1st grow. Puzzled. Please Help!!

[Heavily Medicated]

All looks normal to me. You may be getting some foxtailing going on, which is new "horn like" projections that suddenly start growiing out from your buds often right at the time your buds are ripening. It is commonly caused by high grow temps, but some strains are way more prone to it than others.
Really does not hurt anything but you end up with loose buds.

 

[Waira]

...no doubt, light starved buds are pale and lack density, plus their earlier troubles didn't help! Nothing much to do about it this late, maybe snip a leaf or two, or some very careful bend and tie,...

 

[Jorje]

All looks normal to me. You may be getting some foxtailing going on, which is new "horn like" projections that suddenly start growiing out from your buds often right at the time your buds are ripening. It is commonly caused by high grow temps, but some strains are way more prone to it than others.
Really does not hurt anything but you end up with loose buds.

Thanks you! Yes it can very well be fox tailing now that you mention it. Temps have been on the high side (around 90 degrees) and these are sativas that are more prone to foxtailing.

 

[Jorje]

...no doubt, light starved buds are pale and lack density, plus their earlier troubles didn't help! Nothing much to do about it this late, maybe snip a leaf or two, or some very careful bend and tie,...

Yup. I pulled them gently so they could get more light and now are catching up, the buds look more airy, but what the hell.

Thanks!

 

[Jorje]

As things keep moving forward the girls continue showing all kinds of deficiencies. There's definitetly calcium missing. They are getting 1ml/L of calcium every 2 days, is that okay for plants at this stage or is it too little? maybe they have a nutrients lockout, or this is just normal leaf decay as flowering stage ends?

They are pretty close of their final destination, so atm we are really more worried about mould and bud rot. One of the two plants, the one that is more developed (just a few days ahead) started turning darker especially on the buds. It is not happening in an specific location but everywhere, even in some leaves. I guess this is strain related, I will confirm it in a few days when the other plant catches up, but just in case do you see anything wrong with this "darkness"?

best regards!

 

[Jorje]

Okay, and now I'd like to introduce you to our pride and joy.
She's the fortunate sister for the two little ones. Well, I wouldn't say fortunate as she had to endure a near death experience when she was only a few days old. One of the fans fell on top of her and severed everything down to the first 2 true leaves.

This is she after the accident:

And here is she at the top left corner, you can see the difference with her sisters.


I had just been reading about topping, and being noobs we decided to give it a go. Just to see what would happen. Of course this was much more severe than topping and had happened much earlier.

This is the gang after 3 days

She was being left behind at tremendous pace.

4 days later

She was still behind, but putting up a fight

4 days later she was growing at a good pace. Still very far from the other but she was definetly going to make it. She's now on the top right corner.


Well, I do not want to bore you, so here she is.

She's now the tallest of the whole lot ad 2,5 feet.

Best part of all, she became a two headed monster, I guess the "topping" sort of worked xD


Well, not everything is perfect. She really streched, sometimes 2 inches a day and the tent got too crowded (next growth will be 4 plants maximum) so the stems could not get enough breeze and some of the branches are unable to hold the buds weight, after a lot of tucking and tying she's more or less stable. Been feeding her with silica suplement for stem strenght last few days, and added a more powerful fan, but I am not sure it will work at this stage.

More worrying than that is that the plant is beginning to show some deficiencies and what I believe is light burn.
The light is a 400 watt HPS in a cooltube, the twin tops stand at about 8 inches of the cooltube. All charts I have found state that with this distance there shouldn't be any light burn (although its pretty close), and those charts are done with a naked bulb, here is another layer of glass in between. However, if this is not light burn I do not now what it is.

There have been some other drying and yellowing leaves down the bottom, but I attribute this to just normal flowering stage.


Could this be calcium?

They are also getting 1ml/L of calcium every two days (that's with every watering, they get watered every two days).


The other 3 plants are AK-47s which are doing great, no deficiencies. I guess this strain is just more sensitive or demandant.

Thank you very much for your help

 

[Heavily Medicated]

Everything looks great with the discoloration. This is just the natural ripening process. Your buds will continue to eat those leaves making them yellow like that and eventually completelhy yellow and can be plucked off. You are just getting to the end of what looks like a fantastic job.

 

[Jorje]

Hi guys, again thanks a lot for your time and dedication.
The big girl's problems seem to be progressing. Buds keep fattening up so things are working out but this go for too long it could get nasty.

Can this be cal-mag issues?

Thanks!

 

[Jorje]

Things keep progressing, any hint?
I am really considering flushing the plant, will this cause too much strees to it? how long could it take her to resume growth?

Thanks =)

 

[Heavily Medicated]

I think you are over reacting to your big girl. Yes, she has a few minor issues, but for your first grow, she is looking great. I really believe you have a pH issue going on because of the multiple symptoms you are getting. If you are going to get serious about growing, you should look into a good quality soil pH probe. I have a Control Wizard Accurate 8 and would buy another the same day if it somehow got broken. At this point, your buds may not get much longer, if this is how you are measuring your 'stopped growth'. In the later stages of flowering, your buds will swell and fatten alot, but not really get longer. Once you start seeing some red hairs on the tip of the bud, it isn't going to get much longer, just fatter. I also suspect that you are getting some of your problems from having the light too close. You not only have to consider heat, but also light intesity. I have had plants that grew too close to my LED's and the parts of the plant directly under the light went completly to hell with multiple def symptoms. The parts of the plant that grew up around the outside of the light were perfectly normal. You could even tell the difference from one side of a bud faceing the light opposed to faceing away. Heat was not an issue with the LED, you can hold your hand right on the glass. The light is just too intense for the plant to process and it just eats itself up trying to process all that light. I really am not sure about whether I would flush at this stage. I did a 3x pot size flush once with a plant at about the same stage as yours, and what I got was accelerated yellowing and premature harvest. That's the only time I ever flushed for theraputic reasoning, and that is what happened. @Waira will be able to expand on the whole flushing during flower. Now is a good time to get some extra P/K and Ca/Mg into her, but if you are getting into pH lockout, extra nutes just makes things worse. An accurate medium pH reading is really needed before I can help you more. I have no faith in the runoff method, but runoff in the 5 range would indicate a serious potential for pH lockout. Good luck and keep up the growing.