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Some Flowering Questions


The Mayor

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no, you will not need to do a complete flush every rez change. i am REAL bad about just calling everything "flush" and i'm sorry :) flush technically involves clean water for 24 hours or more. dumping the old nutes and filling with fresh nutes/water is a rez change.

 

haha, ok, no...... you will not need to flush again until your "final flush" just before harvest...... until then its only rez changes.

 

as far as supplemental lighting?? nope, it won't hurt that's for sure :) yeah, the more the merrier. :))

 

glad to hear the pvc fence is working for ya. they are nice :)

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Ok...

 

Tomorrow I finish my third week in flowering and begin week four. I have built the aforementioned fence, and have used it as discussed to tie over stretching plants in effort to control the height.

The stretching or rapid growth seems to have slowed compared to what how fast they were growing in the first couple weeks.

 

So here we are again to assess. Attached are a few pictures of where I am at now (about an hour ago).

 

I'll start with my question I had from the beginning. Should I think about trimming or pruning the undergrowth? If so, to what extent?

 

Next, the portions of the plants closest to the fan seem to be a bit more wilting in appearance than everywhere else. Should I worry? I can't really move the fan much farther away than it currently is. I had it up on a higher setting and have since put it on low. So we'll see if that helps.

 

My light is about 18-20 inches from the plants. Some of the leaves in the middle seem to be fading in a very consistent manner. The entire leaf appears lighter, and it is again happening mostly in the center even though it is not necessarily the closest in distance to the light. It looks very much like the picture of a nitrogen deficiency during flowering pic found here...

 

http://www.420magazi...-pictorial.html

 

If it is a nitrogen deficiency, how do I adjust it when I am using the Fox Farm nute regimen?

 

On a side note, I tried using the white balance functions on my Canon Rebel XT and did not succeed. So I tweaked the color a bit in photoshop to lessen the amber hue.

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hahahahahahaha........... HOLY SH*T !!

 

nice job man!! wow!! hell of an update there!! :goodjob:

 

if you can gets specific pics of your leaves that would be great, but at first look, i dont think there is a problem really. believe me, your pretty green jungle will more than likely end up a rainbow of colors by the time those buds are huge and ready to chop off in a few weeks. i could be wrong, but i have a feeling :)

 

you can try this though if you are pretty sure its a deficiency

http://www.planetnatural.com/site/nitrex.html

 

 

just a ml or 2ml per gallon is all i would go though.

 

looking awesome my friend. im very impressed. glad to see the fence is workin' out for ya'.

 

as far as trimming the undergrowth, yeah, IMO its now or never. judgment call. clip everything off the bottom set of branches except the tops and stand back and look :) there is no "rule book" to follow on this, and its nearly impossible through pics to suggest what branches to cut and what to leave.

 

if you want to clip some and then take pics i can try to give suggestions as you go, but really, you cant mess it up as long as you take the time to make sure you KNOW what you are cutting before you cut it :) i highly doubt you are going to get "in the mood to prune" and go too far.......

 

once again, lookin' lush man. very nice patch ya got there.

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As I put more thought into it I realized that I am changing the res tonight, and replenishing the nutes (obviously). So, I'm thinking I will just wait and watch in regards to the possible nutrient deficiency.

 

Maybe I'll go in low and close to the plant stalks and take the leaves that are more or less permanently in the deep shade, but otherwise err on the side of caution.

I wish I was getting more light on the sides, there is a lot of surface area there. I have some 18" plant & aquarium bulbs that I was going to put around the sides just for the sake of more light, but when I turn them on in that room it's almost like they don't exist...even in the shade! (I'll probably still hang them up anyhow...why not?)

 

Thanks again for taking the time and input!

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ok. Now I am having some issues and they may be due to multiple factors. I appreciate any advice as usual. I apologize this is so long but I figured I would try to give as much info as I could to help you help me!

:thumbsu:

 

Here is what I know.

 

Recap of what I'm growing: The strain is Lemon Paw (Lemon Skunk & Monkey Paw) which I got from the guy that bred the strain. Not a lot of info available on the strain and I am not in contact with this person.

I am in touch with someone growing them in dirt, while I am in hydro and he is just about to start his first flower stage so...we aren't in sync.

 

The leaves started doing this a little more than a week ago, about 3-4 days prior to us having that heat spell where temps approached and I think even hit 90 outside.:hot:

 

I am currently 3 days into my 5th week of flowering. So this would have been at around the beginning of my 4th week. The problem is still there, and sort of spreading but at a slow rate. A good portion of the leaves near the tops of the plants but not the closest to the buds are doing this. All of the side leaves not directly in the light are pretty much looking normal with a few that have rough edges.

 

I keep the pH at 5.8. My PPM is 1268 ish, but I ran out of calibration fluid a while back and am not sure I can trust that. However, I just changed the res and it currently has just the "as directed" quantity of nutes in it.

My light is as far away from the plants as I can get it, and at no point are there any areas of the plant that are less than 24 inches away.

 

 

At first I looked at a lot of leaf pictures online and deduced that I likely had a phosphorus deficiency. So I added a touch of Tiger Bloom (which wasn't technically supposed to enter the schedule until this week) and didn't really see any results other than the problem slowly spreading.

 

TEMP: At the same time, the temp and humidity in my room started to climb. The temp hit 90 and with all of my cooling attempts during that time I was able to maintain about an 88 degree average. I know, not great.

 

HUMIDITY: Humidity hovered just over 60% and a few times for brief periods it would climb up near 70%. My dehumidifier was kicking out tons of heat while it was on and so I experimented with settings in order to find the optimum balance of temp vs humidity that I would get from it. Optimum sucked and 60% has been the lowest I could achieve, but mostly just over is where it hovers.

 

I also started putting a 20% frozen bottle of water in the res (7 gallons) about 40 minutes prior to each feeding to cool it. Usually the plants have been drinking 2-3 gallons a day, and since this started I have been refilling roughly 1 gallon a day (other than the last two days where the temp went down a bit again)

 

Now, the day before my res change I did a 3 cycle (24 hour) flush with water just in case my nute correction was not the right thing to do, and that way I would know pretty much that I was starting with new nutes and a fresher start when it came to their current balance in the plants. Then I started with the 5th week of flower nutes which is all of the main three Fox Farm nutes plus Cha Ching as directed...plus a dash of super Thrive.

 

PLAN OF ACTION: I am buying a portable AC unit (no nearby windows and if for some reason I have periods where I don't need it in my grow area, I can put it in my house and use it there) to cool the area from which my air is drawn into the rooms. I also am going to get a second inline fan to move the air from my veg room into my flower room because the two 5" computer fans I am using are not cutting it and my flower room has negative pressure (the poly on the walls pulls in noticeably when the door is closed). Plus my tubing isn't all as straight as would be desired so the air flow in and out of the room is not optimized as a result. I can't change this currently so I am working around it and want to reduce the stress on my current fan by helping with the intake.

 

Finally, I am going to try and move my ballast to the outside of the room since it is obviously a bit warm. It's just a matter of getting a chance to make the holes to route the cords then of course make it all light tight again. This might not happen immediately.

 

I'll quit using the dehumidifier in lieu of the AC.

 

Ok, if you made it this far :goodjob::bow:...here are my questions...

 

What do you think is happening to my plants? Am I right that it looks like phosphorus deficiency? (can you tell from that photo?) Is this possibly a result of nute lock out due to the heat/humidity? They are clearly consuming less water (therefore food).

 

If the heat is the main issue, then I am pretty sure the steps I am taking in the next two days will alleviate that, and hopefully give me a whole lot more control over the environment in terms of heat AND humidity. I took the leaf off of the plants because I can't seem to get the color balance right taking an "in-room" photo and therefore you cannot see what is happening to them. However, this pic is a good representation of what I am seeing across the top of the grow, evenly spread out.

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Was my post too long? :rolleyes:

 

I got a portable ac/dehumidifier combo unit. I could only afford the single hose variety and I am currently trying to figure out my situation in order to make it work effectively.

 

I want to put it in my flower room, but I will have to vent the exhaust outside the room. It puts out a lot of heat from the exhaust.

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I can't get my white balance to work right on my camera, so you can't entirely distinguish from my pictures of the whole plant the discoloration or it's extent.

 

So, I'll try to get a leaf that is starting to turn tomorrow. The best I got the heat down today with the ac outside the room was to 86, and the humidity came down to about 50%.

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While putting the frame up and tying some of the branches, I bent one accidentally and it snapped (bent but didn't break off or anything). I basically tied it to the frame to support it and left it on the plant. Is that alright? ...or should I clip it off since it is damaged?

 

 

A band-aid works well in that situation.

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Mayor,

 

Try lowering your PH a little, you are right at the top end of the water culture PH range (5.2-5.8) and have a look at this..

 

dualph10.jpg

 

 

I just found this all out the hard way, things went down just like what you've got, just more extreme..

 

Also THC-farmer just posted this link for me.. AWESOME... http://www.ganjaguerrilla.net/index.htm

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  • 2 weeks later...

Ok...I have another question now due to some issues I have dealt with.

 

My growth seems to have been stunted, or suspended for the past 2-3 weeks. I had heat issues, and humidity issues. I have made major changes to my ventilation air flow and now have the temps in the 70's and the humidity in the 50's (I don't know that I'm going to get that to be much better. I had it below 50 yesterday but we are getting rain now and it's up in the low to mid 50's )

 

My question: How do I know if my harvest will now be delayed? If I were to try and get a 10 day flush on initial schedule, I would start flushing next Friday the 30th. But from what I've been reading it is possible that due to the stress and suspended growth, my cycle may go longer.

 

How can I tell what to do? My buds are all about the size of a marble, and there are tons of them everywhere. But this is the same size they have been since about 1 - 1 1/2 weeks after they appeared. Attached is a somewhat close up pic. You can't really make out the yellowing leaves due to the hps and my camera, but I think the bud size is apparent.

Thanks for looking!

 

August 10th will have been 8.5 weeks of flowering which is what it typically takes this strain to be ready for harvest fyi.

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i once neglected a tote for awhile and had a major ph shock. the 2 plants were just finishing veg and beginning flower. the leaves turned yellow and died to the point of just tapping the stem made all the leaves on the plant fall off. i mean literally, i had a 2 foot tall plant with 6 or 7 good sized branches and not a single leaf on them except for a couple tiny green spots on the tips of each branch.......... i should have pulled it and trashed it right then but because i was really upset with myself i fixed the problem and let it go. even after adjusting the water to correct levels, the plants went into "stop mode" for about a month. i continued with the lights 12/12 because those little tiny green spots were very very very very slowly becoming a leaf. it was sick, but it became a "thing" for me..............

 

anyways, after the dead month, they actually did begin to grow buds and finished quite well..........

 

 

you probably will be delayed. a microscope will tell you trichome color and you should harvest by that and not timing. they will finish i think..... just maybe a little late :)

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you probably will be delayed. a microscope will tell you trichome color and you should harvest by that and not timing. they will finish i think..... just maybe a little late :)

 

Yeah, I had seen that comment you made about your plants and it has raised my hopes. I was soon to get my microscope anyhow so I'll proceed that way.

 

Will I know in time for a 10 day flush? Do the trichromes give you that much notice?

 

Thanks again for the input!

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