6th week of flowering after 3 months of vegging, what do you think of the buds?

nutaryuk

nutaryuk

Member
So I have been vegging my Northern Light girls for about 3 months and I am now in the 6th week of flowering. This is my first grow, and it looks like the buds are quite small compared to all the other pics of buds I see here. So are the buds gonna grow any more or they will basically stay the same until I harvest after a few weeks?
Cheers, here are some pics.
:peace:
 

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growweedtoday

growweedtoday

Well-Known Member
They look great to me! Most buds will fatten up quite a bit during the last month, and especially the last two weeks of flowering, and your buds don't look even close to being done. It's hard to say from the pics, but I would say they still have another month or month and a half before they're ready to harvest. On the Attitude website, it says Northern Lights take 65 days of flowering. In my experience, you can always add two weeks onto whatever the seed vender says. That means you're looking at a total of 11 weeks or so of flowering. I would say you'll end up being pretty pleased with the results if you can just wait to harvest the plant (I swear that's the hardest part about your first grow).
 
nutaryuk

nutaryuk

Member
growweedtoday, cheers man, I took note of everything you said. +rep
yasser, why are they so small?
what could have gone wrong?
 
nutaryuk

nutaryuk

Member
I am growing too plants, using 5 45W 2700K CFL's and intake and exhaust fans and been using 5-8-5 nutes for flowering and 8-3-4 for vegging. It's my first grow, and the main mistake I did is let the plants veg for 3 months, they became HUGE. nextime no longer than 6-7 weeks. Is it true I heard that for the last 2 weeks of flowering no nutes, only water? some people dont even water for the last week. and I also heard that 2 days before harvest you should leave the plants in complete darkness for the 2 days period of time as it helps the plant to produce loads of THC.
much appreciated :)
 
darkdestruction420

darkdestruction420

Well-Known Member
More like a week and a half before harvest, you should still use unsulphured blackstrap mollasses till the end. Not watering the last week is a terrible idea. You dont really need to do 48 hrs, I only use 24. The thing is that thc is destroyed by light, thats what it is there for, as sunblock. The thc levels will be as high as they could get since they had that time to build up to their max level.
Your having some sort of problem with your leaves, they shouldnt be doing that. Try a good flush, it could be a salt lockout, youve been growing it for 4 1/2 months now and fertilizer will leave salts that build up over time and cause nute lockout like yours looks to be suffering from. take 3 times as much ph'd water as you have soil in the containers and run it through the soil.
 
nutaryuk

nutaryuk

Member
I flushed my plants not too long ago as you suggested. So should I stop giving them nutes?
Here are some MORE photos! :blsmoke:the buds look fine i suppose, but shouldn't they be wayyyy bigger? i don't know, it's my first grow, you guys are the judges.
cheers :peace:
 

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ClosetKing

ClosetKing

Well-Known Member
they dont seem too bad, to get bigger buds youll have to get a bigger light. cfls dont penetrate deep enough unless youve got a ton of them. to get better use out of cfls you should train your plants horizontally, top and supercrop them into an even canopy.

at this point i would stop giving nutes, keep on the water (and molasses if you want, i go pure water) until you harvest. i would give them another week or two, the hairs are getting pretty dark already.

i also dont think leaving the plants in darkness produces LOADS of thc, it might do something though.
 
growweedtoday

growweedtoday

Well-Known Member
They're not ready yet. They definitely need more than a week or two before they're ready to harvest. I can actually see the trichromes on the buds and I can see that they're all standing straight up and the 'bulb' part of the trichromes haven't fattened up and started changing color yet. Many people harvest early every time and don't realize what they're missing until they wait those extra couple of weeks.

This page explains about trichrome color:
http://www.420magazine.com/forums/harvest-preparation-curing/110449-rosemans-determining-harvest-time.html

Another thing to keep in mind, is that the pistols (little white hairs that turn brown) of the flower will start curling in when it's getting close to harvest-time. If your plant is still making new white pistols all the time, that means she's still growing and isn't nearly ready to harvest. Some people say to harvest with 75% of the pistols turn brown, but I've had plants before that have buds which turn almost 80% brown so I thought it was ready to harvest, then noticed a couple of days later that the same buds had grown a whole bunch of new white pistols. With some strains (and in my experience with CFLs), pistol color alone isn't a good indicator. I always have the best results watching the trichromes and for when all the pistols are curling in.

When you think your plant might be ready, I urge you to take some of the top buds and then let the smaller ones have time to develop. That way you will get to see the difference between buds which have been taken earlier vs later.

With marijuana, the size of your buds are limited by your light, and ClosetKing is right about the CFLs. In order to ensure the biggest buds, you want to make sure that there aren't any 'shadowy' areas on the plant. Basically, a CFL provides light that is usable for only 2-6 inches away. Therefore, all the green parts of the plant should be within 2-6 inches of a CFL if you want to maximize on your output. If you have bigger bulbs, then they cover a slightly greater distance.

I would recommend getting a couple more (2700k Soft White) CFL bulbs if you think you might need them. I also recommend giving your plant nutes for at least another two weeks before you re-assess and see if you think the plant is close to harvest at that point. I have made the mistake of stopping nutes too early, and that stunts your buds even more. You start seeing bad nutrition deficiencies, and then at that point, harvest time really is two weeks away and you can't give the plant more nutes. If you do stop giving your plant nutes, you can still give them unsulphured molasses (I do 1 teaspoon per gallon of water, some people do more) as a natural way to get the plants some of it's nutrients. Molasses will actually make your buds tastier as opposed to nutrients which give them a weird taste so you can use molasses right up until you harvest the plant.
 
darkdestruction420

darkdestruction420

Well-Known Member
growweedtoday said:
They're not ready yet. They definitely need more than a week or two before they're ready to harvest. I can actually see the trichromes on the buds and I can see that they're all standing straight up and the 'bulb' part of the trichromes haven't fattened up and started changing color yet. Many people harvest early every time and don't realize what they're missing until they wait those extra couple of weeks.

This page explains about trichrome color:
http://www.420magazine.com/forums/harvest-preparation-curing/110449-rosemans-determining-harvest-time.html

Another thing to keep in mind, is that the pistols (little white hairs that turn brown) of the flower will start curling in when it's getting close to harvest-time. If your plant is still making new white pistols all the time, that means she's still growing and isn't nearly ready to harvest. Some people say to harvest with 75% of the pistols turn brown, but I've had plants before that have buds which turn almost 80% brown so I thought it was ready to harvest, then noticed a couple of days later that the same buds had grown a whole bunch of new white pistols. With some strains (and in my experience with CFLs), pistol color alone isn't a good indicator. I always have the best results watching the trichromes and for when all the pistols are curling in.

When you think your plant might be ready, I urge you to take some of the top buds and then let the smaller ones have time to develop. That way you will get to see the difference between buds which have been taken earlier vs later.

With marijuana, the size of your buds are limited by your light, and ClosetKing is right about the CFLs. In order to ensure the biggest buds, you want to make sure that there aren't any 'shadowy' areas on the plant. Basically, a CFL provides light that is usable for only 2-6 inches away. Therefore, all the green parts of the plant should be within 2-6 inches of a CFL if you want to maximize on your output. If you have bigger bulbs, then they cover a slightly greater distance.

I would recommend getting a couple more (2700k Soft White) CFL bulbs if you think you might need them. I also recommend giving your plant nutes for at least another two weeks before you re-assess and see if you think the plant is close to harvest at that point. I have made the mistake of stopping nutes too early, and that stunts your buds even more. You start seeing bad nutrition deficiencies, and then at that point, harvest time really is two weeks away and you can't give the plant more nutes. If you do stop giving your plant nutes, you can still give them unsulphured molasses (I do 1 teaspoon per gallon of water, some people do more) as a natural way to get the plants some of it's nutrients. Molasses will actually make your buds tastier as opposed to nutrients which give them a weird taste so you can use molasses right up until you harvest the plant.
Click to expand...
I agree, this is from fdd's harvest tutorial, it shows the change that you described really well.

we will start with ripeness. most people say to check your trichromes with 30X magnification. i have other ways. when buds are done they look "done". the appearance of the bud changes. the leaves start to hook upwards and become hard and crispy. the calyxes will swell and the hairs will turn brown. you can see a golden tinge to the bud leaves. this is the amber crystals. they start to turn amber on the leaves first.



not ready..........





ready.......




ps- for a plant under cfls for six weeks into flowering its not to bad at all.
 
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