First Time Grower Mistakes, White Widow Auto, Indoor, Soil, 400W HPS+400WMH

@bob31 I
I think they are 50/50 milky/clear, leaning towards clear

I will feed them a dose of bloom and boost in a few days. Should I use the standard dose per gallon recommended by the flower power schedule, or something smaller?

@bob31

I took a harder, longer look at the bud sites with the 60x lens, instead of the 20x I used last night. There are definitely some amber trichome - some locations (very very few) had amber areas across 50% of the trichome. Most areas had maybe 5% amber. The vast majority were cloudy, and some were still clear. If I had to put a ratio of cloudy/clear/amber, I would say 70% cloudy, 25% clear, 5% amber. All four plants exhibited this and I wouldnā€™t say any one of them was ahead or behind the others.

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Sorry Iā€™m catching up late. I would harvest, but Iā€™m not a fan of couch lock bud. (It has its place but I only use couch lock stuff when I canā€™ sleep) so really up to you. @Sixpackdad

If you wait a couple more days the cloudy to clear rate should improve a little more.

It really depends on if you fed them or not. I am around for the afternoon, so tag me back when you get one!

@bob31
I havenā€™t fed them at all. I am not a couch lock person either.

Whatā€™s the next step for flushing?

Is it worthwhile to take the plant all down at once, or take a bud or two, then wait a few days to take down the rest?

You can flush them with three times the pot size and then let them dry out. You can use a product like sledge hammer (flushing agent) or you can water them to runoff three days in a row or over a week.

I usually harvest my entire plant, but you can do a partial harvest if you want some of the other buds to ripen more.

Many members here put there plants in darkness for 48 hours and split the stems and other techniques.

I will include them here if you are interested. No particular order

Split Stem

Harvest

Flushing

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@bob31

I read through these. I have a couple of questions.

  1. If I go with just tap water for the flush, should the pH of the flush be 7.0? It references neutral, so I assume this is the case.
  2. I am not sure if I am going to attempt splitting the stem this time around, but is there any concern with doing this in parallel to the flush? The post doesnā€™t really get into the timing of when to split the stem, I am concerned that I am too late in the process.
  3. There are younger plants in the shower with these 4 so if I went with a 48 hours of darkness, I would move them. Is the timing as simple as 48 hours of darkness and then cut down the plant? So, if I flushed tomorrow to the point where the runoff is about 250 ppm (200 ppm in my tap water plus the 50ppm referenced in the post), let dry over the next three days, and then went to darkness for two more days, I would cut them down next Friday.
  4. After the flush, how dry should the plant soil get? Typically after 5 days after a normal watering the soil is pretty close to dry. Do I need to wait this long? This ties into my proposed timeline described in bullet 3
  5. How fast could I expect the trichome go amber? If I go through this process and plan to harvest next Friday, would this be too late to prevent ā€œcouch lockā€ bud? It would seem the tradeoff to potentially preventing couch lock bud is to harvest sooner and perhaps getting poorly tasting non-couch lock bud.
  1. I keep all water at 6.5 even during flush

  2. Splitting is an advanced deal, so no worries (I donā€™t do it myself)

  3. I have had other plants in tent and couldnā€™t do the 48 hours of darkness and they were all fine!

  4. if you are going to do the 3x the size of the pot flush, then harvest when the soil is dry. If that is 3, 4, 5 days whatever works for you.

  5. Every single plant is different. Keep checking the trichomes and adjust the schedule if / as needed.

All of that stuff is optimal times. Make this fit your schedule as best you can. They will be fine.

@Sixpackdad

Plan of cutting them and drying them for 3-7 days depending on where and how you dry them. I dry in brown paper bags because I donā€™t have a cool dark dry place to dryā€¦

Then plan on at least a month of curing in jars. I use 62% bovedas and small inkbird hygrometers to monitor the humidity so I know when to burp them.

(I recommend sampling after the first week of cure and every week after to help understand the difference curing makes! You know, in the name of science)

Bovedas 62%

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JV27MF4/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?tag=greenrel-20

Small hygrometer for drying

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0140UC9XQ/ref=oh_aui_search_detailpage?tag=greenrel-20

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@bob31

The four plants were flushed today with 6.5ph water, 185ppm. The final runoff for all four plants was between 242-251ppm, all with a pH of about 6.9. Three plants needed 9 gallons to get there, one plant needed 15. I plan to chop down on Friday depending on how fast the soil dries.

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@bob31

Iā€™ve cut the plants down, removed the fan leaves, cut the individual branches to smaller branches with reasonable sized buds. Some of the main colas I did not break down.

I did find some bud rot in a cola from Curley and a cola from yellow guy. These were the two plants that seemed to take the worst from the stress I put them through. The rot was not wide spread and was limited to inside of the bud, nothing that had permeated to the outside of the bud.

After finding lot rot I reinspected the other buds with the jewelers loupe and feel pretty confident they are rot free. These buds were put into brown paper bags. The buds that had the detectable rot have been quarantined and I think I will throw them in with the fan leaves for edible purposes.

Let me know what you think and I can forward any pics.
Thanks!

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@bob31 happy birthday

I had them in paper bags for 7 days and put them in qt jars yesterday. In the name of science, Iā€™ll sample weekly.

The humidity was rising, started at 40 and was around 50 when I left. Iā€™ll check them when I get home. What would determine if I need to add the humidity packs?

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Burping, rh was 60% prior to opening, no bovida packs yet

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@sirsmokes @Myfriendis410 my first grow

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I like your plan @Sixpackdad. Congrats on the first harvest. Itā€™s a great feeling.

Iā€™m excited @AnneBonny. Some buds had experienced some minor budrot, so I removed the rot, air dried, and enjoyed the test run over the past week.

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@Sixpackdad if they have any bud rot or mold you should not consume this stuff. Throw it out, i know its hard, but your health is more important than a buzz.
I do know thats hard. I had issues and lost a few Oā€™s to bud rot my self in the fall. Had a skunk#1 not be ready but close when we got frost and three days of rain ,clouds, with no end in site so i harvested and had half of my total from her moldly. Just about all my big top colas had enough mold i could see it in the dark with a flashlight from like 20yrds out. Point it its happens to everyone at some point. Dont want to see you or anyone you know get sick, and even more stuff contaminated.

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@Sixpackdad in your first picture I can see the foxtails but do you see your leaves are curling up? Like a taco :taco: wel that is a sign that your light is too close, if your maxed on height and canā€™t raise your light then you either need to get a lower wattage light, or get a taller space lol but the buds look gorgeous btw :wink: I think itā€™s sexy when calyxs swell up like that :sunglasses:lol

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@Sixpackdad,all i remember is that cheech an chong tape,makes your eyes red just looking at it :slight_smile: woot woot great work mate

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These gals above faced too much heat, light and nutes. I got lucky and they came out decent, a bit airy buds and ok potency. Thanks for checking in @AmnesiaHaze

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I appreciate your concern @Familyman420.

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@bob31 i wonder if any1 has a 60x night scope lens so you could run a test during the dark period an watch a zoomed shot of the trichromes an development during 2 days or more of dark periods? :slight_smile: