Hey guys,
So first of all - Not even a new grower. I got back into this hobby after a decade. Had lots of ups and downs, learned about all the new things, got back into being good very quickly. My grows these days are almost picture perfect, I yield tons out of autos and photos, everything seems to work out just fine, but.. I'm losing my terps. Every time. And terps, for me, are.. everything. I don't even care about yields, they just came.
I don't know what's happening, seriously, out of ideas. I know there's the fight about organics vs synthetics, but I can confirm that it ain't this. Friend of mine grew some boof, it still smelled awesome, and he grew with the same synthetic nutrients and substrate I usually use. I cannot find any connection as to what I'm doing wrong.
For some general info, I'll drop my gear, nutrients, everything I've used recently:
* Autopots, 3.9gal, airbases, sometimes airdomes
* Coco, be it Canna, Plagron, sometimes with, sometimes without perlite
* Grandmaster Tarantula Tent Ultimate 5x5 (edit: that's the LED, it's called that)
* 5x5 tent
* Big ACI 8" exhaust with an oversized industrial filter
* Two 6" oscillating fans, one 360° tornado fan for low canopy airflow
* Canna Coco nutrient line, Athena Blended nutrient line, Megacrop nutrient line, I've tried all 3 so far
* Mephisto Genetics, Speedrunseeds, Dutch Passion, 420FastBuds, even photos from Square One
* If anything else is missing, just ask!
I never have problems with growing these plants. I've never seen the well known calcium issues, I usually just run into magnesium deficiencies in the first 2 weeks, but they solve themselves rather quickly. Very light nutrient tip burns here and there as I love to push EC, but that's all there is to it.
My seedlings usually start their journey with 1.8-2EC, as I see no issues doing so. Multiple fertigations early on, after one good dryback, they grow like crazy, everything seems to work out just fine. I always float between 2.4-3.4EC with autos in mid flower, I never see any issues doing so, and I like to use PK boosts until late flower.
I run 80-84°F / 26-28°C temps from seed to early flower to get a good stretch, and then lower my temps over the whole flowering cycle, usually being at around 70-75F / 21-24°C in mid flower, all the way down to 60-66F / 16-19°C in late flower. I run high humidity in the 65 to 75s until early stretch, and then also lower it to around 45-50% in late flower. No issues, no mold, no nothing.
My PPFD / PAR range - I usually run 24/0 or 20/4 with my autos, I start off with around 300PPFD, and usually end up at around 800-900PPFD later on. Measured with a calibrated PPFD / PAR device.
Here is where things already go a bit sideways - I lose terps after mid flower. My plants stop smelling as nicely. I'm not talking about nose-blindness. Others notice it too. It's as if my terps are disappearing. My tent smells like berries, gas, fruity chewing gums, everything. And suddenly, these smells just disappear. As if something just grabbed all the terps.
This happened to around 16 plants now, stretched over a few grows, 4 of them being photoperiods from Square One, called Frozen Bag. I thought I'll switch it up for once, as all my autos lost their terps & I just thought it's an auto thing, but the same happened to my photos. Seriously, my plants sometimes look like cup winning images, but once you smell them, you'll be like "what the hell, there's nothing".
My drying conditions are rather stabilized, and I tried two methods this time - Low temps (10°C / 50F) with around 55-60% humidity, and the usual 60/60 drying method. One run also had a higher temp drying at around 70-75F / 20-24°C and 55% humidity for 2 days, and then 60% afterwards to let them dry out slowly a bit more. My drying times range from 7 to 14 days depending on bud size and density. I sometimes hang up single full stems with side branches, sometimes I just quarter the main stem up and hang the large pieces. Always dry trim, never wet trim. Low airflow, one big 12" fan blowing against the opposite wall on low setting, causing some air movement, but not enough to move the plants around, just enough to feel air moving on my skin if I stand there. I dry in an extra room I have no use for.
I trim them as usual as soon as they're dry, bag them up in grove bags, and they stabilize at around 61% humidity most of the time, and go to around 58-60% over the next few weeks. Everything works out just fine here. but the terps?
I end up with wood terps. All my plants end up smelling the exact same. Each and every genetic, strain - Wood, chocolate-ish wood. It has some resemblance to weed, but it's 99% cardboard and wood, as if everything died.
Please, I am out of ideas. I don't know what's going on, I am losing all hope. Friend of mine recently harvested his silly looking plant, and as soon as you open the bag, the room literally FILLS with the smell of minty, lemony craziness. It doesn't even smell like weed, it smells like you chewed a lemon mint gum at a gas station. WORLDS of difference. Same nutrients, same substrate, same autopot system. His other harvest smelled like straight up fruity bubblegums and strawberry jelly. It makes no sense to me.
Lastly, I want to mention a few things that I've noticed, and may help.
Here are a few things that may play a role in this:
* I do not flush, usually. I sometimes lower the EC of my plants later on, but I never see them fade as heavily, or straight up cling to life as seen in grows by other people. Sometimes my leaves fade to a black color because of low temps, but that's it.
* My trichomes never turn a real cloudy / amber. I've pulled some autos over 90 days, and I never see trichomes turning all cloudy and bulky. I know some autos take over 100 days, but ALL of them, each and every time in my grow? My trichomes are often small, for some reason, and I see lots of trichome heads disappearing or turning a weird crinkly shape. For whatever reason, I often see amber appearing all over, but no cloudy / milky. It's as if my trichomes always decide between being clear or amber, but never milky. I use a x200 lense for my phone with an anti-glare coating to avoid mistakes by the light shining on the trichomes, I use my macro function on my phone, I can see each and every trichome if needed, in full HD. This trichome thing has confused me for a while now, as it didn't matter how long I pulled these plants, they never had this beautiful sea of milky trichomes appearing, they just turn amber after being clear, and rarely a real milky, most often just a light milky color. And never as juicy and bulky as I've seen in other grows, they seem to always be tiny and flimsy, even if there are a lot of them.
* I often use a heavy PK schedule, Canna recommends 1 week of PK, but I usually start with 25% of their dosage after stretch, ramp it up to 100%, and then go back to 0% over the span of around 3-4 weeks in flower. With Athena, I decided to fully follow the schedule, but the same thing happened, cardboard and wood all over, all plants lost their smell after late mid-flower, and then fully when drying.
* My drying room has no exhaust, meaning the air in there turns stale. I don't know if this is a problem or not. I have a dehumidifier in there, a humidifier, a fan, I can fully control the environment, but there is no real air exchange, unless I open the door and walk in there.
* Not enough stress - My plants live a perfect life in these autopots. They never have issues, deficiencies, all these problems are gone. Rarely some stress by high EC, but it's fixed quickly. I don't even top my autos, I just do leaf tucking and rarely some light LST to fix some branches, that's all there is to it. Here and there some defoliations if needed. Silly guess, but what if they're just too happy to create a defense mechanism? Who knows. A country ain't gonna build a military if there is no threat anywhere.
And that's all for now. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Does anyone have an idea?
So first of all - Not even a new grower. I got back into this hobby after a decade. Had lots of ups and downs, learned about all the new things, got back into being good very quickly. My grows these days are almost picture perfect, I yield tons out of autos and photos, everything seems to work out just fine, but.. I'm losing my terps. Every time. And terps, for me, are.. everything. I don't even care about yields, they just came.
I don't know what's happening, seriously, out of ideas. I know there's the fight about organics vs synthetics, but I can confirm that it ain't this. Friend of mine grew some boof, it still smelled awesome, and he grew with the same synthetic nutrients and substrate I usually use. I cannot find any connection as to what I'm doing wrong.
For some general info, I'll drop my gear, nutrients, everything I've used recently:
* Autopots, 3.9gal, airbases, sometimes airdomes
* Coco, be it Canna, Plagron, sometimes with, sometimes without perlite
* Grandmaster Tarantula Tent Ultimate 5x5 (edit: that's the LED, it's called that)
* 5x5 tent
* Big ACI 8" exhaust with an oversized industrial filter
* Two 6" oscillating fans, one 360° tornado fan for low canopy airflow
* Canna Coco nutrient line, Athena Blended nutrient line, Megacrop nutrient line, I've tried all 3 so far
* Mephisto Genetics, Speedrunseeds, Dutch Passion, 420FastBuds, even photos from Square One
* If anything else is missing, just ask!
I never have problems with growing these plants. I've never seen the well known calcium issues, I usually just run into magnesium deficiencies in the first 2 weeks, but they solve themselves rather quickly. Very light nutrient tip burns here and there as I love to push EC, but that's all there is to it.
My seedlings usually start their journey with 1.8-2EC, as I see no issues doing so. Multiple fertigations early on, after one good dryback, they grow like crazy, everything seems to work out just fine. I always float between 2.4-3.4EC with autos in mid flower, I never see any issues doing so, and I like to use PK boosts until late flower.
I run 80-84°F / 26-28°C temps from seed to early flower to get a good stretch, and then lower my temps over the whole flowering cycle, usually being at around 70-75F / 21-24°C in mid flower, all the way down to 60-66F / 16-19°C in late flower. I run high humidity in the 65 to 75s until early stretch, and then also lower it to around 45-50% in late flower. No issues, no mold, no nothing.
My PPFD / PAR range - I usually run 24/0 or 20/4 with my autos, I start off with around 300PPFD, and usually end up at around 800-900PPFD later on. Measured with a calibrated PPFD / PAR device.
Here is where things already go a bit sideways - I lose terps after mid flower. My plants stop smelling as nicely. I'm not talking about nose-blindness. Others notice it too. It's as if my terps are disappearing. My tent smells like berries, gas, fruity chewing gums, everything. And suddenly, these smells just disappear. As if something just grabbed all the terps.
This happened to around 16 plants now, stretched over a few grows, 4 of them being photoperiods from Square One, called Frozen Bag. I thought I'll switch it up for once, as all my autos lost their terps & I just thought it's an auto thing, but the same happened to my photos. Seriously, my plants sometimes look like cup winning images, but once you smell them, you'll be like "what the hell, there's nothing".
My drying conditions are rather stabilized, and I tried two methods this time - Low temps (10°C / 50F) with around 55-60% humidity, and the usual 60/60 drying method. One run also had a higher temp drying at around 70-75F / 20-24°C and 55% humidity for 2 days, and then 60% afterwards to let them dry out slowly a bit more. My drying times range from 7 to 14 days depending on bud size and density. I sometimes hang up single full stems with side branches, sometimes I just quarter the main stem up and hang the large pieces. Always dry trim, never wet trim. Low airflow, one big 12" fan blowing against the opposite wall on low setting, causing some air movement, but not enough to move the plants around, just enough to feel air moving on my skin if I stand there. I dry in an extra room I have no use for.
I trim them as usual as soon as they're dry, bag them up in grove bags, and they stabilize at around 61% humidity most of the time, and go to around 58-60% over the next few weeks. Everything works out just fine here. but the terps?
I end up with wood terps. All my plants end up smelling the exact same. Each and every genetic, strain - Wood, chocolate-ish wood. It has some resemblance to weed, but it's 99% cardboard and wood, as if everything died.
Please, I am out of ideas. I don't know what's going on, I am losing all hope. Friend of mine recently harvested his silly looking plant, and as soon as you open the bag, the room literally FILLS with the smell of minty, lemony craziness. It doesn't even smell like weed, it smells like you chewed a lemon mint gum at a gas station. WORLDS of difference. Same nutrients, same substrate, same autopot system. His other harvest smelled like straight up fruity bubblegums and strawberry jelly. It makes no sense to me.
Lastly, I want to mention a few things that I've noticed, and may help.
Here are a few things that may play a role in this:
* I do not flush, usually. I sometimes lower the EC of my plants later on, but I never see them fade as heavily, or straight up cling to life as seen in grows by other people. Sometimes my leaves fade to a black color because of low temps, but that's it.
* My trichomes never turn a real cloudy / amber. I've pulled some autos over 90 days, and I never see trichomes turning all cloudy and bulky. I know some autos take over 100 days, but ALL of them, each and every time in my grow? My trichomes are often small, for some reason, and I see lots of trichome heads disappearing or turning a weird crinkly shape. For whatever reason, I often see amber appearing all over, but no cloudy / milky. It's as if my trichomes always decide between being clear or amber, but never milky. I use a x200 lense for my phone with an anti-glare coating to avoid mistakes by the light shining on the trichomes, I use my macro function on my phone, I can see each and every trichome if needed, in full HD. This trichome thing has confused me for a while now, as it didn't matter how long I pulled these plants, they never had this beautiful sea of milky trichomes appearing, they just turn amber after being clear, and rarely a real milky, most often just a light milky color. And never as juicy and bulky as I've seen in other grows, they seem to always be tiny and flimsy, even if there are a lot of them.
* I often use a heavy PK schedule, Canna recommends 1 week of PK, but I usually start with 25% of their dosage after stretch, ramp it up to 100%, and then go back to 0% over the span of around 3-4 weeks in flower. With Athena, I decided to fully follow the schedule, but the same thing happened, cardboard and wood all over, all plants lost their smell after late mid-flower, and then fully when drying.
* My drying room has no exhaust, meaning the air in there turns stale. I don't know if this is a problem or not. I have a dehumidifier in there, a humidifier, a fan, I can fully control the environment, but there is no real air exchange, unless I open the door and walk in there.
* Not enough stress - My plants live a perfect life in these autopots. They never have issues, deficiencies, all these problems are gone. Rarely some stress by high EC, but it's fixed quickly. I don't even top my autos, I just do leaf tucking and rarely some light LST to fix some branches, that's all there is to it. Here and there some defoliations if needed. Silly guess, but what if they're just too happy to create a defense mechanism? Who knows. A country ain't gonna build a military if there is no threat anywhere.
And that's all for now. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Does anyone have an idea?
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But I never get above 30°C at the tippy-top of the plants, and 25 lower down. I never get as low as 18 though either.
And hey, since you're supposed to eat it, I doubt smoking the air from around it will hurt you, but I don't have any real scientific data on that of course so yeah. Safety first. Just figured it might be better than throwing anything away.
But, I agree with 
