Small buds after a rather long flowering time

[CasualSmoker]

Hi guys,

New to the forum, and was hoping i could get some help. The plant being grown is a sensi skunk automatic and therefore should grow quickly, roughly 45 -55 days.

Having initially grown on a windowsill the plant did not receive a great deal of sunlight resulting in it becoming elongated. It has now been flowering for some time (planted the seed in june) and has been moved into a small grow room, however the buds still appear rather small, but noticeably the pistils have reddened in color. My question is does this plant look like it has more growing to do or should it be harvested now, i assume that it is unlikely to grow larger and will is close to it's harvesting time.

Here's a shot of the top bud and then the plant in its entirety.The bottom buds have a great deal more white pistils.

Any advice and help would be appreciated

 

[fanleaf]

What size pot is it in?
You should look at trichome color to determine when to harvest. Cant see them in the pics.

 

[CasualSmoker]

Hi Fanleaf,

Thanks for the response, i'm aware that the trichomes are the most effective way of identifying the correct harvest time, milky trichomes being the ideal. I don't currently have a magnifying tool at my disposal so checking this may prove a little difficult.

However, the pistil colour is also a less effective way of checking the plants state and as you can see from the images a lot of the pistils have reddened (roughly 50-80%), which should indicate an appropriate harvest time, please do correct me if i'm wrong.

Based on the images, would you agree that the bud is undersized for the current flowering time? As i'm wondering whether it is likely i will see more growth on the buds before the ideal harvesting time passes and the THC turns to the less potent (but apparently still rather useful) CBD.

With regards to pot size its about 7 gallon i believe.

 

[fanleaf]

Mind you I'm in no way a pro like some of these fellers yet but in my opinion while zooming on the picture I would wait.
I could be wrong but I doubt there are much in the way of any amber trichomes but just zooming on the picture has it's limits lol.

If you had to go based on anything else I would wait until those red hairs lay down more. My GUESS is that your just hitting the point that the buds will really swell up.
Again, I'm no pro but they look premature to me.

 

[CasualSmoker]

Thanks, for the feedback and quick response, i think the best bet is to wait another week or so and see if the buds begin to put weight on, hopefully they'll continue to grow. I'll come back here and post some pictures of the progress too.

Thanks again!

 

[ODtheGreat]

Is that window light the only light your plant is receiving?

 

[ODtheGreat]

Never mind, after zooming in a bit I can see its not a window. What is the light that's up there then?

 

[CasualSmoker]

Hi OD,

Thanks for getting back to me and apologies for the picture... Well not giving you the full picture

The light is actually a CFL light. 125watt with 8100 lumen, with a warm kelvin value 2500-4500 I believe is an ideal spectrum for flowering.

There is also a computer fan circulating air around the plant, at present there is little humidity or temperature control but generally the temperature is ambient room temperature. The strain is however designed to deal with cool/cold environments therefore it should be ok.

Since posting the plant has been placed on a box to move the top bud within 4 inches of the light source, as after a little research this is the recommendation based on the light setup. Adjustments would probably be made should the plant show signs it is too hot however the back of the hand test has been performed and it appears to be cool enough

 

[ODtheGreat]

Him, well sounds like that should be fine. moving it a bit closer to the light was prolly a good move. Is the strain spose to be a heavy yielder? I've never personally grown that. Some strains just don't get big buds.

 

[ODtheGreat]

Do check it often 4'' is pretty close.

 

[CasualSmoker]

I believe the strain is marked as a medium yield plant with average height gain, however there doesn't see to be any pictures on google of a harvestable plant, hence it is difficult to ascertain what to expect. Thanks for the advice.

 

[ODtheGreat]

Best of luck on your harvest

 

[CasualSmoker]

Thanks Od, i'll let you know the results

 

[grimmreefer]

I just harvested a NL autoflower. It was the first auto I have grown.
The breeders time frame was pretty much spot on compared to the trichromes. I let it go a little longer and I ended up with mostly amber.

 

[CasualSmoker]

Hi Grim,

Thanks for the snap it's interesting to see. Here are a few snaps of the trichomes on the plant now, any idea if i should be looking to harvest now?

There also appears to be some odd growth on the leaf itself i scraped it off and took a shot of it too:

 

[ODtheGreat]

Oooooohhhhhhh that looks tasty. The tri's look like more of a milky white instead of clear. With a bit of amber here and there. It looks very close if its not done. It may depend on the high of what you wanna give it. The more amber the more of a body high you will get. Milky white gives you more of and upidy head high.

 

[ODtheGreat]

I found this thread, this is what you need.

Pictures on when to harvest: Trichome colours

 

[CasualSmoker]

Hey OD,

Thanks for checking in again, it turns out that the buds didn't grow a lot bigger, however in the third picture you can see a lot of amber, thats the topmost bud, that's definitely about ready.

I'm not sure if they are milky enough as the microscope uses LED lighting so you might be seeing refracted light giving the impression the trichomes are super milky!

Tomorrow i'll post some more shots of the buds and try and get some more steady pictures of the trichomes. Thanks for the link to the other post, very informative. I think a 50/50 mix is ideal! What do you usually go for heady high or couchlock comfy?

 

[ODtheGreat]

Ideally for me I like the kouchlock lol. indica dominant plants are my favorite. but there have definitely been some times where I got impatient and harvested early. I wasn't smoking much of it and I didn't receive any complaints so it worked out for me. But i'm trying to be more patient now, i'm more worried about the best quality now-a-days.

 

[CasualSmoker]

Hey OD,

It sounds like you've been growing a while, have you got any recommended strains?

The plant has been harvested, ready for drying. Not exactly a huge yield but interesting nevertheless, based on the trichomes it was definitely time though. Thanks for all the feedback and help!