Flood times during flower

[BudManDan]

Hello to all! I have a question that maybe someone can advise me on. I am in my first grow....aprrox. 3 weeks into flower and am using an ebb & gro system. I have had my flood cycles set at 4/15.....4 floods 15 minutes each. Should the flood time be longer? Plants are looking nice and green, but from what I have seen in everyone elses pics....I think my buds should be bigger than what they are. They are currently just a little larger than a piece of popcorn. Any thoughts or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Best Regards,
BMD

 

[AK GreenLover]

Re: Flood times during flower....

May I ask how long you vegged your plants before flowering? Also did you start from seed or clones? If you started with clones disreguard the following.

Mainly I'm trying to gauge if you maybe forced flowering a bit to early before your plants were fully mature from seed. In most cases if you flower early the buds will take longer to form at first. They will catch up but it's a slow start in the beginning.

If your girls are nice and green I'm betting your flooding times are pretty spot on.

 

[BudManDan]

Re: Flood times during flower....

Hello Ak Green Lover! Thank you for your response. I bought the girls as clones on Oct. 1st....vegged for 34 days....first under florecent light for about 2weeks and gradually over the next few days started getting them used to a 1,000 wt MH. During the veg, I managed to nute burn them a bit, flushed and got them back on track. Trimmed/prunned about a week before I put them into flower. Started flower cycle Dec. 4th. Girls at that time were 30 inches tall and very bushy. After 21 days, I trimmed and prunned them again as they should have been about done stretching from what I understand. Just checked my calander and they have been in flower now for 31 days. The girls are Ak-47 so have a rather short flowering time. Maybe I am just being impatient and expecting them to be growing /developing buds faster as they are a shorter maturity date. Thank you for taking the time to help a rookie grower out! It is very much appreciated!

Keep Growin!
BMD

 

[AK GreenLover]

Re: Flood times during flower....

Hey again Bud,

Well it sounds like you were guaranteed mature plants. Since they were clones that wwere taken from a mature mother. Even if she wasn't mature you vegged her long enough to make sure she was mature. So scratch non mature reason as to why your plants are budding slower.

On your next grow you might want to consider this if you didn't do it on your first go.

About a week before you decide to flower your plants start them on bloom nutes. Don't wait untill you actually start the flowering process under 12 / 12 light. This in itself will help your buds develope much faster.

Secondly to control stretch use more blue light for the first 2 - 2 1/2 weeks. This really REALLY helps keep your plants compact. After that time is up switch to the redder light. They wont stretch much doing it that way. That little tip will really help you get that light to the bottom of the plant since it stays mostly unstretched.

Last but not least try to do all your trimming or better yet low stress training during veg to keep your plants shorter. Also try your best to keep all the side branches the same height as your main cola stem. Any trimming you do during flowering will slow your plants progress down. Some people use it as a means to keep them compact, but with the right LST methods, and the 2 - 2 1/2" weeks of blue light flowering in the beginning does that for you with out slowing down the plants growth. Instead of trimming or topping to control height always think LST. Just tie the limbs down and open up the middle of the plant so the undergrowth gets loads of light.

I'm going to guess you didn't feed them bloom nutes a week before flowering. Plus the combination of pruning and topping also slowed the girls down. No worries though they will come back with a vengence. They are just stunted from the pruning, and got a slow start on the bloom nutes.

I wouldn't worry about it though. They will come back and bud out really nice. The only effect you might have caused is a little less yeild.

 

[BudManDan]

Re: Flood times during flower....

Hello again Ak Green Lover! That is some outstanding info brother! I am a little back-asswards in how I did these things......no, I didn't give bloom nutes a week before starting 12/12 cycle....I did just the opposite....I started bloom nutes a week after I put them into bloom! I also started bloom cycle w/hps and not the MH. Yes, some did some wild stretching! I have a couple of plants that are nearly 5 1/2 ft. tall....some stretched more than others. I topped them the first time when they were about 10 inches tall. I also didn't know for sure just which branches should stay and which should go. I followed what I was instructed to do at a class I took back in August for the trimming/prunning timeframe. Your recomendations make a lot of sense! You can bet your bud I will give this a try on my next grow! Thank you very much for sharing this info with me and anyone else that may read this thread! I know it has already helped me and will definitely make my next grow even better! Thank you so much! +reps coming your way.....as soon as I figure out how to send them!

Best,
BMD