Hi just completed my first grow. i was given a "ak47" clone that I grew in 2.5 gallon pot filled with happy frog soil under a t-5(6500k) inside of a growlab. The plant progressed with no hiccups, and as far as nutrients, which i used a light dosage, i used botanicare pure blend pro grow (veg) and pro bloom(bud). At roughly 16 inches i switched to 12-12 bloom they continued to have awesome progress there were buds growing everywhere. After 8 weeks of steady packing on buds it was 34 inches tall, the hairs were half orange and half white and i was ready to harvest, but i was confused because of lack of smell and crystals, i continued to harvest and cure. after i dried it out it weighed out to 38g (the top bud alone was about 10 inches) but still no smell and when smoked no potency. Please with all the knowledge this forum has to offer (which is ALOT!), give me some insight to what possibly went wrong. Thank You. click small pics to see full size
No way, that plant looks lovely, i can't believe it was grew under t5s. And no potency? I'm totally bewildered.
The potency has to do with genetics. What did the person say who gave you the clone? Was there a low level of potency in the mother plant, and other clones?
most strains gain the most potency in the final weeks of maturing. If it was a highly sativa strain you may have harvested a bit early, no? Did you check the trichs rather thhen just rely on hair color?
to be honest it was a friend of a friend and supposedly it was official ak47. so my answer to that is unclear. how could it look so right and be so wrong.
i think i know what happen if u leave a plant to long flower it can lose all of it thc an not bee good
AK47 has a very high level of THC..between 21-24% depending on which seed bank results you read. So it cannot be strain issue.. I grew ak47 this year and it kicks ass! Very strong, long lasting and pleasant high. An independent lab test showed 21.5% THC in the samples at the Cannabis Cup 1999, the highest of all entries that year!
Yes and they appear within the last couple weeks of maturing...I grew AK47 this year and it took forever to fully mature......
Must be a new strain out, a bit like alcohol free beer, THC free cannabis (for when you want to drive home without fear of loosing you license lol).
How long did you cure it? Could use a few weeks, maybe even months, of curing to actually reach the real potency of the bud. And how long was it dried? A quick dry (like 3-5 days) can decrease/affect potency in relation to the cure...a week long dry is a good thing to do just to make sure it's good 'n ready for the cure.
Haha, you know what i think happened?... You said "half red and half white hairs." Is it possible you checked the color of the pistils instead of the trichomes? You said that there were hardly any crytals... crystals are the tricomes, these are what you should be checking... I hope I'm wrong.
Should've had SOME crystals by that point (8 weeks) but hell...I dunno, maybe some wacky phenotype that doesn't produce as many trichs. Trichs are the moneyshot though...basically no trichs = less THC. Like I asked before, what about the dry and cure? A good cure can make a HUGE difference.
YOU HARVESTED TOO SOON!!! ALL the hairs shouldve turned color and then you still should have given it longer...You need a scope so you can check the trichs and harvest when most are amber. The buds need time to mature and ripen..you picked wayy too early..probably 2 or 3 weeks too early. The longer the plant goes the more complex the flavor and smell gets..next time your patience will be rewarded!!
Also thinking you may have harvested too soon, but it seems weird that after 8 full weeks there were no trichomes visible yet. I don't know off-hand how long AK47 takes to finish on average, but then you're not even really sure it is AK47. So it could be both poor strain/pheno + early harvest.
I just finished a grow with T5's...and I would guess at one of a few possible things. 1. You used 6500K bulbs for flowering. You should switch to 3000K bulbs (the red ones). I have never flowered with the "blue" bulbs before, as they are better for veg'ing, but perhaps by missing the red spectrum the trichomes would not develop normally? You basically deprived the plant of the part of the spectrum it wanted the most during flowering. 2. You didn't let it flower long enough. AK-47 is a mostly sativa strain....And I have found that pot plants (especially sativas) need to be flowered a little longer than normal under T5's. (I have a plant in there right now that is on its 11th week of flowering, and it is mostly sativa.) You should wait until the trichomes begin to change to a dark/amber color before considering harvesting. I had two indicas I harvested after 9 weeks and 10 weeks respectively...but am letting the sativa go a while longer, as after 9-10 weeks the trich's were just starting to turn cloudy. 3. Somehow, somewhere, your plant was deprived of some major nutrient that prevented THC production. I don't know the molecular biology enough, but I guess it could happen. But I would guess it was the lack of the red spectrum bulbs that probably had more of an effect. Here is a link to my grow results. Thing is, the tallest plant, and this was 3 weeks ago, has not even been harvested yet. I am still waiting for the trichomes to change color...and it just went through another "bud growth phase" where its buds just exploded in size. That is another thing, the buds should REALLY swell (to the point where the almost look like they have seeds in them) before you harvest. http://forum.grasscity.com/general-...cs-results-t5-veg-flowering-bagseed-soil.html Best.