments be long gone??
I just know you can develop a sense for how a plant is progressing and something made me think that the plants were not up-taking everything I was giving them, and I considered a good flush to reset things……but again there were many sources that said you don’t flush an amended soil like ocean forest.
Maybe that rule is applicable only for the first 4-6 weeks while there is still residual nutrients in the medium…???
I dunno……I knew I would make some mistakes and just wanted to recognize when I did and learn to not make them again.
I love hearing what others think and would do in my situation……so keep the thoughts coming. And thank U for your time.
This is why I switched from soil to Rock wool and now I’m trying promix. Trying to guess what’s in your soil watering to runoff searching for a problem. I haven’t had this problem since I got away from soil. Since I’ve been growing this way I haven’t had a problem that I had to correct. Usually by the time I see a deficiency or some thing, It has already been corrected by the next watering and doesn’t need any attention. I think at this point it’s too late to figure out what went wrong with your gro. If you want to keep going and see where this leads forget what’s been done water till you have a little runoff, check it, adjust any issues, continue on.
I had the same problem with my current grow one was a different phenotype it was showing slow growth I put out side for a couple weeks but I wasn’t deep in flower only a couple weeks is better now and end up find out it was a Mutated plant