I’m a first-time grower and have some questions about the flowering stage. My first plant (gold leaf) grew to 4+ feet in less than 8 weeks using LED lights 24-hour (no dark cycles). I moved it into the flower stage (12 hour darkness) about 5 weeks ago, and started seeing the white pistils after about 2 weeks. Unfortunately, the pistils have not grown or changed sizes in the past 21 days. I’m not seeing the growth I would have expected or any other changes. The Ph of the water is good (6.5), and giving it the “bloom” fertilizer. In general, how long does it take for the larger buds to grow?
I was hoping to start harvesting by now. Any helpful tips would be appreciated.
Can you upload a pic of the plants? I have a GL that is in 3rd week of flower, I’d like to compare.
From what it sounds like we should be at almost the same lifecycle, as I switched to 12/12 four weeks ago, and also had pistils show after two weeks under 12/12.
Here are mine, 15 days since first pistils, as of this morning:
Mine are no where near your picture. Now that I turned off the LED lights to take this picture, it looks even worse I’ve checked for light leakage a couple of times and it is totally dark for the 12 hours.
You are in soil, right? How often are you watering and feeding, and what are you feeding exactly? I am not a soil guy so I am going to tag some soil folks. @Countryboyjvd1971
If that is your only light, you have them under an LED that only consumes 60W of light. By comparison I have three lights in my tent: two 1500w (260w actual consumption) LED panels and a COB rail that is consuming 190W. One of the big differences in our plants is definitely the amount of light they are getting.
Due to the efficiency of LEDs most people recommend a mininum of 35 watts per square foot of grow space, but LEDs are all very different from one another so that’s not the “only” answer.
How much phosphorous are in the bloom nutes? So have you been in actual flower for a total of 21 days? You can think 2-3- 4 months in flower is average??? 2 for auto- 3 for photo inside…seems like what I have been reading. But they eat a lot of phos. when they are blooming, so check on that. I think some other folks can offer better info than me.
Bogleg is so right on about the lights too.
I would agree with the general consensus here that the issue you posted about is due to lack of light intensity. You can maybe lower your light some for the time being? You have buds there, they’re just small and not going to get thick and dense like the other examples without more light.
We’ve also spotted another issue with your plants. Overall plant health is just as important as providing the necessary items for photosynthesis. I see you’re watering with ph’d water, what are you using for growing media? And have you checked the runoff ph? Also what are you using for bloom nutes, at what amounts are you feeding, and how frequently?
Thanks for all the replies. I have ordered a higher intensity LEDs, I assumed since they were thriving during the growing stage, I was set, but clearly I need better lights. Will also provide better nutrients along the lines of what you all suggested, as well as testing the runoff ph. Fingers crossed it isn’t too late.
