Question w/photos: Very white buds (Apollo13BX)

[MisterSniffle]

Hi friends! Long time no post

I have two Apollo 13 BX's (started from seed- 2 girls, 3 boys) on day 45 of flowering. Growing hydro (DWC) indoors, in a tent. Lighting is a SolarStorm 400 (bloom mode) and nutrients are Technaflora.

There are two issues I am hoping that 420'ers can help me with:

-Each plant is expressing a different phenotype. I thought maybe if I described the plants a bit someone might recognize the phenos.

-One plant has strange round, pure white, tightly-packed cottony-looking buds. They look strange enough that I thought it was worth asking if they're normal.

NOTE: My white cottony buds are not related to a pest problem. I did locate this other 420mag post but it describes something completely different- I do not have pests: White cotton looking substance in bud

I apologize that the photos are taken against the very, very red flowering lamp. If I have to, I can blast them with a mag light and take photos with better color.

OK! Plant One is tall with a single, very sativa-looking main cola:

Plant two is shorter with a stubby main cola that is composed of pure white buds that resemble tightly-packed cotton:

Again, I know it's difficult to view this in such tinted light but you'll notice that light striking the 'green' plant parts appears almost black, and light striking white parts (such as my cottony buds) shows violet. This way you can see that the white buds appear to be without the little sugar leaves that usually 'wrap' the bud.

Are these superwhite buds normal? I have only done three grows to completion so I have no experience with this particular bud structure. Maybe it's a trait belonging to a specific phenotype?

Thanks for any help!

-Sniff

 

[MisterSniffle]

Hello again, my friends!

I believe I've gotten to the bottom of this. No one has replied to the original post so I gather there's not much interest in my situation but I thought I'd share anyway. I'm just not going to bother taking photos that no one will view.

It would appear that this particular plant has two albino colas! The conformation of the so-called "fluffy white buds" is identical to "ordinary" buds, it's just the color is different. The bracts on this colas are pure white, no green! These should be fun to smoke!

This plant is in the final days of flowering. In fact, it is due to be cut down in two days (flushing now). What do you think? Should I try to take some clones and force them back to veg to preserve this mutation?

-Sniff

 

[HomeMedGrower]

Looks like light bleaching of the buds to me. I had an LA Diva auto that this happened to. If I remember it got to like eight inches from my led.

 

[go4snypr]

interesting pictures. would be cool to see in a normal light. I can't help you with your problem, but a reply will bump the post lol....

 

[MisterSniffle]

Light Bleaching is plausible, but I have another plant under this same light which has two colas. Both of this other plant's colas are longer than the 'albino' plant's single main cola, and they are closer to the lamp by about 8 inches. Wouldn't it stand to reason that these would be the buds to bleach if this effect was caused by close proximity to the lamp? Is predisposition to bleaching a genetic trait? Maybe one of my plants has it and one does not?

My instinct is that this is a mutation, but I'm no botanist or geneticist so I have no information basis. Just an educated guess.

Today and tomorrow are Harvest Days for these girls, so I'll get some photos under more normal lighting conditions. That should be a little more interesting. I like my LED grow lamp, but I hate it for photographing grows


-Sniff

 

[HomeMedGrower]

Here is what mine ended up looking like.

 

[MisterSniffle]

Heya HomeMedGrower- thanks for getting involved and sharing your photos +REP. I truly appreciate it. Yes, this is the same effect I experienced. I had more bleached bud mass than you're showing, which is why I perceived that the "entire bud" was white and thus must be a type of mutation.

No, it's light bleaching. You nailed it, mang. Once I got into the trimming I realized that this was indeed light bleaching. The largest cola in the tent didn't have this bleaching problem and it was 'closest' to the lamp. However! I use a SolarStorm400 which has two LED panels. This humungous cola was very close to the lamp but it was situated between these two emitter panels.

Two other colas which were much shorter DID experience the bleaching. These two were farther from the lamp but each of them was situated directly beneath one of the emitter panels. So they're farther from the lamp but receiving a lot more direct light energy.

I'll keep the lamp a little higher next grow.



-Sniff

 

[MikeTbob]

Informative thread, thanks for posting.