Blackberry Kush - Platinum Girl Scout Cookies - 400W MH/HPS

[TheFertilizer]

Well it hasn't gone off without a hitch but I really expected them to get more buds than this. I think the issue is this strain only puts up one top without some training. That's why I am thinking if I want to keep working with it that I should do some FIM and/or scrogging. I have to get some more tops if I want to improve the yield for it.

The other thing is I was taught to remove budsites that were low on the branches, so to only leave maybe 3-4 at the end of a branch and I did that but they didn't really get as big as I would have expected so I think that just cost me more bud than it got me.

I know that these buds will be dense but there's still not that many of them. I liked the high that a 8 week finish gave me but I think I might end up waiting for longer just to try to get more yield. Only concern I have doing that is they still have the potential to go hermie. Pretty much at week 6 now.

 

[TheFertilizer]

Well I'm just going to go ahead and assume this is just natural yellowing due to the end of flowering. They're getting pretty darn close. I think I should start flushing at the end of the week maybe, going to wait to see what the pistils do. They're starting to brown now. it's week 6 and I ran these 8 or 9 weeks before... I'll just see what happens. I'm probably going to be doing a partial harvest since my clones are not even close to ready for the tent ( probably not going to survive ) and there's some smaller popcorn buds I can let get bigger.

Speaking of the clones I wonder if I should even try to keep the ones that I have got going now or just take ones off of these plants after harvest. I know they'll take longer to reveg and root but if I wait for these ones to make it and they don't then I may not have anything to clone.

 

[Far East Buds]

Hello Fert!
Usually on the pistils I wait until they start pulling back in a little then start checking tric's. But with issue's like yours don't try to run longer than advertised or it could hermie.

On the yellow leaves. I wish I could say I think that is what it is but usually they change a little different than yours look. The only time i had leaves doing that... Yellowing at the bottom of plant and working it's way up the plant i had root rot and they were root bound. Thus the plant was finishing feeding on itself. Not sure that would be good news to you and i certainly hope i am wrong. It just kept losing leaves until harvest and I found out it had hermied... ugh...I hope you do not get the same....

I would keep trying on the clones you have but leave at least something worth cloning on the plant. Even if you can get 1 plant to clone and take it will slow things down but you can veg it out and get more clones from that...I have found for me revegging took a month from flower. Could have just been my setup tho....



FE

 

[TheFertilizer]

Hello Fert!
Usually on the pistils I wait until they start pulling back in a little then start checking tric's. But with issue's like yours don't try to run longer than advertised or it could hermie.

On the yellow leaves. I wish I could say I think that is what it is but usually they change a little different than yours look. The only time i had leaves doing that... Yellowing at the bottom of plant and working it's way up the plant i had root rot and they were root bound. Thus the plant was finishing feeding on itself. Not sure that would be good news to you and i certainly hope i am wrong. It just kept losing leaves until harvest and I found out it had hermied... ugh...I hope you do not get the same....

I would keep trying on the clones you have but leave at least something worth cloning on the plant. Even if you can get 1 plant to clone and take it will slow things down but you can veg it out and get more clones from that...I have found for me revegging took a month from flower. Could have just been my setup tho....



FE

Yeah I don't know, they do seem like the roots are getting pretty dense at the bottoms of the pots. When i stick my probe in I can feel quite the noticable different in how tight the soil is when I get down near the bottom of the pot.

I wonder if the only reason they didn't hermie on me last time is because I harvested so soon. I think I did those ones right around 64 days of flower, so I know the results will be good at that point. I kind of wanted to see if I could get that last bit of swell if I let them go longer to improve yield but yeah, don't know if I want to risk it. The thing is I basically have to make the decision now so I can begin flushing or not.

It's a real toss-up... If I try to get that swell, I don't know how long I will be waiting, what chance they have at going hermie on me, or even what the results will be compared to pulling them at 8 weeks.

 

[Far East Buds]

It is a tough question. And I am not saying to go one way or the other. That last week of flower is all filler..
If the roots do look good out of the bottom of the pot they are not getting the right balance? Or of course as we discussed in the past .. ph...

Try feeding them a few days at 5.6-5.8 ph then a few days at 5.8-6.0 then a few days at 6.0-6.2 until 6.5 or 6.6...then reverse back down.. Maybe daily switch it from last...not every few days. If the feed is good and you rotate the PH like that it should within a week have had the whole nute tree available to the roots...
does that make sense? If it is PH related it will have run the span...
Just a try...

I just know if you stick with it you will get it. I had a rough first year of adventures and now things to have become a little more understandable when things go haywire... Keep it up



FE

 

[TheFertilizer]

So should I be feeding them nutrients with every watering during flower? They seemed to have some nutrient burn so I figured I should cut back on it.

The last few times I experienced yellowing and leaf die-off like this I think it started to get better after leeching the soil so that's what I did today. They definitely look P deficient. The weirdest thing is it seems like one side of the leaf is yellowing before the other, but not from leaf tip to petioles, literally one side of the leaf will be yellow and the other won't. I wonder if maybe that indicates they're dying from light issues?

After I leeched them out I resaturated the pots with a 550 ppm feed of Flora Nova BLoom and Fox Farms Cha Ching, and I plan this to be my final feed. I pH'd to 5.8. I added a lot of Cal Mag lately and as i understand that can block out Phosphorous, so I hope lowering the pH down a little further will make the Cal Mag less available and the Phosphorous more.

Still not really sure how many more weeks I should be expecting to go though.The good news is it does seem like the buds far filling in more.

 

[smokers420]

By the looks of it I would say you have a Sulfur Deficiency going on bud.

 

[TheFertilizer]

By the looks of it I would say you have a Sulfur Deficiency going on bud.

Yeah that's what I was thinking back in post 119. The fertilizer I was giving them didn't have any Sulfur in it but I started giving them some Flora Nova Bloom which is 2% sulfur.

 

[Far East Buds]

I think you should bump the PPM up myself. 3 weeks away? I would be running 750 or so at least. Last week I would give it just tap ph'd to flush it but right now it should be bulking up and that would need more feed.. possibly.. but I am no pro ...

Just a thought I had



FE

 

[TheFertilizer]

I think you should bump the PPM up myself. 3 weeks away? I would be running 750 or so at least. Last week I would give it just tap ph'd to flush it but right now it should be bulking up and that would need more feed.. possibly.. but I am no pro ...

Just a thought I had



FE

Yeah I have been following charts where people are giving 1000-2000 ppm during this phase, but I I recently gave them a 450 ppm feed of Flora Nova Bloom and so after I flushed I gave them 550 ppm of Cha Ching because that seemed to burn the tips a little bit. I'm not sure if they're just really nutrient sensitive or what.

My most previous feed ( before I was trying to fix things ) was 750 ppm and that definitely burned the tips. Maybe it's a sign of something that it doesn't tolerate contemporary nutrient levels?

 

[Far East Buds]

Well I usually leave the base nutes the same and increase the others. Potassium, Sugars etc I bump up. They don't seem to burn it like the base nutes do...PPM can be confusing depending what people are basing PPM off of? PPM of base nutes?, Supplements? PPM of the water alone? Some PPM doesn't affect the plant. Stuff it doesn't absorb.

Just food for thought



FE

 

[TheFertilizer]

Yeah I pretty much found some Canna Nutrients chart on here. So maybe it was PPM levels of their specific nutrients. I think I should have kept the Flora Nova as my base nutrient and used that Growmore stuff as a supplimental instead of trying to switch over to it entirely. By the time I figured out it didn't have everything in it, I had a slight Cal Mag def and then the Sulfur def happened way too late to catch.

Well the leaves are continuing to yellow and die off but otherwise the overall health looks good. The plants did start yellowing and defoliating about the same way this far into the process last time which contributed some to why I pulled at 8 weeks. So I mean, there's the good and the bad... The good is that I'm on track to having the same quality as last time. The bad is that I am sure I could have got more yield.

I am looking at the size of the buds and thinking about how much they shrink and how dense the stuff is, and I am thinking that I might get about 4 ounces. I am really thinking heavily about a partial harvest but I don't know if I really want to do that. I don't have plants ready to cycle or anything so it would make sense to, the only reason I don't want to is because I kind of want it to all get dried and weighed at the same time.

 

[Danolo]

Sub'd here late.. just discovered these journals....

Mr.Fert.. its obvious you have a LOT of knowledge about nutrients. Its a pleasure to watch your grow.

Thanks

 

[Slowpuffer]

Fertilizer,
This is my opinion and mine only. That soil moisture, ph meter combo you got, don't trust it. Measure the runoff , and you'll know instantly if ppm is high. in most mixes, it builds up every a little more every time you feed, so this is why nuke manufacturers like fox farm schedules regular flushes. Get rid of that new fertilizer, unless a known grower tells you different . I figured it out real fast, it costs $$ to grow pot, and working with inferior or unknown materials, will never make for a bountiful harvest. If I'm growing tomatoes, then I might take a chance , but not with my medicine. you, are going through the learning phase, and pretty soon, you'll start seeing results of your efforts, everyone here went thru the same phase. I would go read every article i could find pertaining to early training, and that 400w light will bearly cover 2 plants, if trained . I used a 400w for yrs, and I was averaging about 8 to 10 dry ozs., from 4 plants. I've tryed lots of most combos of mixes commercially available, and I guess promix would be my pick. You should pick one of the major fert programs, and live by it. I'm going to give coco a try, starting with next grow. Really want to go DWC, but I'm unsure of myself i guess, so i'll play in the coco, till I learn more about hydroponics. good luck on future grows !!

 

[TheFertilizer]

Just random pics, this nug broke offf when I was flushing, still waiting for it to dry out, but it sure looks like it will finish out frosty. No flash, natural light.

 

[TheFertilizer]

So I am trying to figure out what's going on with these clones...

How to save these clones?

 

[Far East Buds]

Try drying them out some.. soil looks really wet....



FE

 

[TheFertilizer]

Try drying them out some.. soil looks really wet....



FE

Well they dried out once and started looking better and then started looking like that after I watered them again

 

[Crippled]

Hi Fertilizer looking good (apart from the clone obviously ) i was wondering if you have any info on the 'black cherry soda' strain sounds very interesting ?

 

[Crippled]

Are you sure the clone has enough air holes ? Sounds like what happened to me early in veg , root suffocation