How to tell if buds are degrading.

I'm currently at day 36 of a 7 to 8 week strain. I ran into trouble with fungus gnats, lost a plant early flower and two others look to be on their last legs. The flowers look great, not huge but much bigger than I expected at this point considering the issues with the gnats, the trichomes are also packed. The buds are still showing some growth but I predict I'll get 1 more week before all leaves are completely yellow.
I took a sample and dried it in the oven and it's pretty potent and despite being early and drying it in the oven, it actually tasted great.
The high however was very heady, the strain is sugar black rose, mostly indica and I'm hoping for a more body stone.
Will the buds still mature once the leaves are all yellow and the buds no longer grow? How can I tell if the buds are beginning to degrade from a lack of leaves? Should I harvest a week or two early once they stop growing or should I just let it ride the extra week or two with hopes of a better body high? The trichs seem to be getting cloudy but I have poor vision even with a loupe so maybe not as much as it seems.

I would wait at least 3 more weeks nothing finishes 5 weeks

Herb & Suds said:

I would wait at least 3 more weeks nothing finishes 5 weeks

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Thanks for the response. I understand it's too early, my question is that if all the leaves are completely yellow and or dead will it hurt or degrade the buds by keeping it going for the remaining 2 to 3 weeks?

Pics?

How do you lose plants to fungus gnats? They're easily eradicated.

My guess is the gnats were just a side effect of over watering, which was likely the real issue. Everyone things their buds on their first grow are great, three weeks early. If you can ride it out, I would at least a couple of weeks.

Don't see alot of 7 wk strains, not finished correctly anyway. Usually just a marketing ploy. All buds are best when grown to finish. It'll likely go 8+wks. So your in mid flower, best to get it back on the nutes. Why not feed it? It needs it. Can even do like 1/2 doses to limp to the finish.

PJ Diaz said:

My guess is the gnats were just a side effect of over watering, which was likely the real issue. Everyone things their buds on their first grow are great, three weeks early. If you can ride it out, I would at least a couple of weeks.

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This is my third grow. I'm not in a hurry, this is however my first issue with gnats I want the buds to mature fully and am patient enough to wait, I'm actually hoping even though the leaves are almost all completely yellow and falling off that it will still get all trichs cloudy. I'm growing in living amended coco not soil, I've been watering every day since post seedling stage, vegged for 7 weeks with no problems. I did get them under control with dunks but I didn't keep up with them and they came back.

R Burns said:

Don't see alot of 7 wk strains, not finished correctly anyway. Usually just a marketing ploy. All buds are best when grown to finish. It'll likely go 8+wks. So your in mid flower, best to get it back on the nutes. Why not feed it? It needs it. Can even do like 1/2 doses to limp to the finish.

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I'm top feeding with organic dry amendments at this time, it's in coco. I just fed them with a top feed along with a compost tea a few days ago so I'm keeping up with feeding. These are at day 35, the pic of the whole plants are at 4 weeks, they are a bit more yellow now.

Living amended coco and top feeding? I rarely see anyone trying to grow in coco the way you are not have problems. I don't see any reason to cut those this early. They don't look great but even in the shape they're in the buds will continue to ripen up.

In the future with fungus gnats a neem solution drench will take care of them. But sounds like you're keeping things too wet so fix the root cause of the problem and you won't get them to begin with.

Ok. So not awful. Don't want to go 4 wks like that though. What you are seeing is phosphorus deficiency. Its a key flower nute. You want to get that up, asap. Be sure that your ph is correct. Low ph is often the reason for p deficiency.

R Burns said:

Ok. So not awful. Don't want to go 4 wks like that though. What you are seeing is phosphorus deficiency. Its a key flower. You want to get that up, asap. Be sure that your ph is correct. Low ph is often the reason for p deficiency.

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Thanks. I do too dress with seabird guano along with Dr Earth's 394 at recommended dosage every 10 to 14 days among a few other ferts. While I'm sure there can be things out of wack, I have absolutely no doubt the gnats are the primary cause. It was really out of control due to a lack of appropriate measures in dealing with them. Literally thousands of them. It's getting back under control but I feel the damage is done. I'll continue to keep them going, I'm just afraid that if all the leaves die it will degrade the buds if I keep them going for 3 to 4 more weeks hence my original question. Hopefully now that I have them back under some control the roots will recover enough to get it to the true end of the harvest.

Mr.green75 said:

Thanks. I do too dress with seabird guano along with Dr Earth's 394 at recommended dosage every 10 to 14 days among a few other ferts. While I'm sure there can be things out of wack, I have absolutely no doubt the gnats are the primary cause. It was really out of control due to a lack of appropriate measures in dealing with them. Literally thousands of them. It's getting back under control but I feel the damage is done. I'll continue to keep them going, I'm just afraid that if all the leaves die it will degrade the buds if I keep them going for 3 to 4 more weeks hence my original question. Hopefully now that I have them back under some control the roots will recover enough to get it to the true end of the harvest.

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It'll be fine. Should bounce back. Just keep giving it what it needs.

From your original post I expected to see a train wreck when you posted pics. But they don’t look too bad.

Merlin1147 said:

From your original post I expected to see a train wreck when you posted pics. But they don’t look too bad.

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Yeah the buds do look great for week 5, especially since the leaves started dying and falling off since week 2 which was my concern for them degrading if all the leaves die and I keep it going for a few weeks more.
The buds are still showing some growth and as you can see are packed with trichomes so I'm holding on to hope they will fully mature, my concern at this point is to get the trichs all cloudy. I tried a small popcorn bud from the under growth and dried it in a toaster oven and as hard as it might be to believe, it tasted fantastic and packed a nice punch, however is was a very sativa like high, and I prefer an indica high. I won't be doing any more samples at this point, I know that's bad. I can't wait to try a fully mature, properly dried and cured bud.

Here's pics from today, you can see how much more yellow the leaves have become in the last week. The buds are still putting on some weight so not all hope is lost. The purple pic is from the light, I have 2 different lights, 1 a mars hydro and a cob giving the buds a purple look but they are the same color. Most of the lollipop look was due to the plant dropping leaves.

xtsho said:

How do you lose plants to fungus gnats? They're easily eradicated.

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Pythium.

Sublime374 said:

Pythium.

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I think you nailed the problem as to why it's so severe, I didn't consider them causing rot, it might explain why they were singling out specific plants, I'd guess once the roots get rot it lured more to that plant multiplying the damage. I'm curious to see the roots once I harvest. I just hope the damage isn't too severe for the plants to survive a couple more weeks.