I Feel Like I Constantly Get Small Buds? Critique My Grow Process?

D

DLL333

Active Member
Hey everyone,

Been growing for a couple of years and I've learned quite a lot. I'm overall pretty decent at growing and know how to take care of cannabis plants, but I see kind of where my buds should be by a certain day/week and I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing that's hampering my yields... troubleshooting, I guess.

I'm growing in a 9x9 grow room under a 1000w LED. (A TRUE 1000w LED. I just upgraded from a 660w from the same company. Very high quality, very pricey.). I grow in 3-gallon rootmaker plastic pots, sometimes 5-gallon if the plant gets too large. I have an oscillating fan that runs 24/7 circulating air. My temperature is about 80 during the day.

I use a quality line of nutrients, and make sure my PPMs are about 850-900 in flower, with a pH of 5.9-6.0.

--- So, I do a technique called schwazzing, which involves extreme defoliation, stripping the plants pretty close to bare, but leaving some smaller leaves and tops. I do this twice. Once the day before I flip to flower, and again on Day 21. The head grower I work with told me I can skip the first schwazzing session, as this only serves to stretch the plant more than it already does naturally. I'm not sure if this is hindering the growth of my buds, but I know this is a technique that the guys with the highest yields in the world do.

--- Another thing I don't do that could be hindering the growth of my buds is have anything on the floor that the pots sit on. They sit on bare concrete, but when the lights go off from 8 to 8, the temp only goes down to mid-60s. Could this be a factor?

-- I also use a potting soil. (Happy Frog, Mother Earth). Am I hurting my yields by using what might be hot soils instead of like coco/perlite?

I'd also be happy to answer any probing questions anyone has. I'd sincerely appreciate any help at all. Thank you!

Note: These first few pictures, are ones I just took today, nearly at the end of Week 4. (Day 27)

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The only thing I see that I'd fix is.. Move the light and plants closer to the fixed corner and make some portable partition walls to increase light intensity. Aside from that they look clean and healthy to me. Peace!!

Edit* Oops lol. Get them on some Styrofoam or something similar and off the concrete floor!!
 
Defo concrete, I’m not saying your buds will be bigger necessarily but yeah floor is coldest point in any room and that translates to cold root zone all day long. The slab will suck the warmth out of anything and a continual supply of water vapor seeps out of the soil, up thru the concrete may not be enough water vapor to help your rh in a good way but low levels of moisture rises up thru slab. A covered or indoor concrete slab stays at around 55 degrees all year long with a maximum of 1 degree temp fluctuation from summer to winter. As Shaggin mentions insulate with sheet foam and elevate with plant risers like plastic or wood blocks but not brick or masonry since they transfer the cold. The single biggest factor impacting any grow is environment which runs the gamut from lights to temp to rh...
 
DLL333 said:
Been growing for a couple of years and I've learned quite a lot. I'm overall pretty decent at growing and know how to take care of cannabis plants, but I see kind of where my buds should be by a certain day/week and I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing that's hampering my yields... troubleshooting, I guess.

--- So, I do a technique called schwazzing, which involves extreme defoliation, stripping the plants pretty close to bare, but leaving some smaller leaves and tops. I do this twice. Once the day before I flip to flower, and again on Day 21. The head grower I work with told me I can skip the first schwazzing session, as this only serves to stretch the plant more than it already does naturally. I'm not sure if this is hindering the growth of my buds, but I know this is a technique that the guys with the highest yields in the world do.

--- Another thing I don't do that could be hindering the growth of my buds is have anything on the floor that the pots sit on. They sit on bare concrete, but when the lights go off from 8 to 8, the temp only goes down to mid-60s. Could this be a factor?

-- I also use a potting soil. (Happy Frog, Mother Earth). Am I hurting my yields by using what might be hot soils instead of like coco/perlite?
Click to expand...
Hey DLL333, I don't think I can help you but I am interested in your problem and your options.
I have read about Schwazzing and it sounds really interesting. I have generally always pruned off leaves that cover bud sites, and I have gone further than pruning to defoliate as well, altho I don't have a clear answer for what is better. My current girls are doing so well in my living organic soil so this grow I'll probably only remove leaves covering bud sites and see how they do.

I have also heard about it not being good having pots on concrete, altho my containers are sitting on stone tiles which are presumably much the same. I got about 23oz off 3 plants last year, I am not sure whether in my case I would have done better with some wood or polystyrene underneath, in the day times it gets hot on my balcony and cooling off in the night, but would it make a difference in my case, I don't know.

It sounds like your lights are good ones altho I am not an indoor grower, so unless they need to be closer it sounds like they should be good. Soil is about the only factor I wonder about. I am NZ, so I don't know about Happy Frog or Mother Earth. But each year I have re-amended my soil that originally started as a sort of super soil mex, some ingredients I couldn't get so tentatively replaced them with other local sourced ingredients. Last year I still had to top dress several times but was really pleased with the quality of my plants, but this last Winter I re-amended the soil further and so far of watered them with some worm wee and now my current grow (to my eyes at least) seems positively lush, I started my plants 2 months later this year because I wanted smaller less stinky plants because I need to grow stealthily, however I can only assume my soil is now much better because this year's plants seem almost the same size as last year's which had an extra 2 months of vegging.

I like growing in LOS (living organic soil), I like re-amending it each year trying to make it better than the last year. However if I wasn't using a LOS/supersoil approach and instead I was relying on bottled nutes, then I think from the good reports of many people here on 420, I would use Mega Crop, or more recently I have become aware of GeoFlora who are a sponsor and their product sounds great, especially for organic growing.

Anyway, good luck and I'll be interested in what changes you come up with. :hookah:
 
we had a big grow on concrete. we painted the floor. raw concrete is the worst. i'd get floor paint on it even if you raise the plants. makes things way easier to keep clean as well.
 
Only thing I could think to add is that the pH is slightly low for those soils. Although they look healthy. Maybe not getting the most from the nutrients. Then strain selection. But like these guys have said, cold feet is probably the culprit.
 
Well :hmmmm: good advice so far :thumb: ...Root zone is getting cold at mid 60's...I run mine no lower than 68F on the floor...PH is supposed to be 6.3 to 6.5 for better uptake of nutes in soil, and that Happy Frog is not that hot of a soil, I use the Ocean Forest and it's way hotter than HF...
But the biggest thing I see is the "schwazzing" :thedoubletake: you're pulling off all the solar panels that plant spent so long growing so it could suck the stores of food out when it needs it most, at the end...I've done the "schwazzy" thing before I knew what it was called :rofl: and I believe it's one of the worst things to do to your plant...

Leave the leaves :thumb:
 
It’s always worked that way for me too- the more I trim amd train and remove growth, the more it wants to turn into a hedge with a lot of small buds Thats not necessarily a bad thing. Just saying that I get bigger buds when I don’t.
 
DLL333 said:
So, I do a technique called schwazzing, which involves extreme defoliation, stripping the plants pretty close to bare, but leaving some smaller leaves and tops. I do this twice. Once the day before I flip to flower, and again on Day 21. The head grower I work with told me I can skip the first schwazzing session, as this only serves to stretch the plant more than it already does naturally. I'm not sure if this is hindering the growth of my buds, but I know this is a technique that the guys with the highest yields in the world do.
Click to expand...
Ok I have a recommendation, when it comes to growing those big thick buds anything "Extreme" I would stay away from, you will stress the plants out to much... they are plants, and I noticed that you do this the day before flowing? this is not good your throwing them into flower while they are stressed out already this will inturn hurt ur over all yield. I use a technique called mainlining you should look into it i will post pics to show you the technique
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Northern Lights Auto day 66

Northern Lights Auto day 66

The ladies in the background are green crack super lemon haze and super silver haze

And as far as the cold during lights out that can also hurt over all yield and also cause hermies. One other thing I noticed your pic was labeled day 27? in my opinion you are not letting them veg for long enough before flip ... you want to go at lest to day 40 before flip there to young bro ...I hope this helps if you have any other questions your in the right place :lot-o-toke::ganjamon::goodluck:
 
Update: Start of Week 6, and im chopping my flowering plants and just concentrating on vegging stuff. My buds look like they belong in Week 3 and haven't gone anywhere. I'm still not sure why this flowering cycle went so horribly, but I'm gonna try out some changes. I'm not gonna go so crazy with defoliation. I'll leave on some fan leaves and just expose the bud sites.

Increase pH a little bit for soil? Maybe 6.2? I was thinking of switching to Promix HP with some extra perlite.
Fewer bud sites?

I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. All I can do is try again and do things differently lol. Any ideas based on this thread?

Here's my Week 6 pics. Try not to laugh to hard.

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you're chopping way early for one thing. don't even see red pistils yet.

edit: one light for a 9 x 9 is pretty anemic.
a lot of guys run wall to wall light. mine fills my 4 x 4 from side to side. i run a 600w true draw led in 4 x 4.

led doesn't work as well as a single source like hps does. led is very straight down directional.
 
What about genetics? What are you growing? I've managed to grow big buds on small plants and small buds on big plants, etc. I'd agree about not letting that expensive light go out into the surrounding room, push it into a corner or something. Get them off the floor, even something as cheesy as putting them on empty milk crates or something. Big roots can bring big fruits, but I've also grown some fat nugs in 5x5 square pots (in a dutch table ebb & flow).
 
you might be counting days from flip a bit early too.
depending on conditions a lot of growers don't start counting until a wk or 2 wks after switching to 12 /12. your wk 6 might be really a wk 4.
 
The photos in the first msg show some healthy plants. No problems there. The two photos in your msg of Feb 11th (msg#11) show some great trichome building up. So far you could not be asking for more. Just great looking plants getting ready for the final push.

I am with @bluter and agree that you are cutting way to early. Probably cutting 2 to 4 weeks to early. There is a period of stall about 4 - 5 weeks in and nothing seems to be happening and then one day you could look and say to yourself "The buds have gotten thick and stocky."

Not sure that how you count weeks can be blamed. As long as the grower keeps track of when they put the plants into flowering and does it the same way every time they should be able to keep track of progress. Some people start keeping track when they see the buds starting to show pistils. I am in the other group which starts the count on the day that the switch to 12 on and 12 off begins.

If you started counting weeks when the first pistils started showing then you have about 2 more weeks minimum, maybe a bit more. If you started the count when the plants entered the 12 on 12 off light schedule then I would think that you have 3 more weeks to go minimum.

A couple more weeks and I think you would be surprised at how much larger the buds look but you might be able to see that the trichomes themselves also look larger. They could be looking so much larger that you can see the increase in size without a loupe or a fancy microscope.
 
I'm not chopping to harvest. I run plants 9 weeks all the time. I chopped them to throw them away. They're way, way, way too small for Week 6. Normally by week 6 my buds are about triple that size. At this point its not worth it to me to keep them. It's an environmental problem and/or something I did to stress them out too hard.

Another thing, my footprint is only 5x5. My ROOM is 9x9 but I'm using 1000w for a 5x5 space. I probably should've specified that.

I have plenty of plants lined up to be put in flower so I'm gonna just try again. One of my friends is a head grower at a Tier 2 Grow here, and he really helped me understand what (I think) I did wrong. First of all, not having a space heater in there for when the lights go out is apparently much bigger deal than I thought. The temperature differential is way bigger than it should be, and it makes for cold root zones.

Second, he said I shouldn't be using potting soil with nutes already in it, as it throws off the nutrient ratio in flower, and as a result, he said my buds here look like they're too least as a result of too much nitrogen in flower, which stunts the bud growth... so I'm switching to ProMix.

Third, the extreme defoliation only really needs to be done once, about 3 weeks into flower, and even then it's good to leave some foliage on. If you defoliate before you flip, do it maybe a week before so the plant has time to heal, and just expose bud sites and clear out the middle of the plant.

The combination of these problems is most likely what caused my severely stunted flowers. Well, now I know better. Gonna tighten it up this time.
 
don't believe that swazzing hogwash. maybe if you are running hydro, halides and co2. common sense training and removing of the lowest branches and leaves is good. i have seen several failed attempts at extreme defoliating.
focus on getting your temps and humidity correct. LED doesn't heat the leaf's surface like a HPS does, so you need warmer temps in there. listen to everybody about getting pots off the ground. In my opinion it sounds like you are over feeding as well. I use happy frog and ocean forest and fertilize minimally with either mega crop or top dress with dry ferts.
Once the environment is correct you can select a clone(s) that gives you good buds and the yields you want.
one last thing is buds will swell right at the end of flowering so make sure you let them go long enough to reach their potential.

"but I know this is a technique that the guys with the highest yields in the world do."

don't believe the hype
 
DLL333 said:
I'm not chopping to harvest. I run plants 9 weeks all the time. I chopped them to throw them away. They're way, way, way too small for Week 6. Normally by week 6 my buds are about triple that size. At this point its not worth it to me to keep them. It's an environmental problem and/or something I did to stress them out too hard.

Another thing, my footprint is only 5x5. My ROOM is 9x9 but I'm using 1000w for a 5x5 space. I probably should've specified that.

I have plenty of plants lined up to be put in flower so I'm gonna just try again. One of my friends is a head grower at a Tier 2 Grow here, and he really helped me understand what (I think) I did wrong. First of all, not having a space heater in there for when the lights go out is apparently much bigger deal than I thought. The temperature differential is way bigger than it should be, and it makes for cold root zones.

Second, he said I shouldn't be using potting soil with nutes already in it, as it throws off the nutrient ratio in flower, and as a result, he said my buds here look like they're too least as a result of too much nitrogen in flower, which stunts the bud growth... so I'm switching to ProMix.

Third, the extreme defoliation only really needs to be done once, about 3 weeks into flower, and even then it's good to leave some foliage on. If you defoliate before you flip, do it maybe a week before so the plant has time to heal, and just expose bud sites and clear out the middle of the plant.

The combination of these problems is most likely what caused my severely stunted flowers. Well, now I know better. Gonna tighten it up this time.
Click to expand...
Every grower has a different way of doing things that work for them...that being said, I do some of those thing on purpose, such as let my root zone get to as low as 65F sometimes, I shoot for 68F, it brings out the colors and terpenes in my opinion, and I use FFOF which has nutrients in it, and it does fantastic...not a problem if feeding just water for the last 2 to 3 weeks of flower :thumb:
GDP x Liberty Haze.JPG

GDP x Liberty Haze.JPG


Gorilla Zkittles @6 wks

Gorilla Zkittles @6 wks

Full Plant pic
 

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