so im all the way the home stretch, I'm about 5 weeks or so into flowering, n they're looking great, currently using 274 actual watts of CFL 80% are 2700k and 20% i kept full spectrum, 6500k.. had 6, scrapped one cuz i needed the space, and it was a runt that was way smaller then the rest, ill bet that would have been female too, i think i stumbled upon feminized seeds, its a saliva dominate i can tell by the fan leaves, though i was told the strain was blue cheese which is an indica? i dunno anyway, its gorgeously hazy, skunky, and real earthy already, i know some sativas need 10 weeks of flowering, but I'm going more by eye, trichome shade (clear, cloudy, to amber ratio..), and the obvious sign of when about 70-80% of pistils turn red or pull in.. any suggestions? going LED for my next op... peace..
I know you will continue to worry anyway, because I've been where you are, but try not to worry about the strain too much. Therefore, do not worry about a set amount of time for flowering. It's been argued that all strains should be harvested at the same point of ripeness. At the VERY least, 15% amber trichomes. If it's an Indica strain, 15%< amber trichs will provide a body high. If it's a Sativa, 15%< amber trichs will provide a heady, cerebral high. I've gone by this with two pretty different strains in my two grows (Blue Dream-Sativa Dom, and Blackberry Kush-Indica Dom) and both buds came out excellent, and very distinctive from each other. Same amount of amber on both. So basically just be patient, wait for pistils/hairs to dry and turn red, then begin checking for amber trichomes. It depends on the strain of course, and how quickly it matures, but I usually begin flushing when ambers first start to pop up on the calyxes. I flush for two weeks, and by then there is a nice balance of amber and milky trichs. No clear ones left to be spoken of. You just want to be sure you get the most weight, the highest concentration of THC, and the highest concentration of Terpenoids as possible, in order to say you grew the strain to it's potential. Also, cool luck. I've had insanely good luck so far too. I've grown 13 plants collectively to this day, all from regular seeds, and only one of those has turned out to be a male. Let's hope it stays this way for both of us for a while lol!
