So I had two massive plants (for me) at my last grow but absolutely no 'buds' so to speak. I harvested the popcorn and have been happily smoking away, quite potent actually but I've been worried about the 'what did I do?' question. So I had started another small plant a few weeks before I harvested the popcorn and sure enough, this one also has nothing but popcorn. So I figured I had nothing to lose and I gave it 2 cups of water loaded of nutes designed to stimulate the buds. Two days later real buds have started to form and I'm pretty pumped about it. So hopefully I can get some real buds to harvest at some point in the near future.
Its not the nutrients that made bigger buds. Lacking some nutrients or not . Tell us your lighting . How tall you vegged your plant ? A huge plant with not enough light will produce a lot of pop corn for sure . .
What I don't know about growing weed could fill a warehouse, but I do know this. Growing "natural" plants under a small light = decent main cola, tons of decent popcorn LST, topping, plus a light calculated to put out the max a healthy flowering plant can handle = lots of big dense beer can sized colas. Or big ass plant + lower lighting = bigger lower buds (still technically "popcorn" though it all smokes well to me) Just a tiny 28W grow lamp in a cowl turned those lower popcorn bud branches from the above, to nugs like the below pic by end of plant life Apologies if you knew all this already, but as someone who switched from "natural" plants to screening, its what I've learned, also that getting at least 700-800 umol/s of light onto any flowering bud sites is what it takes to get them big and frosty. My little old light could put that much out, but only into a 2x2 or so footprint, the plants outside that area were light starved and only typically got popcorn buds beyond the "hot spot" Upgrading to a light that can do that same 1,000+ output on a 4x4 or 5x5 area was a game changer for me as well (assuming you don't already have one). Best of luck mate.