Taking too long to show preflowers

[EchoSabre]

Hello,
This is my first grow and so far it's going great but...
-growing info:
my plant is about 5 weeks old from seed , I'm growing in soil in a small closet with a fan over it 24/7, under 3 80w CFLs 6500k when it was in veg then replaced them with 2700k when changed to flowering cycle, and i don't know the strain of my plant (random bagseed).
water PH 6.5
I fed the plant once with 30-10-10 NPK and I wanna feed it 10-30-20 in the future.

I vegged for 2 weeks 18/6 cycle then changed to flowering cycle 12/12. Now the plant is 3 weeks in flowering and still not showing sex. The plant looks healthy and I didn't face any problems yet.
I'm quite sure there aren't any light leaks and no interruption in the dark cycle.

should I just wait? am I missing something?
here are some pics
-1st picture is a 2 week old (when i changed to flowering)
-2nd/3rd picture is the plant right now at 5 weeks old 3 weeks into flowering (no pre-flowers yet)

 

[NaturalFarmer]

A plant will not go to flower from seed until it is sexually mature and shows it preflower regardless of photoperiod. You should know soon (if not now) by the looks.

 

[lio lacidem]

Exactly what natural said. They will probably show sex within a week or so.

 

[EchoSabre]

A plant will not go to flower from seed until it is sexually mature and shows it preflower regardless of photoperiod. You should know soon (if not now) by the looks.

Thank you
again this is my 1st grow and im a bit nervous and anxious, i really don't want it to be a male.
another question, when should i feed it the 10 30 20 npk ? should i wait for the preflower then feed?

 

[NaturalFarmer]

I'm a soil guy so Ill let someone chime in on that one. Play it some Barry White and hope for the best. Looks like its probably a female to me however

 

[EchoSabre]

I'm a soil guy so Ill let someone chime in on that one. Play it some Barry White and hope for the best. Looks like its probably a female to me however

Thank you, I appreciate it

 

[Jimdamick]

Thank you
again this is my 1st grow and im a bit nervous and anxious, i really don't want it to be a male.
another question, when should i feed it the 10 30 20 npk ? should i wait for the preflower then feed?

Save the 10-30-20 (be careful as that is some pretty strong stuff) until you see flowers. You should have vegged longer in my opinion (4 weeks normal), and if you dont see flowers in a week, it's probably a male. Start looking at the part of the plant where the branch meets the stalk for pollen sacks which should start forming around now. If your not sure what you are looking for do a search on sexing pot plants. Good luck

 

[EchoSabre]

Save the 10-30-20 (be careful as that is some pretty strong stuff) until you see flowers. You should have vegged longer in my opinion (4 weeks normal), and if you dont see flowers in a week, it's probably a male. Start looking at the part of the plant where the branch meets the stalk for pollen sacks which should start forming around now. If your not sure what you are looking for do a search on sexing pot plants. Good luck

Thanks for the advice sir
I've been looking for any signs of preflowers everywhere with a magnifying glass and still I'm pretty sure there aren't any sacks or pistils.
btw the plant is very bushy and branching from everywhere, it's not growing long but wide

 

[OldMedUser]

It ought to show sex any day now even tho it's young.

That 10-30-20 is not a good ratio for flowering pot but great for tomatoes. A 10-10-30 would be better and half doses at that.

Swap out one of your 2700K lights for a 6500K. Better spectrum for the plant and the bluer light is good to help with the growth spurt during stretch. Even better until the stretch is over is 2 - 6500K, 1 - 2700K then go with just one 6500K after the stretch.

 

[EchoSabre]

It ought to show sex any day now even tho it's young.

That 10-30-20 is not a good ratio for flowering pot but great for tomatoes. A 10-10-30 would be better and half doses at that.

Swap out one of your 2700K lights for a 6500K. Better spectrum for the plant and the bluer light is good to help with the growth spurt during stretch. Even better until the stretch is over is 2 - 6500K, 1 - 2700K then go with just one 6500K after the stretch.

Thank you so much for the advice will most certainly do that
I appreciate your help
even though I read that in flowering, weed plant needs a higher P ratio, but im still gonna do what you say because im not sure

 

[OldMedUser]

They do like a higher level of P earlier in flowering but 30% is a bit too much and they prefer more K than P the last few weeks. Even the so-called P/K 13/14 or whatever that is is actually twice the K than P when you examine the actual amounts of each in the mix at the molecular level.

Pot has very specific needs to get it to perform at it's maximum potential but as long as there are adequate amounts of each of the macro and micro nutes present without large overages of any then you can grow great plants.

For instance CalMag seems to be all the rage like it's some magic elixir that is going to fix everything but it doesn't take too much extra Ca and it can lock out very important micro-nutrients like iron, zinc, boron and cadmium. Then new growing tips and the buds you want to grow there are compromised and if bad enough can kill the plant.

Too much P can cause Zn, Fe, Mg, Ca and Cu to be locked out with Zinc being the worst to go and it's as important to plant health as it is to human health.

Those numbers on the fertilizer labels indicate the percentage of each in the mix so a 20-20-20 is the same ratio as 10-10-10 but twice as concentrated so you would use half as much to get the same dose.

Nutes made specifically for pot works better than ones that are made for plants in general as they have the proper ratios of what pot needs and often added things like amino acids. Even the AN basic 3-part nutes come with aminos and a few other additives built in where the basic 3-part nutes from other Monsanto owned companies like GH are just salts in water that are made to grow anything and do a half-assed job of growing pot.

If you like the powdered nutes then NutriLife makes a great 3-part powdered product.

As long as you go easy with the ferts you have then you should be able to get a nice little crop off that plant and then with the money you save not buying pot for a while you can make the next crop a little better and so on.

People bitch about the cost of good nutes but I just spent another $300 on AN nutes and expect to grow 10 grand worth of pot with them so the bit extra it cost me is well worth it. Nutes are a small percentage of what it costs me to grow pot indoors with electricity being where the majority of the money goes. Equipment just cost me a bunch too but that gets spread out over many grows and is a one-time cost.

Here's a pic of all I use to grow with.

 

[WalterWhite810]

I had this problem once and it was actually something very simple. I had 4 lights running and i thought i set them all on 12/12 but i accidentally left one on 18/6 and i had no idea. 3 weeks into flower and i had no preflower and my plants were still growing bigger and bigger.. i checked my timer and noticed i made a huge mistake and fixed it. two weeks later i saw nugs forming.

 

[OldMedUser]

Damn eh! lol

I bought some great pot at a compassion club in Kelowna, BC last August called Walter White. You grow that stuff?

 

[WalterWhite810]

Damn eh! lol

I bought some great pot at a compassion club in Kelowna, BC last August called Walter White. You grow that stuff?

Nope never actually even heard of the strain until now, im going to have to check into it.

 

[OldMedUser]

Thought I'd ask. Nice sativa dominant hybrid that worked well for my depression. I'd grow it if I could find the seeds but have a Kali Mist x NL#5 I made years ago that works real good for that. Finding hi-CBD pot is great for my arthritis and am planning a cross of the two to see if I can get both in one plant.

 

[WalterWhite810]

Thought I'd ask. Nice sativa dominant hybrid that worked well for my depression. I'd grow it if I could find the seeds but have a Kali Mist x NL#5 I made years ago that works real good for that. Finding hi-CBD pot is great for my arthritis and am planning a cross of the two to see if I can get both in one plant.

Yeah i feel ya, I generally use meds higher in cbd as well for my arthritis. I'm just glad to find something that actually helps.

 

[EchoSabre]

They do like a higher level of P earlier in flowering but 30% is a bit too much and they prefer more K than P the last few weeks. Even the so-called P/K 13/14 or whatever that is is actually twice the K than P when you examine the actual amounts of each in the mix at the molecular level.

Pot has very specific needs to get it to perform at it's maximum potential but as long as there are adequate amounts of each of the macro and micro nutes present without large overages of any then you can grow great plants.

For instance CalMag seems to be all the rage like it's some magic elixir that is going to fix everything but it doesn't take too much extra Ca and it can lock out very important micro-nutrients like iron, zinc, boron and cadmium. Then new growing tips and the buds you want to grow there are compromised and if bad enough can kill the plant.

Too much P can cause Zn, Fe, Mg, Ca and Cu to be locked out with Zinc being the worst to go and it's as important to plant health as it is to human health.

Those numbers on the fertilizer labels indicate the percentage of each in the mix so a 20-20-20 is the same ratio as 10-10-10 but twice as concentrated so you would use half as much to get the same dose.

Nutes made specifically for pot works better than ones that are made for plants in general as they have the proper ratios of what pot needs and often added things like amino acids. Even the AN basic 3-part nutes come with aminos and a few other additives built in where the basic 3-part nutes from other Monsanto owned companies like GH are just salts in water that are made to grow anything and do a half-assed job of growing pot.

If you like the powdered nutes then NutriLife makes a great 3-part powdered product.

As long as you go easy with the ferts you have then you should be able to get a nice little crop off that plant and then with the money you save not buying pot for a while you can make the next crop a little better and so on.

People bitch about the cost of good nutes but I just spent another $300 on AN nutes and expect to grow 10 grand worth of pot with them so the bit extra it cost me is well worth it. Nutes are a small percentage of what it costs me to grow pot indoors with electricity being where the majority of the money goes. Equipment just cost me a bunch too but that gets spread out over many grows and is a one-time cost.

Here's a pic of all I use to grow with.

View attachment 3832460

Thank you so much for the very helpful information
You really helped me so much
Most appreciated

 

[EchoSabre]

I had this problem once and it was actually something very simple. I had 4 lights running and i thought i set them all on 12/12 but i accidentally left one on 18/6 and i had no idea. 3 weeks into flower and i had no preflower and my plants were still growing bigger and bigger.. i checked my timer and noticed i made a huge mistake and fixed it. two weeks later i saw nugs forming.

Yes I think my mistake was that I changed to the flowering cycle too early, my plant needed more time in veg. Though I didn't let it veg for more time because I didn't want it to grow big as I have a very limited space so I thought if I change it to flowering cycle it will just flower immediately (which is a noob way of thinking) But I think I got lucky because it's not growing tall but growing wide, bushy and short which is perfect for me... anyway thank you for the advice.

 

[EchoSabre]

Turned out to be a female , thanks for the help all