Flowering Help - Week 3 & brown hairs

I have Critical Mass plant on day 20 of flower. The flowering has happened really quickly, I have lots of flowers, seems ahead of schedule, maybe it's a quicker flowering strain?

This is my first grow and I had been still trying to train them in the scrog and was pruning popcorn fluff under the screen still.
Many flowers look great, plump white hairs. But there's a patch where the hairs seem dried up and browning. I'm worried I may have caused it with my pruning and training. Anyway it's scared off enough not to touch them anymore.

Is this something to worry about, does it actually have a negative effect?
Is there anything I could do to help them? Will they recover recover?
Am I right in thinking the handling of the plant is likely what caused the pistils to turn?

dried/browned:




Here's a good one, undamaged:



The canopy:

1. The plants look fantastic, browning of hairs could just be a sign of stress. I had this problem on my last grow, the hairs will eventually go back to white once the plant recovers. Check your temps, soil pH, etc.

2. You need a serious defoliation, these girls need to breathe and your not allowing much light to hit the lower canopy. Now I cant tell to much from the pictures but did you lollipop the lower branches at all?

3. Can you provide what lighting, nutrients, soil/medium, etc that you are using? This will help alot to determine exactly what is wrong. From my point of view these girls look like they are in good health.

4. How many times have you transplanted during the grow? If you have been using the same pot for the entire grow then you run the risk of becoming root bound and that is never a good thing. Obviously to late to transplant now but just FYI for future grows. An example would be what I do and I have had much success following these easy steps. 30 days from seed (solo cup) I transplant to 1 gal, 30 days later I transplant again to 3 gal, then 30 days after that I transplant to its final 7 Gal pot (fabric preferred for better drainage and air flow). This is also when I flip to flower, not everyone will follow this schedule im simply using this as an example.

Good luck on the grow! Cheers

SolitaryGold said:

2. You need a serious defoliation, these girls need to breathe and your not allowing much light to hit the lower canopy. Now I cant tell to much from the pictures but did you lollipop the lower branches at all?

Click to expand...

Should have mentioned it was a scrog - I've cleared out most of what I could underneath.



I'm not sure if I should be removing the buds that are at the screen bud lower down on the branches.
I think I'm just going to leave them be, I removed anything under the screen already.

SolitaryGold said:

3. Can you provide what lighting, nutrients, soil/medium, etc that you are using? This will help alot to determine exactly what is wrong. From my point of view these girls look like they are in good health.

Click to expand...

600w HPS - 18 inches from canopy. I'm feeding GH 3-part floraseries weekly in promix-hp soiless in 7gal fabic pots.

Better view of the canopy:

I honestly dont see any problems here at all. I wouldnt let a couple brown hairs scare you. Just keep an eye on them for the next week or so to see if the white hairs come back and replace the brown ones.

Keep up the nice work tho they look great. Cheers!