28 days into flowering, buds seem small, am I doing something wrong?

J

John1961

Active Member
Good morning, all. I'm hoping for some advice from the experienced growers on this forum.

I have a single plant growing in a self-built cabinet that I have concerns about. This is my fifth grow in this cabinet, but the first time in my new location (Central Colorado).

Here are the particulars:
  • Strain: BlueBerry Headband (photo-period feminized seed from Emerald Triangle Seeds)
  • Soil: 4 gallons Fox Farm Happy Frog amended with 1 gallon of perlite and 3 tablespoons dolomite lime.
  • Light: G8LED 240-watt full-spectrum LED, supplemented by 90-watt UFO lamp for flowering
  • Nutrients: Fox Farm soil trio (Grow Big, Big Bloom, and Tiger Bloom), also using CalMag supplement.
  • Temps / Humidity: Temps have remained a constant 70-72 degrees during the day and mid-60's at night. My humidity has fluctuated between 18% and 25% throughout the entire grow.
  • Seed germinated in soil on 12/06/16, flipped to flowering mode on 03/20/17


The seed germinated in her 4-gallon smart pot on Dec 6th and I vegged her until March 19th when I flipped the lights to flowering mode. During her vegetative growth, she has been carefully "manifolded" to eight mains or tops. She has been flowering now for 28 days.

Here is my concern: Are the buds too small for a plant that has been flowering for just shy of a month?-

As mentioned, this is my fifth grow and my previous four plants had much more advanced bud growth at 28 days than this one. I know my humidity is quite low but I am somewhat constrained by environment (basement grow in a cabinet).

There have been no major problems during her growth other than a Cal/Mag deficiency that appeared about two weeks ago (lower older leaves yellowing between veins) and I lost just a few leaves. I bumped up the Cal/Mag to 1 teaspoon per gallon with every other watering and that appears to have addressed that problem. Up until a week ago, I continued feeding her veg nutes (1.5 teaspoon of Big Bloom & 1.0 teaspoon of Grow Big) to help her with her stretch. Ten days ago (third week into flowering) I stopped the Grow Big and switched to 1.0 teaspoon of Tiger Bloom. I chose to delay the application of Tiger Bloom once I started flowering because I didn't want to impact the stretch of the first few weeks. Even so, she hasn't stretched a whole lot, maybe 40% (about five inches) since the lights were flipped 28 days ago. -She now measures about 20 inches or so above the soil line.

So please folks, can someone tell me if I'm OK or if I have a problem here? Could this be a "late bloomer" that is just going to take longer to complete flowering? Or do I have an issue that is slowing this plant down?

I appreciate any advice one has to offer.

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f28d.jpg
 
Good morning fellow growers,

It's been a week since I posted my question and I want to first thank all who provided advice.

It seemed the over-whelming response was to defoliate a little bit. I knew I had to defoliate some but I was concerned about retaining enough healthy fan leaves to last me through flower. My last plant (Berry Bomb) ate a lot of her own leaves from the bottom up during flower and I wanted to be prepared in case that happened again with this plant. Plus I was concerned about possibly stunting her growth if I went too far.

But in any case, I did do some 'light' defoliation last Sunday, removing about 20 or so large fan leaves. I concentrated my efforts on the interior of the plant, top to bottom. My goal was to get as much light penetration into the interior of the plant as possible while holding on to as many fan leaves around the outside circumference of the plant to keep photosynthesis at maximum..

In the past week, she seems to have woken up a little bit. Buds are building along the length of each cola and odor is becoming prominent. The stretch definitely appears to be over so I've lowered my LED lights to 12" above the canopy (minimum distance as recommended by the manufacturer). The photos below were taken this morning, a week after her little bit of defoliation.

I guess at this point she looks to be OK and it's just a matter of letting her do her thing until harvest. However, if anyone has any suggestions for further improvement, please let me know. Thanks!

f35d.jpg


f35c.jpg


f35b.jpg


f35a.jpg
 
Well, unfortunately, I had to cut her down.

Eight days after defoliating her (at the suggestion of many), she hermied on me and four of the eight tops had "nanners" pop out.

As you can see from the photos I posted above, she was fine prior to defoliation, so I have to assume that the defoliation done 34 days into flowering is what stressed her out. Maybe it was crappy genetics, but I don't think so.

I've read many times to keep the stress during flowering to a minimum. In the future, if I do any defoliation, it will be prior to flowering.
 
John We have been growing for many years and I can almost assure you that defoliation was not the reason your plant hermied. We defoliate in flower week 2 and 4,and a little here and there until they finish .I personally started growing at age 13 I am now 60 . Happy Growing and never stop learning ..
 
Thanks for your response , Jed, but I don't know what else I could attribute what happened.

I was concerned that she was flowering much more slowly as compared to two previous "Berry Bomb" plants (both successful) so that's why I thought maybe genetics played a role. And she stretched far less than what I was expecting (and hoping) so maybe there where other problems I just didn't recognize.

She did have some trouble getting started but by week 2 of veg she was good to go.

Who knows? Maybe I just got a bum seed.
 
Blatently clawing = Too much nitrogen. Excess nitrogen slows the uptake of Potassium = slow bud growth and huge loss to yield. Don't defoiliate plant's that aren't healthy and or thriving the recovery time is much longer . I'd say the nutrient stress made it herm
 
Plant looks sick bro, as in ill not the other one.
I totally agree with tokeycones.

If your environment is health thats a good start, now you have to learn how to feed your plant without overdose.
Next lesson learn how to defoliate and your be on the winner road to success
 
temple balls said:
Plant looks sick bro, as in ill not the other one.
I totally agree with tokeycones.

If your environment is health thats a good start, now you have to learn how to feed your plant without overdose.
Next lesson learn how to defoliate and your be on the winner road to success
Click to expand...
Look at the dates of the post mate. Think we may have got here late !!!!!
 
tokeycones said:
Blatently clawing = Too much nitrogen. Excess nitrogen slows the uptake of Potassium = slow bud growth and huge loss to yield. Don't defoiliate plant's that aren't healthy and or thriving the recovery time is much longer . I'd say the nutrient stress made it herm
Click to expand...
3 years to respond might be a bit late to help fella. Unless you have that time machine finally working ??. lol
 

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