First time grower

Just read your post again and don't forget if you are still feeding it fertilizer that you will need to STOP with it about 2 weeks prior to harvest if at all possible. Any residual fertilizer that is in the plant when you harvest will be there when you smoke, and it can absolutely ruin the taste and smell. BTW, if you have been feeding it Miracle Grow for it's whole life (4 mos), it probably has enough nutrients in the soil for 15 plants. MG is some pretty harsh stuff and can fry a plant rather quickly too.

Well, when I said I used a microscope, I mis-spoke. I used a maginfying glass. Will go to Radio Shack and get a microscope, to scope things out. Remember I am new to growing and if by pistils you mean the white hairs, it's been that way for a while.(at lest 2 months) I started about 6 plants outside, right in the ground... 3 lived...one was a male..pulled that joker outta there. Left with the two females. My hubby's buddy told him he used MG to grow his and told us to do the same. I'll quit and go to plain water. We have very hard clay soil here and I only water them about 3 times a week..I've been reading post after post all day today to try to find answers to my questions, but there is one that still eludes me. I did, I think figure out that my plants are both Sativa, but here's the question. Should females plants still have seeds? There is only like one per branch at the base next to the stem??? To me it should produce seed... most plants do in some form or another...I was not sure what the little pod growing there was and noticed yesterday that a seed had popped out of one and I took another off by hand that had opened.
As far as patience goes.. i have a lot...learned from fishing and my kids... if I wasn't outta smoke..it would be easier..I have a full house this weekend and it will probably be monday when school is back in before I can venture out to take more pics. Thanks so much for you help and time. It's been a blessing. I do remember sampling some homegrown from my hubby's buggy... not so good... makes sense not to listen to him anymore since I found Cannabis! Thanks again...

As far as seeds in your girl go, if you see one there are probably many more hiding. Looks like you either have someone in the vicinity with a flowering male, or more likely, you have a hermaphrodite. In order for the female to produce seeds it has to be pollinated, and the only way that happens is from a male flower somewhere. Way too late in the game now to worry about that though.

By pistils I did mean white hairs, have any of them changed color on you? From white to brown or anything in between? In the beginning you may have only noticed a hair or two at the nodes (places where stems intersect), but there should have been a pretty quick acceleration to their growth? About how long ago was that?

No need to waste cash on a microscope. Ideally you would have something that could magnify at 30x. I'll paste a link to the thing i'm talking about. I use a magnifying glass that is 10x and I can usually get a good idea as to their color and condition.
Control Company Illuminated Pocket Microscope 3356 Description Pocket Microscope, 30x / 36934-111 FREE UPS Control Company Magnifiers

What makes me curious is that you said you already have seeds falling of thieir own accord. I would have to think that if the plant has experienced this that it must be nearing the end of it's life cycle. I'll see what I can find out about that. I'll also try to get the attention of some people with more experience to help out. Get us some pics as soon as possible, definitely worth a thousand words.:thumbsup:

First, YOU have been wonderful.
The pistils are starting to turn brown, about 1/2 and 1/2. My buds look pretty and smell wonderful. I can smell'em just walking by. I ran back outside after reading your post and I really don't see but about a handful of seeds on them. I KNOW that I shouldn't have, but I did squeeze one of the tops of a bud and felt NO seeds. The acceleration took place about 2 months ago, I would say and they've been going ever since. Yes, I did notice 2 seeds this afternoon one on the ground and another still in its little pod. They were tan with black if that makes a difference. Look just like what I grew. As I mentioned earlier, I did have one male that I yanked up and threw in the garbage can, but my girls, they will okay won't they? I mean ever quarter that I have ever bought contained seeds. It's it normal to have some? I would think, but this is my first time. I will do my best to take pics early in the AM while the kids are watching cartoons and post ASAP!!!! I promise. Thank you so much for you help, kindness, and most of all your valuable time!

It's late and I'll check back online in the AM... well, later in the AM :)

I burn a lot of midnight oil so I'll let you wake up to this.

Your girls will be just fine, there is absolutely nothing wrong with them, that I can see with the pics you have up. Every ounce of data that I have researched leads me to believe that presence of seeds will not hurt the overall potency of the final product. That being said, since the stuff is usually consumed by weight, you are only losing on yield of your final product. If the plant is using engery to produce seeds, it won't be using that energy to produce buds, and they will factor into your final weight.

In a perfect world, your plant would not have been pollinated, and would not have produced any seeds. One of cannabis' reactions to there being zero pollen is creating more pistils and flower mass to catch pollen, so in theory even if there is no pollen to be had, the plant will keep amassing material to try to catch whatever stray may come by. These are the reasons that most growers (unless they are breeding) throw away the males.

Don't stress over being a little rough with your girls. They are built to withstand abuse, albeit within certain parameters. I pinch and smell my buds all the time, I love to follow the smell as it changes. I think that is one of the rewards of the growing process. The worst you are going to do pinching your nugs, lol, is bruise a few of the aforementioned trichromes. Nothing to be concerned with. I'll check back in with you in the morning and see what we can find out.

Looking good....meganleigh...:thumbsup:


A little something to read ...later...:)...http://boards.cannabis.com/grow-faqs...your-buds.html

Her are a couple of pics that I took this morning. :) I think they look nice and hopefully will smoke better. I will look for the pocket microscope, next year I plan to yeild to many more beautiful girls and it will come in handy. My neighbor has a veg garden, could that have pollinated my girls? I wouldn't think so, but you never know. Next year will be better though and I'll try to keep a log. Back to the matter at hand. SO you think the girls may be close to harvest time? With the fully developed seeds on them? I don't want to wind up all seed, I don't have that now and don't want more to produce, if that is what will happen. OH only if we did live in that perfect world, it would be legal to grow and smoke your own! :rasta: No suck luck here. Okay, off to Radio shack. Thanks once again for you advice and knowledge.

Dutch Pimp... I print that article to have on hand, thanks!

Veg garden = no seeds. MJ needs it's own pollen to reproduce, not possible to be pollinated by anything else.

Really really hard to tell from the pictures how far along they are. When you get your magnifier you will get a much clearer picture as to how far along your plants are. I'll check in with you later and see where we are at.

Only the pistils/calyxs (calyx=small green thing that pistils protrude from) that have already been pollinated will produce seeds. If it's a hermaph and spitting out pollen regularly, chances are, you will get some more seeds. If you were pollinated from a random wind, maybe no more seeds.

Since you will be watering with straight H20 now, you should wait at least a week before you decide to do anything like harvest. We need to see how the girls are going to react to the new diet. You should see some yellowing of the larger leaves, don't panic, it's completely normal. Plants only need nitrogen in large doses while they are in the vegetative growth stage. Once they switch to flowering, their dietary needs change to where they need more potassium and phosphorus. Since nitrogen is responsible for green lush growth, withholding that now will cause leaves to go yellow. Everyone goes through this. We do need to keep a close eye on how this yellowing occurs though, it should start near the bottom and work it's way up. If it happens in a different order, it could be a signal for some other deficiency. We can cross that bridge when it comes.

Take care and I'll be back on later.

Looks like you have a while to go. Let em fatten up some more. How about a Holloween harvest? You'll be glad you waited. If your're out of smoke, take a lower branch and throw it in the microwave (at medium power) for a few sec. Dont touch the top cola though. Good luck.