Trichomes

[JD1stTimer]

My friend got a 60-100x microscope from Radio Shack and we were looking today at one of the VERY OLDEST flowers, one of the primordial ones, and there were only a few capitate-sessile trichomes, no stalked trichs, and LOTS of the hair-type trichs (They look like rose thorns). Anyway, the few capitate trichomes we saw, most were clear, we saw one cloudy, and two or three amber/brown ones.. So we're curious: Is it from not having enough light? For anyone that doesn't remember, they are under ~76w of CFL, and have been flowering for close to ten weeks. Could it be from the fact that nutes were stopped weeks ago thinking harvest was really soon (About 1/3rd of the pistils were red)? Or is it most likely just bad genetics? (Bagseed) Or does my friend just need to increase the dark period (16 hours right now, and new flowers keep appearing)

[Weedhound]

Sounds like poor lighting for flowering. Could be the genetics....but 76w of cfl is pretty poor for a blooming plant.

[JD1stTimer]

Hmmm that's what I'm mainly worried about too... I'm curious... if a lamp is rated for 75watts it's because of the heat and what are assumed to be incandescent bulbs... so flourescent could actually go quite a bit higher than 75w without a problem right?

[the image reaper]

if you have been flowering, you should have dropped your light-cycle to 12/12 ... you say you have flowered ten weeks, unless you are growing a sativa-dominant strain, it should have finished around 8 weeks, in general ... drop your lighting hours, and watch it for a week ... if it is still healthy, she should kick bud production up a notch :thumbsup: ... be sure to watch your trichomes ... don't let too many of your trichomes go 'amber' that's where the THC is degrading ... it's all about personal choice, but I try to harvest when about 10%-15% amber appear, some go more ... :smokin:

[Weedhound]

You know I really didn't take the fact that's he's only using 8 hours of light into consideration. Reaper is right I'm sure.....8 hrs/24 is a pretty small amount.

[the image reaper]

You know I really didn't take the fact that's he's only using 8 hours of light into consideration. Reaper is right I'm sure.....8 hrs/24 is a pretty small amount.

whoops ... actually, I mis-read the post, I thought he was using 18 ON, and 6 off ... sorry about that, damned pot affects my reading, I guess ... :o ... thank you for supporting my theory, but I get it WRONG sometimes, too ... I need a young attractive woman to help me edit ... volunteers ? ... :D

[JD1stTimer]

Yeah, it could be sativa... it's from mexischwag bagseed. It was on 12/12 for about 6 or 7 weeks, then once the flowers were the size he wanted, he started upping the darktime about an hour every few days or so, now it's 16 dark/8 light. Here's some pics of it in this thread (http://boards.cannabis.com/basic-growing/123998-someones-first-grow.html), the buds look really big to me, but very few trichs are visible except just the hairy kind almost no capitate.

[JD1stTimer]

LOL, maybe it should just be pulled and call it a decent learning grow? :) Thanks image reaper and weedhound, sorry I can't tip your scales, I guess that's something that comes as you get more experience on the boards?

[the image reaper]

you did OK with your lighting hours, I had misread your post, sorry ... in fact, there is a new theory, lately, for 'total darkness' the last few days, to boost THC production ... I don't think anyone has come up with concrete evidence on that, yet, but you're almost there ... I suspect harvest will happen in the next few days, since you are already seeing amber trichs ... :jointsmile:

[MajMike]

A White Widow flower at 4 weeks, trich's everywhere. The pic is from a Fuji S700 and you can zoom in nicely on the trich's.

[Weedhound]

So did we come down to just the way the plant is then and not other factors? I got lost.....:(

[Weedhound]

Mike you should post your own thread with those pics....they do look nice though. I could have sworn I read somewhere that too few hours of light can be detrimental to flowering.....I'll search around and see what I can find.

[JD1stTimer]

Those are very nice trichs!!! :thumbsup: You need the genetics for that though right? My friend is working with shwagseed. This is basically a micro setup, maybe I should start posting in the advanced section? Or is there a specific micro section here? I need to look through these forums. :)

[JD1stTimer]

UPDATE: My friend is getting tired of the plant and wants to cut it. Should I tell him to keep it in the dark without water until the soil dries?

[twoguysupnorth]

it seems a waste to cut your hours that low, any time within the flowering limit is still helping your plants out.(growing/producing) i only cut the watering with the last watering hoping that it would be easier to dry. ive read the same thing about the dark period but i didnt want to try it, it seems counter productive.

[JD1stTimer]

Yeah, but the point is that he wants it to hurry up and finish. But if there's no way to speed it, then I guess he's just hurting his yield completely pointlessly.

[the image reaper]

warn your friend, marijuana growing is no undertaking for the impatient ... :jointsmile:

[JD1stTimer]

Yeah, he put the seed in soil in December... the impatience is because his sister recently moved in. He LSTed it until the leaves went alternate, then made sure two clones were rooted before putting it and one of the clones in flowering. Keeping the other clone as a bonsai, and making mistakes along the way (Nute burn mainly). It was just lucky that out of five bagseed he planted, the only one to germinate was female.

[JD1stTimer]

Update: He was gonna cut it, but then he noticed that suddenly one day the trichs got a lot thicker, he looked at them, and LO AND BEHOLD, the mushrooms were sprouting all over the flowers and their bracts! How did this happen overnight? Neither of us can figure that one out... as soon as they're cloudy we're gonna have a good old time!

[ProGroWannabe]

You said schwag, right? There ya go. You have no clue about genetics with schwag. It is very likely that whatever strain this is, is unstable. With unstable genetics, its all a crap-shoot. Ya never know exactly whats gonna happen at a certain stage.

Dont get me wrong, your growin whatcha got, its all good. I'm not downing your grow at all. What I AM tryin to say, is asking "whats goin on?" is gonna be a tough question for anyone to answer since it's schwag. I wish I could chime in with some real help, but I'm not gonna throw guesses at ya.
Good luck with the rest of your grow though man. Let us all know how it turns out.

[JD1stTimer]

Yeah, that's definitely true true true... I guess I should just get some low-priced genetics that are listed as an easy grow and try them out... I just would hate to bring out the big bucks for beans from a bitty baby budget and find that I'm still stuck with nothing but loads of wispy flowers that won't get a mosquito high. BTW, the buds have really filled out in the last week or so... they hadn't shown much growth for a while and then suddenly, BAM. I'm curious, if there's enough light to make large colas, could there still be not enough light to make enough THC? Somehow I always figured that if the light was too low you would just not have much flower.

[ProGroWannabe]

It's totally up to you, but thats what I would do. I'd look at Hempdepot, Weedfarmer, or one of the other hundred or so seedbanks/vendors, and select a cheap-midpriced strain from them. They'll give you a good idea as to the time it takes from start of flower to finish. Plus the strain should be well stabilized.

As far as light goes...until you start talking 1000 watt HID's, it's hard to have "too much" light. If it's cfl's you want...pack em in there! I'd use as many as you can. I have 16--42Watters in my lil spot it's----7.5 square ft of floor space. That works out to 89.6 watts/sq. ft. My girls seem to be doing fine. But if I could ($) I'd double that.
Good Luck!

[JD1stTimer]

Wow, sweet. Yeah, my space is about two to three square feet and I've got about 75 watts... I'm gonna switch out a couple of 13-watters for 26 watter I think. My fixture is rated for 75 watts but I figure that's not because of electrical considerations, it's because of the heat from 75w incandescent.. with CFLs that problem should be a nonissue. BTW, how long does it take to be able to give rep? There have been several people I want to give good points to and I can't.

[ProGroWannabe]

50 Posts my man. Ya have to wait till you have 50 posts before you'll see the little "scale" symbol. It will appear on the top-right side of a persons post. Look for it when you hit 51-52 posts or so.