Finishing up, Thanks for the help!

Finishing up the cycle on my first grow, want to say thanks to everyone who offered their advice to me. These are my remaining girls, I've been flowering for about 2 weeks now, I used a Co2 process I found on here and it seems to be working well. I'm also using a 15-30-15 nute solution for the flowering every 7 days and cycling the air out every 4 hours.

I did have a question though. I've been looking into cloning as I do not want to waste the time on germinating new seeds. All of my indica strains turned out to be males and were discarded. I've only been left with the tall lanky sativa strains which have only grown single leave branches with no internodes. Am I able to clone off a single leaf stem? Everything I've looked at says I need a branch with at least 1, preferably 2 internodes, but the plants do not have any branched internodes. I was thinking I may have to wait until harvest then just clone off the top of the stem, but I was hoping to speed the process along by having my new clones ready to go when I empty my garden room.

Thanks.

Um, I'm sorry to say, that if you wait til harvest time, you won't be able to clone, because the plant will have finished it's life cycle, and is effectively,...dying. No, you can't clone unless you have a grow tip or internode, so you'll have to find some cuttings that are useable, or look into re-vegging, at the end of the cycle. That takes alot of time, but will regenrate the plant, and give you as many cuttings as you need.

P.S. Adding more light, will give you much bushier plants, and many more cuttings to work with. Also, it's tough to clone, once you get much past week 4 of flowering, so keep that in mind. Most clone in veg, so they don't have to wait for them to revert, but I'm guessing you already know that?

ya, I know the optimum time to clone is in veg however I was using a bag seed and had no idea what gender of plants I was doing... unfortunately I didn't have enough time in the veg state to start a nursery and start a flower cycle on the cuttings to determine which was which, so I had to wait until I flowered to see what genders I had. Unfortunately at that point, all my really bushy plants that had good branched turned out to be male.

I haven't however read anything on problems relating to the last few weeks of flowering... can you give me a few examples? Wouldn't mind a little info to kick start my research on it.

thanks.

Exmes said:

I haven't however read anything on problems relating to the last few weeks of flowering... can you give me a few examples? Wouldn't mind a little info to kick start my research on it.

thanks.

Click to expand...

Well, basically, now is the time when the plants go into overdrive, and it's easy to make mistakes. One, is under/overfeeding, because thier nute requirements are alot different now, compared to veg. Give them too much nitrogen,(for example) and you can kill your yield, delay harvest, etc....or too little, and the fans leaves will yellow early, die, and fall off, hurting yield. Also, right about now(week 7-9) is when you're in danger of having your soil PH drop below acceptable levels, simply because many soils go acidic, over time. If you've been maintaining your soil PH, then it's not an issue, but most don't, until it becomes a problem. Usually, by then, it's too late, and yield will suffer, no matter how quickly you correct it. I got into the habit of hitting them with dolimite lime(1 tbsp per gallon) with a heavy watering, during the first 2-3 weeks of flowering, and that holds the PH well, til they're finished. It's not necessary, but I've found that it works excellent, and NEVER have PH problems. A good thing, me thinks?lol

Also, right now is when you have to watch for hermies to pop out, because trust me, you don't want to let one go unnoticed, and ruin months of hard work. It happened to me twice, back to back, and man, was I fucked off.lol I never could find the hermie, either,(out of 35 plants, total) and after it happened the second time, I started over with fresh strains so that I knew I had eliminated the bad strain(I had 3 strains at the time). I ended up making bubble hash out of ALL of it, because they were loaded with seeds, and they were way too tiny to pick out. Anyway, I'm rambling...lol Keep an eye out for hermies, because right now is when they start to show, and if you miss one, it doesn't take long to wreak havoc. Especially, when starting from seed, because you never know, until they've went through at least one complete cycle, whether they are predisposed to hermie, or not. After that, you'll have a better idea that a plants' clones are stable, and can relax a little, as long as you don't have any light leaks, or major stresses.

thanks for the tips, I'll run a ph test tomorrow to double check the balance. I haven't spotted any hermies yet, I have looked at hundreds of pictures regarding sexing when I first started flowering, it does seem like a bitch to catch the hermies, I have been checking closely on my girls, and they haven't shown any signs of that yet, but I'll keep a close eye on em. I've noticed the top 2 layers of foliage growth is a much darker green than the fan leafs lower on the stalk, I don't know if thats because I have upped the C02 content in the room or because I've changed up the nute balance. I was using an organic worm casting through the entire veg cycle and that seems to give me some decent results, although this being my first crop, I really don't have much to compare it too. I switched it up to a higher phosphate balance, dropping the nitrogen and potash levels as I learned that a higher phosphate level can increase flowering... haven't had any adverse effects yet. As far as light pollution goes, the girls get a solid 12hr dark cycle with no leaks. (it's a double walled, vapour sealed box room) with my light on a timer. I never enter when they're sleeping.

I appreciate the tips, and sorry for the nub questions, lol. I work 2 full time jobs so don't have a lot of time to sift through thousands of pages of forum posts.