Why are my buds smelling bitter/peppery around Sep. 15

growerNshower

Well-Known Member
I've been growing for a while, indoor and out. This has only happened in my most recent spot outdoors (2 years in a row), which gets full sun all day on a SW slope at 1400 feet in NorCal foothills about 38.5 degN. I haven't seen this indoors on the same strains. It didn't really happen as much when grown on East facing slope outdoors at same elevation/lattitude. What happens is around September 15 or so, about half of my plants go from smelling floral, piney, sweet, skunky to smelling heavily of a bitter scent somewhat like black pepper. The other terps are still there, but much reduced compared to the bitter smell. The same strains did not do it under controlled indoor conditions. Some of my cuts won't do it at all, like purple punch. One thing I can recall is that there was a heavy rain around Sep 15 and I had some stress on the plants from that...several branches hanging down, had to retrellis/tie up. Also, there was some residual dry amendments that had built up on top of soil and probably got watered in pretty well, so maybe some nute burn...maybe too much late blood meal?

Does anyone have any idea what the triggers are for this? Rain, cold, too much direct sun, high temps?

Here are my grow conditions:

-Light: Outdoor
-Location: 1400 ft elevation, 38.5 degN, NorCal
-Exposure: Full sun (30 min after sunrise to 30 min before sunset)
-Water: tap, drip, 2X day on hot days
-Climate: 90-100 highs through Summer, 70s-80s high fall, lows 70s until the last rain, lows near 50 for a few days.
-Container: fabric pots (100-200 gallon)
-Medium: 20% coco, 30% Turkey Compost, 30% Mushroom Compost, 10% perlite, 10% lava rock
-Nutes: top dressing blood meal, oyster shell flower, fish bone meal, bat guano, kelp meal, langbenite, rainbow mix pro bloom (a pinch for the microbes). Added total of 1-2 cups/100 gallons soil every 2 weeks since June 1. Started higher in blood meal, finished higher on langbenite/guano.
-Soil pH: 6.5-7 (some spots around periphery of pot were a little higher ~7.5)

Plants have been overall nice healthy green (if even a little hot soil at start) until last couple weeks, started seeing signs of either nute burn or potassium deficiency (please see pics).

Strains that got peppery: OG, Blueberry diesel, Candyland, stardawg crosses, strawberry cough x durban poison
Strains not peppery: pineapple upside down cake, purple punch

Maybe I'm tripping and my palate is adjusting so that skunky flavors smell bitter? I don't think so though, because my superglue bagseed is very ripe with skunk and that one smells wonderful, not much of that bitter flavor.

Any advice/experience would be greatly appreciated!
 

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growerNshower

Well-Known Member
Thanks for the tip. I don't have any mold. I dont grow hydro, so I haven't been diligent about PPM, but perhaps I should be. I tried mixing some of my soil with water (1:1 v/v), straining with coffee filter and measuring TDS, but my cheap amazon TDS meter isn't working right now....arghhh. Can anyone recommend a good cheap TDS meter?

I haven't really thought about flushing per se, but I do taper nute top dressing off toward end, so I guess that is technically flushing. I'll try to flush one of the plants really well and see if that helps.
 

HighNRG

Member
Thanks for the tip. I don't have any mold. I dont grow hydro, so I haven't been diligent about PPM, but perhaps I should be. I tried mixing some of my soil with water (1:1 v/v), straining with coffee filter and measuring TDS, but my cheap amazon TDS meter isn't working right now....arghhh. Can anyone recommend a good cheap TDS meter?

I haven't really thought about flushing per se, but I do taper nute top dressing off toward end, so I guess that is technically flushing. I'll try to flush one of the plants really well and see if that helps.
Yes, doing a quick flush with plain water. I had a problem with my plants smelling like milk for a while, it was the nute line i had
 

growerNshower

Well-Known Member
You flush and see if that corrects your problem. It is the least harmful way.
Good thing we got a flush from the sky coming the next couple days, we’ll see what happens with that. I also treated one pot with 1/2 cup of langbenite and bat guano with 2 tbsp molasses, 2x this week. On a different pot, I flushed with 100gallons of water this morning, it’s a 200 gallon pot, so I probably need to put a couple hundred more gallons through to flush...I got bored after 15 minutes of straight watering one plant, so I’ll come back later and continue. Between those 2 treatments, if one doesn’t start looking/smelling better then I’m stumped.

One more thing, I noticed the buds exposed to direct sun don’t smell as good as the ones in the shade...maybe I need some light cutting cloth, my sw slope is a broiler
 

growerNshower

Well-Known Member
This is why cannabis gets a bad rap for being environmentally unfriendly. People are arbitrarily wasting hundreds of gallons of water they think will fix an issue they havent even diagnosed.
I’m all ears...please let me know how you would diagnose at this point.

I don’t think it’s arbitrary to put hundreds of gallons of water into one plant to test it. Arbitrary things are done without reason...in this case the flushing is done with clear rationale and with a clearly defined readout...does the plant get better, stay the same, or get worse...every possible outcome helps inform the cause of the problem. How is that arbitrary? This is done in an effort TO diagnose the plant.

Again, I’m all ears if there is a better way....
 

growerNshower

Well-Known Member
Have you tested your water source?
Flushing is more for people that use salt based nutrients in small containers, if you are doing water-only organic soil in huge pots there is not a lot you can flush out of your soil and you are probably doing more harm than good while wasting tremendous amounts of water.
That's a good suggestion, I'm just using tap, and I know the chlorine levels fluctuate, but I didn't think it would change enough to cause stress. I’m in the mountains and our water is generally low in chlorine. I did a taste test just now and I can not smell or taste any chlorine, but not sure if there was a spike in it 2 weeks ago. How would you test your water in this case?
 
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