Beginning Of Week 5 Of Flower And Buds Have Not Gotten Any Bigger The Past 2 Weeks.

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RC888

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Hi all,

First off want to thank anyone who takes the time to read my post and that I greatly appreciate any input or advice. This is my first post and I apologize ahead of time if I didn't properly follow guidelines or something like that.

I'm currently about to start the 5th week of my flower cycle for a run of Tahoe OG that was from clone(vegged about 3-4 weeks). In the beginning of my flower phase I was using a RO filter for water but my filter desperately needed to be changed because the PPM of what i was getting was around 600. The first two weeks I had no choice but to make due with the 600 PPM so I adjusted my volume of nutes so that the total ppm was around 1000(400 ppm of nutes). I'm using Advanced nutrient sensi bloom line and I'm running everything in 6" hugo blocks with a drip system that runs 7 times a day for 3 minutes each time every two hours. What really threw me off is that I was checking PPM every day and it stayed the same as what i put in so i assumed the level was correct and the plants were eating what they needed.

About 3-4 weeks into flower i noticed that about 60% of the trees seemed to be stunted and the buds were not getting any bigger in respect to some of the others in the lot. I also noticed the foliage was a very dark green and i was getting the claw on a lot of the new growth which indicated a nitrogen toxicity. It was around this time i finally got around to switching out the filters of my RO system. I flushed for about 2 days with RO water and the second day i added some Cal-Mag because i had some signs of a minor magnesium deficiency (lower leaves showing interveinal chlorosis).

After running RO for two days about half of what was stunted seemed to snap out and buds started enlargening again. I then went back to running nutes at half strength around 600 ppm and it would rise to about 700-750 as i let it run. This time i added Hi brix(molasses) at half strength as well. I did this for a week before i realized that about 30% of the batch still has not gotten any bigger though the top growth is reverting back to a lighter green and THC crystals started forming but the only thing is the buds are just not fattening up. It seems like some of the leaves that looked like the claw are also starting to revert back to normal shape. I switched back to running just RO water thinking that i maybe did not flush enough. I read that you need to run through about 3x the volume of water as your growing medium and i probably did 2/3 of that.

Did i not flush enough? What are some signs i should look for to indicate that nitrogen toxicity has been corrected? Is there anything else that i could be missing that could cause buds to stop growing? This is driving me nuts. The structure of the plants are wonderful and its sucks just watching day by day them not reaching the full potential they can. Sorry for the long post and once again thanks to anyone who took the time to read through it.

Hydro Growers:
1. Are you growing from seed or clones? Clone
2. How old are your plants? 3-4 weeks veg, beginning of 5th week of flower
3. How tall are your plants? range is 20"-28"
4. What type of hydro system are you using? 6" hugo blocks with a top drip irrigation system running 7 times a day for 3 minutes every 2 hours.
5. What brand/type of nutrients are you using? Advanced Nutrient line Sensi Bloom, rhino skin, big bud, bud factor x, bud candy, voodoo juice, b-52, and recently started adding hi-brix molasses.
6. What is the Ph of your nutrient solution? 5.7-6.2
7. What is the PPM/EC of your tap water? using RO water that comes out to around 30 ppm
8. What is the PPM/EC of your nutrient solution? Initially running at around 1000ppm with 600ppm of that being offset by dirty RO filter for first 2 weeks of flower cycle have since then replaced filter.
9. What is the temperature of your nutrient solution? a little high 72-77 farenheit, 77 rarely more within 72-75 range.
10. Does your PPM/EC show a rise or fall when you do your daily PPM check? hard to say because i have had to switch from 1000 to RO to 600. Currently around 600 ppm and it rose to around 700 but that could be from previous concentration of nute solution...
11. Does your pH show a rise or fall when you do your daily check? For awhile i would ph down to 5.8 and after one run through system ph would go up to 6.0-6.2 however it seems to have leveled out and is consistently coming out around 5.7-5.9 after being run through system.
12. Do you foliar feed or spray your plants with anything? nitrozime and neem oil during first 2 weeks of flower and in veg.
13. What kind of lights do you use and how many watts combined? (HPS, MH, fluorescent, halogen, incandescent "plant lights") 1000W hortilux HPS on parabolic hoods every 4x4.
14. How close are your lights to the plants? about 24"
15. What size is your grow space in square feet? 17x24
16. What is the temperature and humidity in your grow space? at night temps are around 68F during lights on canopy temps are around 84 F with humidity range 40%-70%
17. Have you noticed any insect activity in your grow space? Some mites, gnats, and an aphid or two but nothing that is out of control, i had hung up a hot shot no pest strip for the first couple weeks of flower.
18. How much experience do you have growing? about 2 years now
Beginning of week 5 of flower and buds have not gotten any bigger the past 2 weeks
Beginning of week 5 of flower and buds have not gotten any bigger the past 2 weeks
Beginning of week 5 of flower and buds have not gotten any bigger the past 2 weeks 2
Beginning of week 5 of flower and buds have not gotten any bigger the past 2 weeks 3
Beginning of week 5 of flower and buds have not gotten any bigger the past 2 weeks 4
Beginning of week 5 of flower and buds have not gotten any bigger the past 2 weeks 5
Beginning of week 5 of flower and buds have not gotten any bigger the past 2 weeks 6
Beginning of week 5 of flower and buds have not gotten any bigger the past 2 weeks 7
 
H

happy b

Guest
Im reading through your post again and i see you have some critters in the room.id be willing to bet thats the "root" of your problem.(pun intended)
 
R

RC888

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Hey happy b thanks for your response. So I do have some fungus gnats flying around but it's very little and I've had gnats before that were more severe then what I currently have and didn't have this problem however I'm open to the possibility it could be it.

I looked closely at the top of my medium and I can actually see a good amount of gnat larvae. They are very dark I'm assuming it's because they were feeding on algae but also a lot of them are dead and not moving which is probably from the time I had no pest strips hanging and it just looks like little dark clumps. If I wanted to check if they have affected the root system would I have to just break apart one of the cubes?

Ill also upload some photos of the exposed roots on the bottom of some cubes. They are a little bit yellow and rotted on some of them. I can actually see that there are some gnats on the bottom but it's only a few like 3-5. What baffles me though is I have one tree that has a ton of white roots growing out from under and it's one of the ones not really getting any bigger.

If it is pests let's say fungus gnats and their larvae what could I do to get rid of them?
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ShroomKing

ShroomKing

Best of luck. Peace
3,127
263
You have what looks to be
1) some nitrogen toxicity in conjunction with a potassium deficiency
2) or a multiple toxicity of nitrogen /any other nute

I can't speak to your nutrients because I've never used them. But I dont think you have any pH issues, could just be a case of overfeeding.

Best of luck.
Peace
 
ShroomKing

ShroomKing

Best of luck. Peace
3,127
263
You need to get a grip on the FGs but usually they won't hurt a plants growth unless seriously infested.
Try some OG biowar rootpack, or some bti bennificials.
Peace
 
R

RC888

7
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You need to get a grip on the FGs but usually they won't hurt a plants growth unless seriously infested.
Try some OG biowar rootpack, or some bti bennificials.
Peace

Yeah it was pretty clear that I had a nitrogen toxicity so I've been flushing however about a third of the girls haven't seemed to snap out of it yet.

If it's also a K deficiency should I stop flushing and go back to using nutes? i know K is associated with bud formation so during that week that I went back to nutes I was adding big bud and hi Brix molasses which seemed to help the girls that did snap out but the ones that didn't yet didn't seem to benefit from it. Just so confused with what's holding the last of them back from snapping out. Also I think I should mention that going back to flushing doesn't seem to be doing the trick either.. When flushing to fix a nitrogen toxicity what are you looking for? All the leaves to return to the normal shade of green or just the initial signs that it is?

Anyways I really appreciate your input.
 
R

RC888

7
3
You have what looks to be
1) some nitrogen toxicity in conjunction with a potassium deficiency
2) or a multiple toxicity of nitrogen /any other nute

I can't speak to your nutrients because I've never used them. But I dont think you have any pH issues, could just be a case of overfeeding.

Best of luck.
Peace

Also can you overfeed in hydro? I always assumed the more you run your system of course with time in between for them to eat the better? Please correct me if I'm wrong.
 
ShroomKing

ShroomKing

Best of luck. Peace
3,127
263
Also can you overfeed in hydro? I always assumed the more you run your system of course with time in between for them to eat the better? Please correct me if I'm wrong.
I'm sure that you can overfeed, although I have never ran hydro. Im slowly learning that less, really is more, working with soil and liquid nutrients. You could try dialing down your nutes by 25% or more, especially if they are not growing fast and not uptaking alot of nutrients. With nitrogen toxicity don't look for the downward folding to correct immediately, just keep track of newer growth and cut N as much as possible.
I had a few tough runs with N toxicity and lost yield as well.
Best of luck.
Peace
 
R

RC888

7
3
I'm sure that you can overfeed, although I have never ran hydro. Im slowly learning that less, really is more, working with soil and liquid nutrients. You could try dialing down your nutes by 25% or more, especially if they are not growing fast and not uptaking alot of nutrients. With nitrogen toxicity don't look for the downward folding to correct immediately, just keep track of newer growth and cut N as much as possible.
I had a few tough runs with N toxicity and lost yield as well.
Best of luck.
Peace

Yes I've come to discover this recently too. The relation the plants have to nutes is more like vitamins instead of food. The light is the true food and the nutes are there to help them grow strong.

Unfortunately this stage in flower I won't be getting anymore new growth however what I do notice is that when correcting N toxicity you can see a change near the bud formation where the color starts to lighten up.

I also noticed that some of the bud areas that I initially thought were just going back to the right shade of green appear to be turning a little bit yellow... Is this an indicator of another potential kind of deficiency? Strange thing is this is seen on some of the ladies that did snap out.

Thanks in advance for anyone's added input

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ShroomKing

ShroomKing

Best of luck. Peace
3,127
263
Yes I've come to discover this recently too. The relation the plants have to nutes is more like vitamins instead of food. The light is the true food and the nutes are there to help them grow strong.

Unfortunately this stage in flower I won't be getting anymore new growth however what I do notice is that when correcting N toxicity you can see a change near the bud formation where the color starts to lighten up.

I also noticed that some of the bud areas that I initially thought were just going back to the right shade of green appear to be turning a little bit yellow... Is this an indicator of another potential kind of deficiency? Strange thing is this is seen on some of the ladies that did snap out.

Thanks in advance for anyone's added input

View attachment 532089View attachment 532090View attachment 532091
Yellowing in the buds is a sure sign of potassium deficiency , especially if seen on edges of new bud leaf growth.

One thing for sure, this plant will keep us studying.
Peace
 
R

RC888

7
3
Thank you for your input, I actually just put it back on nutes last night so lets see what happens. I'll update when I have some results.
 
R

RC888

7
3
At a loss for what to do... Have reintroduced nutes and they are still just stuck in their stagnant state. They have definitely started to feel denser but the general size of the bud has barely gotten bigger if it has at all.

At this point I am 2 days from the end of week 5. Such a disappointment because the structure really looked like these would have been some beautiful colas if it had filled out... I'm desperate for some possible last minute measures. Or do buds generally stop getting bigger in size and only get denser at a certain stage?
 
juiceyjay

juiceyjay

942
243
Unfortunately with all the problems you are having so far into flower your yield is really going to suck. The last 2 weeks is when they start to fatten up. Make sure you are getting your correct amount of Phosphorus as well as K. Potassium helps them get fat but the phosphorus is what promotes the nug growth
 
juiceyjay

juiceyjay

942
243
I've never done hydro I'm a soil guy so I can't give u exact numbers on how much to add sorry ; (

Best of luck and hopefully u can salvage something
 
Papa Indica

Papa Indica

9,166
313
I've never done hydro I'm a soil guy so I can't give u exact numbers on how much to add sorry ; (

Best of luck and hopefully u can salvage something
Bro, I think you were too high to notice, this dude's last post was August 31. I was kinda hoping to hear how it turned out, even though I think we know.
 
juiceyjay

juiceyjay

942
243
Bro, I think you were too high to notice, this dude's last post was August 31. I was kinda hoping to hear how it turned out, even though I think we know.
Haha I sure didn't notice that. Rc88 what's the outcome on that harvest? Did they even make it to end?
 
mr roboto

mr roboto

369
93
my 2 cents are that your over watering with 7 times a day. depending on your pump size I would only water at 3x per day with a 10% runoff in 6 inch rw cubes. Over watering will also cause the roots to rot away. Are you in a recirculating system? A chiller will help with keeping the water cooler with the 84 degree temps.
 
UNITEDGROOVES

UNITEDGROOVES

545
143
Yes I've come to discover this recently too. The relation the plants have to nutes is more like vitamins instead of food. The light is the true food and the nutes are there to help them grow strong.

Unfortunately this stage in flower I won't be getting anymore new growth however what I do notice is that when correcting N toxicity you can see a change near the bud formation where the color starts to lighten up.

I also noticed that some of the bud areas that I initially thought were just going back to the right shade of green appear to be turning a little bit yellow... Is this an indicator of another potential kind of deficiency? Strange thing is this is seen on some of the ladies that did snap out.

Thanks in advance for anyone's added input

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Hey RC.. Besides the regular feed issues I see the classic signs of duds in these pics...
I would scrap them now and not waste anymore time.. There is a big thread on duds you should check. https://www.thcfarmer.com/community/threads/dudded-stunted-and-runted-plants.63709/
Again, i wouldn't put too much energy on this run, even though its tough thing to do, scrap em' and start fresh from new cuts/moms. Clean your area really well before you replant..

I just noticed this is an older thread.. But the information is still good for those who will encounter the same symptoms in the future..... If you see your plants doing the same thing as RC last pics, TOSS EM!.. Don't waste your time....

Peace..
 
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