First grow (flowering stage only) with pics

I have the same issue Chromophore. Interestingly enough, only the T5 light girls have the yellowing of leaves. The rooted clones were having the same type issue as well.
I repotted them in....Gasp!...GOOD SOIL! Hahaha...finally stepped up to Happy Frog and bought some FF's "Grow Big" too.
They are looking better today. The point of this is Nitrogen....(at least I think that was the issue) which they got with the new soil and Grow Big. The color is improving from the very light Green already. Do your leaves exhibiting the Yellowing have red main "Veins?" You are way ahead of me in regards to horticulture, and it's just a thought, but maybe it's a Nitrogen issue.
Doesn't seem like they should be dropping leaves due to using up the N already...and the part that clues me into a potential issue there (in my case) is the fact the HPS plants don't have the same problem and the T5 plants are more developed.
Stands to reason the T5 lights have used all the N in the soil, (or something) that the HPS light plants have not expended due to development at this stage.
Beats me...ramblings of a Newbie.

OMB, you are quite right. Once in flowering, the plants work on using the stored energies in the sunleaves, they yellow & fall off. Dont worry guys. Just part of the natural process. Just keep feeding the bloom nutes. If you start re-introducing nitrogen once half way through flowering, you'll taste it in your buds. :)

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Originally Posted by Chromophore

Their stems are thin and delicate and I really have to be careful training or supercropping, as they snap easily, and they don't recover from the bend the way these flowering plants do. These flowering girls are Afgooey X Lemon Skunk.

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Nice job Chromo! Your skunky jungle is looking so big, green, and gorgeous. While I have no experience yet with final stages prior to harvest, I surely have read many posts asking the same question - is this yellowing/dropping of leaves normal? And all the responses have been the same that mama catbuds says - it is the plant using the remaining N and it's normal. I hope that is the natural process that is occurring in your ladies.

My question for you: In the quote above, you mention that the flowering plants "recover from the bend" or training easier than these plants do (which I assume are still veg'ing without reading back through the page 1 posts because I'm lazy) - are the plants better off training during early flower? I am learning about pruning/LST/size-controlling right now via reading books and posts. I believe, because I just switched to flowering stage a couple days ago because of fears that I will run out of room in my limited wooden cabinet, that I'm probably getting into the size-control of my plants late. I know I also started pruning my bushier, indica-dominant ladies late too because I was hesitant to start cutting them up. So, I don't mind being late on these things because I am learning and I will learn some consequences on not staying "ahead of the game" if it turns out that way. What has worked out for you for size-control measures thus far in this grow or in your experience with your lab grows?

Just to jump in with my .02, I don't even start LST'ing mine until they go to 12/12. They are a short and bushy Indica strain with close internodes so I need the growth spurt in the beginning of 12/12 to train. At that point my stems are soft and take readily to bending. Within a few hours the bent over tops will turn and head for the "sun" again, it's fast.
There is a window in the first 2 weeks of 12/12 that seems to be just right for this, though I will continue all the way until the end if required for space.
Bear in mind my plants are typically about 10-12"s when they go 12/12. At 1 month they range from 4"s to 8"s..... 2 month's about 8"s to 12"s from dirt. With a sativa strain
I would guess you would need to start in veg so the branches get trained before they get too tall and "stick" like. Either way, your girls look frickin' awesome!

Thanks Catbuds that is reassuring. OMB the dropping leaves don't show any unusual coloring out side if paleness. Often they have hints of light damage and I think they're really old fan leaves that used to be on top weeks and weeks ago. I also thin stuff out from that zone routinely because I do have a few small tops that are trying to get up through the canopy. I watch these close for herms but so far they look normal. But often the leaves that fall are completely dried up and curled. It's weird because I never see one on its way to such a state, they just suddenly appear. I'm leaning on what Catbuds and others on the forum have stated that this is all fairly normal at this stage (4 weeks flower). Some of it could be fallout from my mishap last week when I left the UVB lights on for 24 hrs. But curiously, the leaves and buds closest to the UV bulbs show absolutely no signs of distress. So, I think I'm over-reacting to a normal process.

d00g I am of the belief that training/pruning/shaping in all horticultural contexts is an art more than a science. It takes a lot of practice, patience and careful observation. I expect this is true with Cannabis. Maybe even more so. With my AfgooeyXLemon Skunk plants, the stems were tough even at an early age, and supercropping was hard simply because the fibers were so dense. I actually had to use pliers and a soft cloth at times. I supercropped from the time the produced their first mature leaves. At the time I had no good reason to do this other than I wanted to practice. I have heard everything under the sun about the "right" time to start doing this, and I have waded into several contentious arguments (in other forums) about the dos and don't s of SC during flower ( some say no way because it saps energy from the plant, others say yes way because as OMB points out the first two weeks can have rapid vertical growth). But what I see now is that most of the SC scars are like solid wood and the direction of the stem ultimately didn't change much. That's what I mean by "recovering". This batch in veg (the Purple Wreck X Lemon Skunk) have more delicate stem at the same age, and "take well" to the SC in the sense that the stem direction clearly becomes horizontal-ish and stays that way. But I have broke a few and bent a couple so severely that they can't seem to hold their own weight. This may be a varietal issue, or it may be conditions because I vegged the AF X LS batch under 420W T5 in a warm room (74F-84F), and the PW X LS batch is vegging under 400W MH in a relatively cool room (64F-72F). Most likely it is a combination of factors. In the lab, I top and prune to train my plants. With Cannabis I avoided this because I couldn't deal with the thought of losing what might end up being a huge cola in the end. But topping does seem to be a more direct and controllable way to train.

I'll have to take some pics of the Purple Wreck X Lemon Skunk plants in veg. They are really quite beautiful in appearance. They are short and "bushy", but very open and delicate, almost like a Japanese maple. The leaves are rich lime green shading into blues and purples.

OMB, ive done what you are suggesting and my results were poor, light & leafy buds, they looked fat and thick, but it wasn't. I did it as an experiment and from what I can tell, is it stunned the flower cycle tremendously because the plant had to heal it self then revert back in to a flower stage all at the same time. so as its healing its also producing buds,, which in turn created leafy buds, aka swag

but it could have been the strain who knows, every plant & grow is different

I also have purple wreck! this shit smells killer!

growdemon the plants from that cross are not only pretty the smell just from the vegetation is heavenly. Super citrus with spice. I can't wait to bud those plants.

This is one of the Purple Wreck X Lemon Skunk females currently in veg, at about 6 weeks. She measures 34 inches tall by 37 inches wide. Note the squat but open and airy habit, and the thin branches. I suspect that without supercropping it would have more of a squat "Christmas Tree" appearance.Attachment 297022

Close-up of the growth. Complex, but actually quite open. Attachment 297023 Close-up of some of the supercropped laterals. You can see the bend scars in the mid/lower right area. Note how the branch has now assumed a nearly horizontal habit. I was never able to achieve this with the Afgooey X Lemon Skunk plants ( the ones currently flowering). Attachment 297024

yup!!
I FIM;d one of my purple wrecks and it just Loved the crap out of that

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Originally Posted by growdemon

OMB, ive done what you are suggesting and my results were poor, light & leafy buds, they looked fat and thick, but it wasn't. I did it as an experiment and from what I can tell, is it stunned the flower cycle tremendously because the plant had to heal it self then revert back in to a flower stage all at the same time. so as its healing its also producing buds,, which in turn created leafy buds, aka swag

but it could have been the strain who knows, every plant & grow is different

I also have purple wreck! this shit smells killer!

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"Heal?" ...I'm not breaking stems, I'm just bending. They have never shown any "Ill effects" from it, heck, they don't even seem to care! I would never pinch/break a stem in Flower as it would react as you mentioned.
Here's a pic from my first grow, the branches were almost 90 degree's to the Trunk at times...No problems at all. Then again, maybe it has more to do with my strain as far as the size and stem structure.

Attachment 297027Attachment 297028Attachment 297029

cool, looks great
yea those look leafy to me, but anyhow mine were way way more leafy, prob the strains

here are a few pics of non super-cropped, very thick & dense. unfortunately I don't have any super crop pics, (it was a few years back)

Calyxes starting to fill and merge. Aroma really starting to deepen. Tonight I'm going to try and get good shots of flowers from each plant because one of them is clearly different from the others.

Attachment 297239

Wow!.....Just frickin' WOW! That is a great shot and one hairy bud! Very impressive Sir. :greenthumb:

Suddenly it's become noticeable that one of the four girls has a distinctly different flowering pattern than the other three. Three of them have flowers which more or less look like this Attachment 297266

But one has denser, more "pagoda" shaped buds Attachment 297267 The differences don't come out in the pictures very well, but just standing looking at the plants its very obvious. Now these are from seed from an Afgooey X Lemon Skunk cross. No back-crossing; this is f1. So is this type of phenotypic variation common? Sorry for the noob question, but um, I'm a noob. Just want to make sure seeds or pots weren't mislabeled.

Got a few decent trichome pics. In the first the capitates are water clear Attachment 297268 But are my eyes deceiving me or do the trichomes on this bud seem to be getting cloudy? Attachment 297269

Man is it getting stink in this room. Funky, heavy sweet odor, almost dank. Not what I was expecting!

yea, ive seen that before with hybrid seeds. I've had perfect blends of 2 crosses, then others that leaned more to one side or the other, all from the same strain. But not the same plant! (male or Female) The ones from the same plant were 100% consistent.
so I guess if you had the same male, crossed with 2 different plants of the same strain. they wouldn't be exactly the same or vise versa. But all the seeds from each plant should be near identical

I would imagine breeders, grow so much how seriously do they know every seed will be exactly the same. I think that's impossible, they may be close but unlikely to make it 100% the same. Probably why there are clone only strains too!

Maybe, there is a way now a days, with all the hi tech stuff out there.
HA, buy some seeds, w8 a while then buy the same seeds again and compare.

My, they look young but tasty. Very nice job. F1 expect some variance, but you get hybrid vigor.

Chromophore, you take some great pics!...and your girl's are looking awesome. :thumbsup: I would love to see what you could do with my stumpy strain, that would be spectacular I'm sure.
Then again, all that bending down to look at 'em might strain your back! Hahaha
Your girl's have some really cool formations, the pistol's are very impressive. Got them all "tied up" huh? Some girl's just need to be restrained....Uh-oh, where's mama catbud's?
I'm gonna get it now!

Added a 4x4' T5 HO rack to to the grow room. I scavenged it out of my seedling tent, which is currently idle. Running 2x54w 3000k and 2x54w 6500k in the unit for a total of 216w. Despite the color imbalance introduced by doing this, I am now able to spread my plants out and let them breathe in light. Under just the 600w HPS they were confined to a light cone that was simply too small for plants of this size. The tallest bud is now 6'2":D. Anyway these T5s are rated at 5k lumens per bulb, so I added 20k lumens. My HPS runs an Ushio Ultra HD bulb that "on paper" is rated at 96k lumens. So assuming this is accurate, I have 116k lumens over a grow space of 30 ft². So that's about 3.7k lumens per ft². I can now let the canopies open up and get much needed light to the interior. The buds are literally exploding at this point.

Attachment 297441 One girl seems to be following her mother's Afghan traits in flowering: Attachment 297442 This plant's buds are very dense and really sticky already (Afgooey!). The other three girls have stretchier buds, perhaps reflective of their Lemon Skunk father: Attachment 297443

Despite being lankier, these flowers are striking in ways my camera can't capture. The pistils are long and brilliant white, against deep green, frosted foliage. They are truly gorgeous. It's amazing to me how beautiful the flowers are when they don't have the same color and contrast-rich appearance that flowers from most other plants have. Such a simple color palette, yet such a striking appearance. I honestly find it hard to stop looking at them.:stoned:

6-2 quite the grow

yah ranger I think maybe a bit much. Next group I have going into 12/12 will be about a foot shorter and with a "bushier" habit.

I added Cfl plus flur to my last hps grow. Just wondering how you arranged your lights for Max eff..

Simply beautiful Chromophore! That first pic bud?...wow! I just bet those T5HO's will payoff for you too, Very nicely done indeed. :thumbsup:

ranger at this point I just mounted them on the ceiling at about the same level as my HPS. Fairly crude and not optimal I'm certain. Once the plants are out of there and I have room and time to work I'll re-arrange things more thoughtfully. I have another 4X4' T5 ballast/hood as well. What I'm thinking is position the HPS directly overhead and mount the long T5s along either side, but closer to the walls, lower, and at a 45 degree angle. That will give the outer edges of the canopies some nice, direct light. I could even splurge and put in 4 racks, one along each wall for the most complete coverage. But that would take my total wattage to 600+(4x216)=1,464! Output would then be about 166,000 lumens or 5,533 lumens/ft² . That seems like it might be a bit more than I need for this scale of grow. And my electricity bill...:(

OMB the thick buds on that plant are almost scary. Still a few weeks from harvest and they are becoming simply massive. A friend was over last night who has extensive experience growing. He looked at that Afghan-looking plant and his jaw literally dropped. He looked at me and said, "dude, you see this shit right here (pointing to Afghan bud) these buds are going to be fucking phenomenal".:cool:

Does sound good even if it does cost a shade more

So, I'm nearing the end of week 6 and am noticing some things that are a bit puzzling. For maybe the last few days, I'd say, days 37-41, my impression is that the buds are not enlarging, or at least not as noticeably. :wtf: The plants look really goo, maybe too good. Not a yellow leaf for days. The buds are noticeably whitening with trichomes, but the just aren't exploding anymore. Under my 14X hand-lens, I first noticed cloudy trichomes about the same time the bud explosion slowed,. Right now I'd guesstimate 60-70% clear, the rest cloudy, especially on the larger bud leaf surfaces. Edges and calyxes, they're still clear. No ambers. Pistils are still quite long, but starting to brown on the tips. My guess is that I'm at the magical "2 weeks before harvest" point, and need to start flushing. I fear the plants are a little over-nuted. My concern is that the buds still have some spaces to fill in, but now things seem to be slowing down. I'm hoping my elders here are going to tell me that I need to take a chill pill and everything is on course. I'll post pics later tonight.

Yep Chromophore! Take that that chill pill! Things are exactly as they should be! Since you're organic, don't use a manufactured flush product; instead, use 1 Tbs epsom salts per gal of water, fill pots to top & let run through 3X's; then, 1Tbs molasses per gal of water, fill pot to top & let drain. The epsom salts add magnesium (as a deficiency in this give you buds that won't burn), & of course the molasses are taken up by plants, converted to plants sugars, helps plump up those trichromes. Then nothing but plain water from then on out! Then.....sit back & smile & use that little hand lense 5 or 6 X's a day, cause we know you'll want to!!!! Damned! How is it I get so excited about other peoples grow? Ahh. Who knows? BUT ITS FUN!!!! ;) ;) ;)

Thanks catbuds. So I do the Epsom salt treatment once, then pure water/molasses after that? Or do I do your treatment each time I water? I have read that the buds will "swell" again toward the end of the flowering cycle. I hope so.

The 3 flushes with the epsom salts, then the molasses water at the same time. If they start swelling again (some strains do, some don't), you can do the molasses again, but not TOO close to harvest, about a week is as close as I go. But your HARD work (play?) is over. Basically sit back & watch (with a big ole grin!). Just keep your eyes peeled for things like spider mites & mold, because this is the time that would be the most devastating. Maybe increase your air flow, more direct fan power pointed toward the buds. This is your 'happy hour'! You're about to reap the harvest (rewards) of your efforts! RELAX..... ;) ;) ;)

I just re-read your question & realised I didn't give you a very clear answer. The three run throughs are your flush, done at one watering + the molasses water. All at the same time, just giving them a little time, few minutes, to drain between each run through. Then plain water as need till the end. Maybe using molasses one more time if they start to visibly swell again, no closer than a week before harvest (or as close as you can estimate). You actually have a better handle on this than you seem to think, so don't panic (you're not prone to anxiety, are you)? LOL!
-- Now you can sit back & contemplate your next grow. They were BIG, but is that how you like them (some people do), or would they be more manageable smaller? Now that you've seen how much they stretch in bud, you can time going into 12/12 at the right time to get the finish size you want.
-- (d00g, I hope you're reading this), I want you to google 'grow pot easy/mainlining'. What you get with this method is nice colas without the light fluffy sm popcorn buds. When done right, its doesn't cut down on yield, but concentrates the plants energies to the big solid colas. You can pinch as many times as you want to increase the number of solid buds, or as little (4 ) for fewer bigger buds. From there, you can go straight to 12/12, keeping them sm, or let them get as big as you want. D00g, this is what I wanted to point out to you. My flowering space is 5' X 2'. Not big at all. I'm still keeping my plants sm, going with only 4 branches/colas, but because this variety is a dense plant by nature, I wanted them open headed for light & air, which helps with bud health once they swell & start getting dense. This will work perfect in a small space without the room for a bigger fan (I'll only have space for a sm clip on fan, but good exhaust & intake). But check it out. Nugbuckets does a great tutorial & the pics are great. Very interesting even if your not into trying this technique. Have fun! Its almost party time!!!! ;) ;) ;) ;) ;)

Wow. This is really great stuff and thank you. I really wish I could load you up a karma bowl. We'd have fun. But I need to think about what you're saying here and research it as you say (with your links). When these girls are done another batch moves in. They are a different strain and I have veg'd them with super cropping and some LST. They shouldn't be as big as this first crop. They're bushy. I'd really like to go smaller, as OMB and some others around here have done with great results. Thanks cat. :pimp:

You and I are basically at the same point Chromophore, glad I'm not the only one that was getting nervous over the "standard" stuff. Lol
...and I'm glad I read this too! I thought you just flushed with water, I didn't know about the Epsom salts. (Thanks Mama!)
So flush 3x's with the Epsom salt water solution, then straight water, or Molasses and water....Got it.
They are looking goooood!...and smelling even better. Yep, wish we could all sit down together and smoke a bowl while we ooh and aaah over each other's plants.
Almost there chromophore! I have the next round rolled in already too. :thumbsup:

It's amazing the passion this topic elicits in various threads aroung the internet. I mean down and dirty nastiness. Not sure why people get so worked up about it. There are some that say flushing is the worst thing you can do. There are some that say Not flushing is the worst thing you can do. There are some who say flush with pure water is the only thing you should do. There are some who say flushing with very dilute nutes/epsom salts/molasses is the only thing you should do. For various reasons I'm going to follow your advice catbuds, unless someone can come in here and convince (us) otherwise. The idea of flushing with pure water bothers me because it's going to be very stressful on the plant. Root hairs can be damages by stripping the ionic strength around the root zone. So flushing with a certain level of tonicity, which catbud's method would do, makes more sense to me. I'm also bothered by the whole "nutrient starvation" aspect of this. I realize that heavy nutes can adversely affect taste, but stripping all the nutes away from the plant stresses it greatly, and that causes chemical changes as well, which very well could affect terpenoid chemistry in the trichomes as well. I guess I just need to follow advice and maybe experiment on my own and find out the hard way. It just seems to me it would be better to gradually reduce nute concentration than to do something so drastic. On the other hand Ocean Forest is a pretty hot mix anyway, so there are probably plenty of nutes around to keep the plant from stressing too much.

And I forgot to mention, there are some people who believe flushing for taste is a myth and that taste and burn is controlled entirely in the dry/cure process.

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Originally Posted by Chromophore

And I forgot to mention, there are some people who believe flushing for taste is a myth and that taste and burn is controlled entirely in the dry/cure process.

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Wonder if they have ever seen a plant that looks blue from all the miracle grow, they taste bad!!

ranger after sifting through the "literature" for weeks now I can conclude that most accomplished grower's as well as "experts" like Rosenthal firmly believe in flushing, so that's good enough for me. What I may do is test slightly different flushing methods on a couple of the plants and see how they differ in the end. Maybe one will flush with pure water and another I will do with epsom salts/molasses, etc.

The forest Attachment 297585 t5s add blue to the room so in combo with the HPS I get some odd coloration in my photos.

trichomes are definitely moving toward the cloudy stage. Looks to me like its about 50/50 Attachment 297586 Another from same cola Attachment 297587


Flushing to commence today! :smokin:

Nice young trichs! They're all looking good! Flushing isn't as important in organics as it is with chem nutes. Your right. Fox farms is pretty hot soil & you can't actually rid it of the organic nutes anyway. What you're doing is flushing out the disolved nutes that would be the most easily/rapidly absorbed by the root hairs. I don't like commercial flush products, because like you mentioned about 'striping' the roots, the chemical products do that in a big way. By doing away with the disolved nutes, your making the plant rely more on the stored energies for bud ripening. These stored nutes & energies don't taste good in your smoke. One of these products being chlorophyll. You want all this to slow down a week or two before harvest. The epsom salts doesn't assist the flush, what it does is insure the plant has adequate magnesium or you can't get the buds to burn. They become 'fire proof'. So if you flush one without the epsom, compare it to the one with epsom for burnability. If you've ever harvested a lb or two that won't burn (& I have), you'll be afraid to omit the epsom. Since I find I can't taste the epsom salts, I always use it with my flush. Molasses does have some magnesium, so your buds still may burn fine without the epsom, but after that experience in the 80's, I'm always leary. One of those 'better safe than sorry' things. Not sure on this, but I don't THINK big bloom has anything you can taste in the final product, so if you want to chance it, you could try a sm amount in your flush, or maybe the next watering after that @ 1/4 strength. By using only plain water therafter, shouldn't be anything left to taste.
-- But hey! The hard work is done & this is you relaxation time! So sit back & enjoy. Your need to save your energy for harvesting & bud trimming! Then if you've time & energy left, check out all the things you can do with the leaf, cannabutter, green dragon, RSO, etc (don't forget to check out recipes)! Waste not want not! ;)

P.S. taste & burn are ENHANCED by proper drying/curing, but some nasty tastes won't be REMOVED that way. Especially that metalic taste of chemically produced nito nutes.
-- Once you've hung your buds to dry, go back & read your entire thread. That will give you a chance to 'digest' the things that were new to you that you've learned with this grow. With the stress over, you'll see you got it down & from here on out you can work on developing your own style/technique. That's the fun part where you get to experiment! :)