How does this look? 28 days of flowering. And a question.

[NewEnglandPotriot]

How does my plant look? It's a skunkberry (blueberry mother x skunk male) from Peak Seeds. I started a couple of seeds a few months ago, they grew beautifully, then both turned out to be males. I suspect it was due to growing them with 24 hours of light; plus, the fertilizer I used was high in phosphorous. Someone else here posted something about some seed company finding that a dark period every day as well as higher nitrogen than other nutrients leads to more females, so this time I started 2 more seeds but kept the lights at 18/6, and sought out a fertilizer than was high in nitrogen. I transplanted them from small cups to 6" clay pots, and was amazed at how much more root growth there was with the 18/6 versus the 24/0 I used the first time. (This is my first grow, if you couldn't tell.) Unfortunately, by the 3rd week, when I went to transfer them from the 6" pots to the 12" clay pots I was planning on flowering them in, the root balls were so big I had trouble getting the first plant out of its pot, and ended up hacking a bunch of roots. For the second plant (the one in the pics), I just broke the pot so I had the whole complete ball. The one plant looked pretty bad, so I did some pruning. It probably would've recovered eventually, but looked bad and I was impatient, so I killed it. Then after 5 weeks total, I switched the one remaining one to 12/12. It had a total of 8 nodes. I've been using 8 42W, warm white, 2700K CFLs the whole time, so now this one plant has all 8 bulbs. After 4 weeks of 12/12, it's got at least 17 flowers all over the place, it's about 19" tall right now (11" at switching the light timer), and is doing great. Plus, it's got a faint blueberry smell.

The only question is, when will the buds start to pack on some weight? It's been 28 days to the day when I switched the lights, and it looks very healthy to me, but the top cola is only 1 1/2" tall, and most of the other flowers are about 1". The last time I watered, I used 2 tbsp of molasses, hoping that might help. Since I went to 12/12, I've been using a 10-52-10 fertilizer. When will it get fatter? Am I just impatient?

 

[NewEnglandPotriot]

Here's another picture.

 

[MightyBuddha]

Be patient... it might take 10 weeks for the buds to fully mature. Also, more light equals thicker buds.

 

[NewEnglandPotriot]

You think 8 42W CFLs will work decently? I figure that's close to 20,000 lumens, which is close to what a small HPS might do?

 

[shunkan]

patience..........yeah it sucks when they are getting nice looking and you want to smoke, but wait and then wait some more. they will get there. my last grow took damn near 80 days to flower out nice.......can't say i didn't cut a few buds off early, you know just for quality control purposes.......it's hard i know. timing depends on the strain, nutes and lights, but it sounds like you have things well in hand.

 

[NewEnglandPotriot]

Here's an update. This is at 5 weeks and 3 days of flowering. It's noticeably thicker than it was at 4 weeks, and the smell is even stronger--more blueberry than skunk smell. The seed company says it should take 8-9 weeks of flowering, so I figure I've got about 3 more to go. I think the next watering later this week I'll just use molasses like I have been but not any additional fertilizer, then after that just plain water. I got a little impatient and trimmed a little lower bud that was hidden by fan leaves and tested it for quality control, and holy sh*t it's already more potent than the mid-grade bag weed I've always smoked. And it should only get better. Plenty of energy, plenty spacy, clear mind, but not hyper and not drowsy. Great for Grateful Dead tunes. The lower fan leaves have yellowed and it's creeping up the plant, but I'm not worried about that at this point.

 

[hearmenow]

Nice looking plant, NE! Looks like you've been doing a nice job there. Please post an update when you harvest and cure. Can you give us some info on Peak Seeds and how your purchase went? I haven't heard of that company and I'm about to purchase some seeds of my own.

 

[NewEnglandPotriot]

I picked Peak Seeds because they have a 4 1/2 star rating on the Seed Bank Update and the prices were only $30. I sent US cash. They don't have as big a selection as Hemp Depot which is the other one I thought about (I felt a little weird about having European packages arriving, I figured Canada was safer, and those were the 2 highest rated Candian ones on the list) but on the other hand with a smaller selection it was easier to make a choice. I sent cash, less than 3 weeks later they came very stealthily in the mail. I was perfectly happy with them and just mailed off for a different strain from them. I'll let you know how long it takes.

 

[Spittn4cash]

wow..your plants are exactly one day older than mines.. and I've only got 6 26W cfls on them..are your hairs turning colors too?

 

[Roseman]

Hey, man, I'm just a stoned old hippie and there are a lot smarter and more experienced growers around this site than me, but I question the light placement and I don't see any reflectors on the bulbs or on the wall. Appears from your pics that you're going for LIGHT SATURATION instead of LIGHT CONCENTRATION which yields DIFFERENT RESULTS. I'd get those lower lights nearer to that top, and worry about those lower buds later. But I would also seek the advise of a more experienced DIRT grower. But I am an experienced outdoor grower and a CFL indoor grower. I got pics of my grow now at Grow Room Setup here , under R for Roseman.
Ask some experts around here bro, there are some experts around here.
Peace

 

[Roseman]

In a recent High Times, Ed Rosenthal said to trim those large leaves off 10 to 20 days before you expect to harvest. I am trying an experiment now on one of my 3 plants. I expect to harvest in about 10 to 20 days so I am trimming my upper larger leaves off. On my other two plants, i am not trimming any YET, as of today.

 

[Spittn4cash]

In a recent High Times, Ed Rosenthal said to trim those large leaves off 10 to 20 days before you expect to harvest. I am trying an experiment now on one of my 3 plants. I expect to harvest in about 10 to 20 days so I am trimming my upper larger leaves off. On my other two plants, i am not trimming any YET, as of today.

what would that do for the plant? Im willing to try this, im not too opposed to cutting fan leaves off..


(some people worship fan leaves, like its a sin if U cut them off...smh..plants are continuously growing, they GROW BACK..and if they have nitrogen stored in them and you cut them off, then I guess you gotta give them a feeding of nitrogen right? god..its really not that big of a deal..)

 

[pauliojr]

Plant looks great man! If you can, see if you can get some reflectors around those bulbs. A lot of light is wasted from the sides. Best of luck to ya!

 

[NewEnglandPotriot]

I moved the lights away a little bit for the picture because otherwise the plant looked washed out in the pics. Usually they're inside the foliage. I've got reflectors for all 8 sockets, but it seemed like it was limiting my ability to put the bulbs as close to the biggest buds as I wanted to get them.

The hairs on the top bud are definitely turning reddish--I'd say 75% of them--and I'm not sure that if I wait until 8 weeks it won't be too long. I do not have a microscope to check the trichomes. The lower bud hairs aren't changing color yet. So I'm not sure what to do. I'd feel better about trimming off lower buds and letting the rest finish, but I'm not sure how good for the plant it would be to cut off the top now and let the lower buds finish.

Thoughts?

 

[beenthere donethat]

I'm no expert...but I have been growing for 15 years+ and have done "OK" in the process....

I'd ignore that red hair pic. Red hairs may be from heat or fert..not maturity. At 9 weeks you will see red hairs..and new white hairs too. The plant will continue to evolve and grow AFTER a few red hairs show up...especially at 5 weeks in. IMO..you should only harvest by the color of the trichs.

If in doubt... or if you cannot swing/find a scope or jewelers loupe to check out the color of the trichs...let that plant go the full 8 weeks..and then flush it with plain water for another week. THEN chop it. You will be losing ALOT of flavor and bud by chopping early...

I know it's a bitch to wait..but that is a HUGE part of this game. Ditto for drying time. Flash dry it and you'll REALLY be wasting time and energy...and you'll be disappointed as hell. BELIEVE ME...by waiting you will have A LOT more bud than by jumping the gun. many strains wait to pack it on until the last WEEK or so! Ditto that with trich formation AND those purpling colors you may see with that strain!

Hold steady. It is LOOKING GOOD! My only criticism is that I don't hear that you took any clones. If it's an ass-kicker..you'll be reaching around and busting yer own ass in a month or so for not doing so...

And FWIW...I TUCK my larger leaves down into the stem area rather than choping them off...and I ONLY do this if the leaf is shading a bud completely or a grow shoot I see that I want to clone. (in veg stage or early bloom)

good luck

bt dt

 

[Ceese]

looks great new england, I was wondering how everything finished up for you? i'm looking at peak seeds right now and was wondering if you would recommend them?

 

[lynzandrob]

Bloody Hell Thats Alot Of Lights We Just Got 1 Bulb

 

[oleschool]

Good job NEP, I also tried Peak Seed. Got the same great results. Purchased Blueberry, Skunkberry, and Northernberry only tried the skunkberry so far got 9 out 10 females. Buds started swelling around week 7. So i let them go for 9 1/2 weeks, man did they fatten up, not only that the taste and the high was awesome. When the plants got crowed in my space I cut the tips of the fan leaves and not the whole leaf. Only where bud sites needed more light. Can't wait to start the blueberry and the northernberry will be my first outdoor grow nest spring. Good Luck Oleschool

 

[turbo]

looking good man

 

[NewEnglandPotriot]

looks great new england, I was wondering how everything finished up for you? i'm looking at peak seeds right now and was wondering if you would recommend them?

I wound up with 1 3/4 ounces dried from the one plant, which I'm happy with. I will say that I'm not 100% sold on using CFLs vs. an HPS or MH, since I used 8 42W bulbs, for 336W of electricity, but I think I would've gotten the same results with a single 250W HPS. The high was great, nicely balanced indica/sativa blend, very very very potent--way better than the mids I always used to get. I've got 3 Skunk plants going right now, just shy of 5 weeks of veg, also from Peak Seeds, I'm hoping for a little more sativa influence in the high without growing something that takes 12-14 weeks to flower. Using CFLs again, though I'm seriously thinking about going with 3 168-bulb LED mixed red/blue grow lights just to see what happens. I'll give these 3 plants another couple days of 18/6 lights, transplant them from 6" into 10" clay pots, give them a few days, then flip the lights to 12/12. Hopefully I'll get 2 females out of the 3 plants.