Starting my second battle soon. Questions + tips? advice?

[Gingerbeard]

From what I can see, you might do well to take a look at supercropping. The distance between main cola and the lowers is doing disservice to the lowers because of distance from the light.

[realhuuuman420]

The photos showed up after all? And yeah, I was considering high stress training for my next grow. I've read a bunch about pinching the main cola and then applying some LST and apparently people are having great results - with AUTOS! Which sounds almost criminal, and might be really risky, but yep.

But I don't think I could/should do that during this grow. It's week 5, in theory it should only be 4 more weeks before harvest.

[Rootsruler]

The problem I see with the pants pot is the bottom part is wide while the top part is narrow. The wider bottom will have a higher perched water table ratio to the top so it's easier to overwater due to the large PWT vs the narrower media.

I wouldn't increase the frequency so much as making sure the fat area gets enough water to stay moist but not so much that the perched water table keeps it too wet and drops the O² exchanges in the root zone. It's kind of a fine balance which is why I would've gone with a straight cloth pot. The pants are fun but aren't all that conducive to even media saturation.

[realhuuuman420]

Yuupp. I was literally thinking exactly this as I logged on right now.

I watered again now, since it already dried up from last watering. A bit earlier than usual, but I noticed exactly what you're saying - gravity simply pulls the water towards the center.

Did my best to somehow adjust the pants and properly water the fat, we'll see what happens next.

Definitely ordering a proper cloth pot from Amazon for my next plant. The only reason why I didn't do it for this one was that I needed to start the grow, and could not afford to wait 2-3 more weeks. And IMO the pants are still better than the normal plastic pots. I could have also made them better and more evenly distributed. But here we are.

[Gingerbeard]

You came at this with a modicum of vanity realhuuuman420. I don't care how Brazilian you are, with hips and an ass like that, your waist is not that narrow. You put 5 gallons of soil in a 10 gallon ass and had to cinch up the belt to make for the deepest roots.
Next time, maybe try a cummerbund.

[Rootsruler]

Hahaha!

[realhuuuman420]

Would appreciate if somebody looked at this with a fresh set of eyes. I've been looking for too long and honestly don't know what to think anymore.

It seems like the damage has progressed slightly on the leaves already affected, and the ones that had maybe slightly affected tips now have ever so slightly more affected tips.

Am I just imagining things? Maybe I'm just looking at the damaged stuff, like when your tooth hurts and your tongue just won't stop touching it, making the whole thing seem worse than it is? From the previous grow experience, I know that damaged leaves like this will continue to die off. But of course I still tend to think catastrophically.

Anyway, here's fresh porn. The damn thing is bigger than it was two days ago, I know that autos do stretch a fair bit during early flower stages, but I thought we're past that. Or am I imagining that as well? ...

Environment seems still fine. Humidity dropped a lil bit, so I have to have the humidifier on now, but that helps, so that's a non issue. Measured pH of runoff two days ago, it was a good 6.2-6.3ish. Water ph is also like that. Temps always stable between 23-25C.

I'm just overthinking it again, right?

[Gingerbeard]

Those brown spots are dead and dying tissue. The tissue is dead and dying from the issues you have been having. It is ugly but there is nothing you can do about it. What is dead stays dead, browns, crisps, and will create holes in your leaves.
You are well into flowering which means there is a chance your major fan leaves will start yellowing and die off. If your soil has flushed out the veg nutes, there is a better chance your fans will yellow and die. Concentrate on keeping your pH good and using only flowering nutrients.

[realhuuuman420]

Many thanks, Ginger! Will do.

[Bluey]

Looking at them now I can see you have continued to lose pigment, quite a bit, and some classic signs of calmag deficiency also showing especially on the lower leaves. Calmag would have checked both issues.

It may pay to use some with your bloom nutes but dont add it past about week four after the flip. Half strength at most.

[Gingerbeard]

I can't believe I'm going here... even I think it's too early for flowering deficiencies. With the soil cooling off, any pH buffers, cal-mag, and nitrogen washing out, maybe getting a little N in will still be beneficial?

[Bluey]

The calmag you add if in liquid form will likely be nitrate based which it will draw N from but check that, that's why you don't want to be adding it too far into flower, too much N.

[Rootsruler]

Here's what I would do.

Do a half half mix of both bloom and grow base with whatever the recommended amount of cal/mag the manufacturer suggests. The additional N in grow should boost the amount of N you're putting in the soil so that your plant isn't constantly throttling between fed and starved. That should take care of the color loss along with helping in building flower structure. The cal/mag should take care of the yellowing/holes/crisping that is currently happening. The P and K boost should help throughout flower also.

What I'm seeing is deficiency through relying on soil nutrition rather than feeding in addition to. Watering is also an issue but it seems like you've gotten better at that part. I would water the soil in the waist and water the fatter lower portion so that it soaks through the cloth. If you really want to make it easy and be sure that all the media is getting wet you can bottom water it by mixing up a feed solution and immersing the pants into the bucket until you see water coming out the top of the media.

When I have sprouts in solo cups I feed them this way. Makes it easy to make sure all the media gets wet and because sprouts only need to be watered once or twice before they get transplanted into gallon cans it isn't a big deal. A little more work but it makes a big difference in plant development.

Unless you're growing a plant in a 15 or 20 gal bag with highly fortified media and a highly active microbial community at minimum I don't see how your soil can have enough food to get your through flower.

[realhuuuman420]

I suppose the below simply confirms what you are all saying anyway - CalMag deficiency, started feeding too late, and ofc those watering issues I pointed out as well.

Still wanted to detail this in case there's something terribly wrong with the feeding - especially the CalMag part. Should I give a bit more, say 1.2 ml / L, even if BioBizz says max 0.8ml, to compensate for the lack?

I have been giving it CalMag starting with my first feeding, but clearly not enough. I started under half of the recommended dosage according to the BIoBizz chart, and steadily increasing to 100%- https://www.biobizz.com/wp-content/u...le-EN-2024.pdf

27th of Oct: BioGrow (0.5ml), BioBloom (1ml), TopMax (0.5ml), CalMag (0.3ml)
31st of Oct - Bloom (2ml), Grow (1ml), Max (0.5ml), CalMag (0.4ml)
2nd of Nov - Bloom (3ml), Grow (1ml), Max (1.5ml), CalMag (0.4ml)

Today will be the 4th feeding, I planned to up the dosage all the way up to 100% of recommended, meaning BioBloom up to 4ml, and CalMag of 0.8ml per liter of water. BioBizz recommends using BioGrow throughout the entire grow (starting at around when soil starts to cool down), at 1ml per liter of water going in.

And something that keeps bugging me - this needs to be a lesson for my next grow. So, in retrospect, should I have started feeding as soon as I noticed the slight pigment loss? If yes, then this would be a clear and hard to miss sign, and next time I will be able to understand what the plant is trying to tell me.

[Rootsruler]

Agree with Bluey

[Gingerbeard]

Bluey you grow fem, yes? Not auto?

[Bluey]

All what I have grown outdoors was regular seed.

Indoors a mix of regular and fem and only a four autos to date.

[Gingerbeard]

Bluey ... realhuuuman420 is growing auto. Your recommendations for when to start calmag and bloom nutes are for fem.
I'm going to respectfully challenge or question what you said based on me growing autos in coco with the brand nutrients I use. I've been harvesting at 10-11 weeks. Lady bits can show at 3 weeks. At 4 weeks I add half bloom nutes to the full veg I've been giving since the 'sprout phase' was over. Next watering is half veg to full bloom. Full bloom from then on. From sprout to harvest, if I use nutrients, I use calmag.
So much respect.

[Bluey]

My recommendations were for photos of course. I missed the bit about autos.l so my nute tomongs don't apply

[realhuuuman420]

Beginning of week 7 :O looks like 1-2 weeks until harvest!

[realhuuuman420]

So very close! Very excited for harvest. Hopefully will be ready by this weekend, but don't mind keeping it for as long as it needs. And then the real battle of drying and curing starts!

[Bluey]

A few more weeks

[Gingerbeard]

I may be being baited, but I'll bite. But only nibble. Why do you think you will be ready this weekend?

[Rootsruler]

Lol! : )

[realhuuuman420]

Well, a lot of the trichomes are milky, and more are turning milky day by day! Could be also one more week, but not longer. But again, as long as it takes. If it's another 3 weeks, then that's what it is. Sure as hell hope it isn't though!!
The color though... damn. Looks like cotton candy. Makes me want to take a bite

[Gingerbeard]

When is the Best Time to Harvest Marijuana Buds? | Grow Weed Easy

[realhuuuman420]

Pfffff.. if the wait for harvest won't kill me, the wait for drying & curing surely will.

Have you ever sampled your plants 2 weeks before harvest? Asking for a friend.

[Gingerbeard]

Yes. Fatality rates among indoor growers is 4.3 times the national average during drying and curing, but significantly lower during flowering.
A secret is that whole curing nonsense may make for better weed, but the weed is smokable when:
1. It does not gunk up the grinder.
2. It stays lit in the bowl.
You got weeks before harvest. Tack on another week for drying. Sorry to pffff in your pants.
In all seriousness, that link has morphed since I've been looking at it. For those of us who started growing in this forum and through GWE, that link on flowering is golden. From the first harvest, it gets to be experience and personal choice.
Still being serious, consider if you are growing Indica or Sativa. Indica is the mellow, Sativa is the uplifting. Do you want a lot of clear and milky trichomes on an Indica? Same-same do you want ginger trichomes on Sativa?

[realhuuuman420]

Mysterious, Ginger! How did it end up going? The thread kind of ends, with you barely even starting the grow.

Bluey that's so old school and raw. You weren't one to fool around much eh?

[Gingerbeard]

Don't quite remember what became of that one. I'm sure it was successful because I have had only a small number of failures. It probably became another thread.

[Gingerbeard]

If you do an advanced search and put a member's name in the 'Member' section, you can see all of someone's posts.

[realhuuuman420]

Hello there! It's been painfully slow. I'm not sure why, but I expected the final weeks to be much faster.

I am unfortunately running out of time. I was really, really hoping to be able to harvest this weekend, but it seems like it's not there just yet. I see a lot of milky trichomes, but also plenty of transparent ones still.

This is the first day of week 11 since sprout. Judging from my previous stunted auto, I was hoping for another 8 week seed to harvest one. Maybe it's taking longer because of the stress from the nute defficiency in around week 4-5?

Unfortunately, next weekend is the absolute latest I need to harvest. I will then have one week for drying, after which I need to jar it up for curing/storage and pack up the tent, with next grow not happening until February.

Is there anything I can do? Speed up the process? What if I actually would harvest this weekend, would the trichomes keep on developing while drying? How much potency would be lost in an early harvest?

I've stopped feeding since six days ago, giving it only water in preparation of the harvest - which I really thought would be this weekend

I saw like one or two amber trichomes, but that's really nothing. I also see a lot of purple ones - which is unfortunate because I cannot judge their development, but at least it's pretty.

Conversely, why the hell are the pistils on the top main cola taking so damn long? Every single other bud seems to be like 70% done, most pistils curled in and brown. But those on the main guy are all so white and erect... shouldn't it be the other way around? I thought the top one, closest to light, should be done the fastest? But it seems that the ones in the middle are developing the fastest...


Also, I know I'm gonna go to green jail for this, but I've been absolutely dying to take a sample popcorn bud and try it. And look, I know how terrible that sounds, but I've got nothing else, one way or another I'm taking a sample today. What would be the best way of quick-drying it? Preferably one that would take less than 3 hours - but I'm open to suggestions even if it's one that will take a day or two. I read about the steam microwave method, which is supposedly the least evil and damaging one. Thoughts?

[realhuuuman420]

Bluey ah damn, hopefully there's enough time then.

I think the bud growth did stop completely a few days ago, now the only changes I see are the pistils and, well, trichomes, but it's hard to tell with a microscope, I see maybe 1% of all of them, and never the same ones.

RH is tricky, I have all the fans on maximum, I'm cleaning/wiping there daily to take out any excess water or humidity, but it stubbornly holds at 60%. I mean, don't get me wrong, at least drying won't be such a headache, but right now I'm missing a dehumidifier.

Temps are staying at 22C though, without any intervention on my side. Maybe 23 with the lights on. I did pull up the light as far as possible a week ago, too (it's not too big of a difference anyway).

Thank you so much for all the help, Bluey, Roots, and everyone else. Learned so much on this one. Also, although I lost a lot of time, it was a great decision to see the first one through, because now I've seen both extremes, and that helps a ton understanding all the whys and hows.

Now, I'm off to blast some popcorn nug in the microwave and see what happens.

[Bluey]

Microwaved bud. I wouldn't.

You could try a water cure and dry. It will dry faster and more evenly once removed from the water but I haven't tried it myself. I don't know of any way to fast dry buds and end up with a half decent result. Maybe freeze drying if you can. I'd try vaping it, it may be a bit less harsh but I'm only guessing here.

[realhuuuman420]

Bluey I ended up doing the microwave one, all the other methods seemed equally insane, but with higher potential to completely ruin it, or would take multiple days. I put it in a plastic tupperware container with a kitchen towel on the bottom, took a lil popcorn bud and cut it in smaller pieces, taking out all the green stuff, i.e. stem and some green leaves. On top, I put a damp paper towel and closed it, leaving one corner open for the steam to escape.

I did 30 second bursts at ~40% power (300w), taking it out and cooling after each. Four seemed to be enough, making the bud smokable and grindable, although it was still obviously wet.

Under the microscope, I noticed that most trichomes were intact, with some being shriveled and others just damaged from the cutting/manipulating. The entire popcorn bud shrank a lot during the process, I mean like 80% of the size was apparently just moisture and air.

It was... well, I put tobacco, like 50//50, so it was smokable. But it just refused to really burn, I had to keep re-lighting it, and it was difficult to inhale.

There was absolutely no smell or scent, all masked by the tobacco. It was really harsh to smoke, too.

It got me decently high. Estimating it was like 0.2grams and it did the job, well, could've been worse.

I have to admit, it was not worth it. I'm glad I did it, it's been a while, but at the same time, really not worth all the effort, time, difficulties rolling it up and smoking, etc.