I have plants that are 10 weeks into flower. They are various strains grown from bag seeds found in some good medical strains over the summer. They are growing in a 4x4x4 cabinet with a 600 and 180 watt LED. I am using a DWC system and this is my first time working in hydro. I have 6 plants of mixed strain, and one of them is very close to harvest. The rest appear to share more sativa traits and are taking longer. My main question is, is it a good idea to flush all the plants at this point, then go back to nutes in a week after I harvest the one plant? Or should I harvest the one plant without flush? I know there is some contention on whether flushing is necessary, however I have always flushed when growing in soil and have generally been very pleased with the results. I was also wondering if my sativa plants look to be on the right track. The buds on most of my plants seem small and immature for being 10 weeks into flower. However, I have mostly grown indica dominant plants in the past and from what I understand, sativa buds fill out differently from indicas. There is also a space concern, as I was not prepared for the explosive growth I have experienced, especially with one of the sativas that has grown to take up most of the space in my cabinet. If anyone has ideas and suggestions for how I can improve my grow I would really appreciate your input. This is a vastly new setup and process for me, and I am still rather inexperienced. I will try to upload some photos of my plants and setup, and I will try to post some photos with my usb microscope if anyone thinks it would be helpful. Thank you for any help you guys can provide, I have found the user input on this site invaluable the past.
It looks like your plants are healthy, but for 10 weeks of flowers, the buds do seem underdeveloped. Are you on a bloom oriented nurient solution? Are you checking the ph and nutrients levels on a daily basis ? I learned on this site how to dial in the nutrients to a level that my plants favor. Take a reading and write it down. Lets say it is 400. In 24 hours, take another reading. If the number is higher, say 450, that means that your solution is too strong and needs to be diluted it a strength less than your starting point of 400, say 370. Then take another reading in 24 hours. Do this until the number is the same for 2 consecutive days. This means that your plants will be taking up water and nutrients at an equal rate. if your second reading comes out lower than your original reading of 400, say 350, your solution is too weak so you would add nutrients to a level above 400, say 430 and check it again in 24 hours until both numbers are the same. Once you determine the nutrient level where your plants prefer to be, you will see much nicer results. Hope this helps. Are you on timers set at 12/12? Is there any stray light getting in during your dark cycle? That will definitley impede bud development. happy growing and happy holidays
The strength of the lights will make flowering take a lot longer, look at the tricromes under a magnifying glass to determine what stage your at
In the photos they don't look anywhere near ready but it's hard to tell with the psychedelic lighting. Personally I wouldn't flush. Flushing is for soil. There isn't anything to flush in hydro, you just lower the EC/ppm as you go. Plants take up less and less nutes to water ratio after week 4 or 5 of 12/12. As long as you aren't overdosing them there is no real need to flush.... Just don't overdose. Kidlester has it spot on, if you test to see what the plants are taking up and match it you can't go wrong
Thanks for the replies. Kidlester, I think you made a really good point. I've been monitoring my ppm for the last two days and it appears that i may be adding nutes at a higher level than my pants are using it. I partially flushed my system to lower my ppm, and now I'm working on dialing in my nutes. Goldgrower, i decided not to flush my system before i harvested the one plant, and it turned out just fine, although I'll have to wait for the cure to finish to really find out how well it turned out. I'm now 12 weeks into 12/12 and while I see tons of bud sites everywhere, they still seem underdeveloped. I'm hoping that kidlester's advice to adjust the ppm and feeding regiment will have a positive effect. Thanks again for the advice and happy holidays!
Btw kidlester, the lights are currently at 12/12, my grow box is completely sealed to keep out light, and my ppm was up around 1100 before I diluted it with filtered water. I'm guessing that's too high, but since the feeding schedule on my nutes only goes up to 8 weeks, i wasn't sure what the target level should be at 9+ weeks. I'm using Cultured Solutions Bloom A, B, and Bud Booster Late, along with cal/mag, Sweet carbohydrates, and a couple micro solutions. I'll update when and if i see improvement.
From what I see in your pictures are some Indian leafs,(1-3) leaf structure instead of 5,7,9,even 11 that tells me somewhere along your grow something went awry could have been a number of things incorrect ph too cold too hot incorrect nutrient strength, which affects all sorts of things depending on when that happened. Try and use what you may have done wrong here research or ask questions and get the next grow dialed in, as far as this crop like said before grab a 40-100x magnifying glass of scope and look at your trichs milky-Amber time to flush hope this helps happy growing G