Flowering stage failure!?!

Folks,
I'm growing some special kush #1 in a 2'x4' wardrobe.
The veg stage was perfect and they few up. I decided after 7 weeks to introduce the flowering stage.
It's now been 17 days since I turned my lights down to 12/12 and I have to say, my plants seem to be doing jackshit!!
I've taken advice from introducing subtle amounts of phosphurus based ferts, decreased the light schedule down to 11/13 and after further research online, i've now decided to move one of the plants into a larger pot for fear of rootbind.
I'm seeing what I believe to be pistils on at least one of the plants (the taller one) and I've yet to see any male traits on either plants.
It's like they've just decided to stop growing after I reduced the hours and changed over to the red spectrum bulbs...
this strain has a recommended flowering cycle of 55 days, so I know there's a bit to go yet... but either I'm right and something's a miss or they're extremely slow to show budding signs.
can someone please advise further?! this is actually painful to watch!!
I'm nearly beginning to lose faith in them...
Here's one pic, I'm gonna take more in-depth ones tomorrow.

I think u need to have some more patience, it takes time homie, and every strain is diffrent, by putting it in a diffrent pot, u just stressed the plant, and its gonna take longer now, give it time, u can't rush a good thing
P.s. leave the light @ 12/12, no more, and no less

Mate, I'll give them girlies all the time they want! I just wanna make sure that they're actually doing something and/or if I can help them in any way!!
by the way, my lighting schedule has been moved down to 11/13 now. I'm assuming it woulf unwise to turn it back to up 12/12 for fear of shocking the plants even further??

looks like u nuked em...peace

brimck325 said:

looks like u nuked em...peace

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Yeah, the one of the left was defintely nute burned! I tried flushing it, but it never bouinced back. The other 2 still seem fairly healthy... i.e. they've big green leaves and are showing signs of flowering.

You don't mention how much and what kind of lighting, or what size pots you have them in. What kind of soil and nutes are you using? Temps in the cabinet?
Could be several different possibilities.

I had some plants just stop doing anything in the flower stage once. Drove me nuts trying to figure out what was going on. I actually had some white widow that was supposed to have a flower time of arounf 8 or 9 weeks run onto 14 or 15 weeks while I was pulling my hair out in frustration. I finally tracked it down to my HPS lamps being too old. Who would have known that there is an effective useful lifespan for a light? I put new lamps in and everything went back to normal. So many variables.....

Just go through your entire setup and double check that everything is within acceptable paremiters. On the plus side... Your plants look reasonably healthy and should still be ok. ( Judging by the photo ) .

At 17 days from initiation of flower this is all of sex you are going to see: a few pistils or balls, most strains shop nothing at all for 14 days. Growth slows down as hormones shift from the light change, then by day 21 they start growing again. This is natural. Give em time dude. Happy growing!

Randm said:

You don't mention how much and what kind of lighting, or what size pots you have them in. What kind of soil and nutes are you using? Temps in the cabinet?
Could be several different possibilities.

I had some plants just stop doing anything in the flower stage once. Drove me nuts trying to figure out what was going on. I actually had some white widow that was supposed to have a flower time of arounf 8 or 9 weeks run onto 14 or 15 weeks while I was pulling my hair out in frustration. I finally tracked it down to my HPS lamps being too old. Who would have known that there is an effective useful lifespan for a light? I put new lamps in and everything went back to normal. So many variables.....

Just go through your entire setup and double check that everything is within acceptable paremiters. On the plus side... Your plants look reasonably healthy and should still be ok. ( Judging by the photo ) .

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how much and what kind of lighting : 200w CFL Red Spectrum + a CFL mushroom light which reaches 100w. (wardrobe painted matt white)
what size pots you have them in: Both were in 9tlr pots. Moved one of them this evening into a pot twice that size.
What kind of soil and nutes are you using?: Westland + MG compost with added perlite. Both are PH balanced. I was using Doffs organic tomato feed on them during the veg stage, but it nuked the plants a bit and done no favours. I since laid off and used regular water and nothing else. Since flowering has begun, I've tried adding some suplhate of potash which is high in phospurus. Only used it once.
Temps in the cabinet? around 10-15c. It's outside in a shed, but has a heater on it during cold nights. based in the UK.
I should also add that the PH is a little above 7. Is this okay??

Like you say it is actually driving kinda nuts at this stage as I was expecting more results... but also, I don't wanna jump the gun either.
Just hope they start budding soon or I think I might cry....!
ps. dudes, cheers for your responses, I'll have some more in-depth pics up tomorrow evening.

INMO you need more light.

bullwinkle60 said:

INMO you need more light.

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higher wattage? or actual higher quantity of bulbs??

id put another 100w in there at least, also make sure you are getting them as close as you can without burning the plants, also if it was me id fuck the little one in the bin, allowing the other two not to be on top of eachother and then the light can penetrate the lower leaves better. only a suggestion mind.
id also try get your ph down a bit, you dont want it above 7, ideally around 6.4-6.5.
lu

I would check to see if you have any light leeks. Any light during their dark period will mess with the flowering stage.

I agree totally with Smoochieboochies. They just need time to transition.

bamfrivet said:

I would check to see if you have any light leeks. Any light during their dark period will mess with the flowering stage.

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i agree 100% with this guy, if they arent showing any signs after 17 days (2 weeks3 days) you may have a light leak and its keeping your plants in vegatative state. otherwise them plants look great man.

another person said lack of light (this has nothing to do with your plants showing signs of sex) they require much less light to veg great, but as you come to flowering they may need more light. i sugest you research some lighting, there are alot of good CFL pages here but 200W worth of CFL and the right spectrum and evenly distributed you should be fine.

that miracle gro perilite can go fuck itself. the shit is wayyyyyyy tooo hot. i know im dealing with nute burn right now because of it.

hope i could help. seriusly tho yer plants look great i think you have a light leak

Matt

Okay dudes, I'm back armed with photos!
+ can I just say cheers for everyones advice so far, this is a really proactive and sound dope forum!!

so, I checked AGAIN for a lightleak and there is none! complete darkness inside.
The growroom is in a shed outside anyway and the darkness cycle is during actual nightime hours.
I'm happy to rule that out...

ph is 7 on the button. not sure how to get that down? but I would be happy enough with 7?!

Light (or lack of) could be a problem. They're bushy plants, so it's har to get light right into them.
The grworoom is matt white. I had thought of mylar but someone suggested matt white to be just as good!
Currently there's 300w inisde the growroom. Maybe, I could look at adding another smaller cfl to increase the lighting.
I have pruined the larger leaves off one of the plants to allow more light in.
also, these are CFLs literally hanging downwards... I have no reflector yet but I do plan to invest in one soon.
This is my first grow and I wanted to keep things as simple as possible to begin with!!
ps. the bulbs are a couple of inches away from the plants at all times.

The Miracle Grow and Westland is what I had available.. again, next time I'll be thinking of some foxfarms or something similar...

so, finally I'm lead back to flwering. The plant on the right (to me) appears to have a good few pistils suggesting it is female. they stem from a little ball underneath which i've only really noticed today but they don't look like having male traits and the seedback I bought from suggest they're "feminized"
have a look at see what you think.
The other plant has very few if any at all!?

It's kinda baffling the whole thing! I'm hoping they're just really slow and will eventually get there in the end...

anyway, honest opinions on the snaps!

Oh dear! tell me it's not a hermie?! epic fail

hard to tell with those photos

Mine took a while to flower also, I started the flowering in early Nov. and it took about 20 days to show its first hairs and the transplanting will definitely cause it to take longer. I'm also using the 11/13 light cycle and it working great for me. I didn't have any root problems by using a moisture control soil.

I'd show you a pic of all the hairs and buds I've got already but cant get a pic in my posts

jlt84 said:

Mine took a while to flower also, I started the flowering in early Nov. and it took about 20 days to show its first hairs and the transplanting will definitely cause it to take longer. I'm also using the 11/13 light cycle and it working great for me. I didn't have any root problems by using a moisture control soil.

I'd show you a pic of all the hairs and buds I've got already but cant get a pic in my posts

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Thanks... more and more pistills are appearing on the right plant, so hopefully things are moving in the right direction...

ph is 7 on the button. not sure how to get that down? but I would be happy enough with 7?! You need to try and lower your ph! Give em few more days