No this aint no movie. Its real life. Growing Coco. Im in my 2nd Canna grow. Everything was perfect but the leaves were way too green. At first this was a strong point. Everyone marveled at their beauty. Everyone asked if I polished my leaves. But they were Autos. They began sexing and flowering almost immediately. But they were supposed to finish in 60 but hung around until 85 and the leaves (all of them-including fan leaves) remained the same bold clean green. Very few yellow leaves. Trichomes be damned I couldnt tell when they were finished. Are Coco and Canna supposed to be that green? Liking the Coco nonetheless
It could just be genetic but there's also the chance that your system was running a little lean on phosphorus. Low P levels will bring out a deep dark color in the leaves. If the Nitrogen levels are high-ish, but within reason, the plant will survive but with a very lush green appearance. The lower than desirable level of phosphorus could have hurt the harvest weight some, although many people are overdoing the P boosters, it could be that you didn't miss by much. Keeping your temperatures low, and I'm assuming not using the most powerful light source, probably helped keep the plant healthy while running on a "lean mixture." Canna's system is designed to be used with Cannazym at the initiation to flowering. Cannazym is a 0-2-1 supplement that is directed to be applied at 10ml per gallon. This adds 20 to 30ppm of phosphorus to the solution, which is another 30% to 50% increase of that element from the vegetative solution, usually moving the amount of phosphorus from 40ppm to 50ppm in the solution up to 60ppm to 80ppm (all depending on concentration and variables). If you didn't run Cannazym, or another phosphorus dominant supplement (I like the 0-10-6 Hydroplex from Botanicare at 2ml/gallon) then this is likely the source of your deep dark green appearance. The length of time it took for the flowers to fully mature is also an indicator they were lacking something nutritionally, but not enough to cannibalize itself. Most people push too much food. It is definitely easy to just barely miss the "dialed in" mark and it sounds like you error on the side of caution. Next time around with this same strain I would add in just a little extra phosphorus. Not too much, but a smidge would probably make all the difference and get those plants damn near dialed.
Glad you answered SCMC, I have been following your posts assiduously, thanks for all the excellent data and info. Probably something to do with P but it looked good all the way through and people thought I polished the leaves. Its over now. Im on to new ones. Im sorry to say, and I dont want to criticize you, but the guess about the lights was wrong. All through the grow (85 days total - Autoflower) I thought it was the intense lights that made them dark but I dont think so anymore. A new lighting system (HPS and MH) arrived at the same time as the plants and they were immediately put under the HPS light. I dont know if it was the lights or the Canna (probably both). Im still learning but Im not sure if I still qualify as a noob. Many (if not most) people overfeed, overfertilize, overnute trying to people they will never see that theirs is bigger than yours. Im sick of it. Im trying to do the wright thang. I hooked up with Canna because of their offline rep and the online schedule and I keep to it. I feed it Cannazym (10 ml a gal.) regularly from the third week on. So I am sure that cations had time to fill and continued on to flowering and beyond. Im being told by Canna to use it to clean the soil for re-use. Sorry some of the guesses were wrong but I had barely sketched my system but they were bold guesses and greatly appreciated. Thanx again.