Newbie grower looking for some advice and feedback!

Hi all,

Long time lurker, first time poster here! This is my second grow, although my first was years ago. So this is kind of like my first again. Anyway, i know I have made quite a few mistakes along the way, most notably not pruning (its like a jungle in there with 6 plants). Another “mistake” here is that these ladies are all bag seeds. So I have little info to offer about strain. One of the 6 definitely stands out as the best by far tho!

Info:
- Soil grown, 5 gal buckets with filter medium at bottom, fox farm OF soil
- fox farm nute trio given according to directions on bottle, every other water. Ran out of the big bloom quickly, so mostly just tiger bloom during flower.
- Started with 1 115W LED, added another during flower. Supplemented with 6 cfls on sides
- Currently at day 48 of flowering

Questions:

- My first question is, how far am I from harvest? The dankest girl has a ton of orange hairs already, but trichs look mostly clear still, some becoming cloudy. The rest of the girls still have a majority if white hairs sticking straight up.
- Do my buds seem small? Is that perhaps due to my pruning issues or something else? It is my understanding that they will not grow significantly bigger at this point. I am feeling a bit disappointed by their overall size.
- Any idea what this yellowing issue is? Also have some leaves that started curling up on the edges. I think it is that LED light burning them, but I cant get them any higher up at this point.
- Should I start flushing now? Too early? Too late? I am seeing no yellow leaves on bottom quite yet. Some old leaves are going straight to brown and crispy tho.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

If you can, zoom in as close as you can on trichs. Amber is best. Flush before you harvest is best. I grow outdoors, I am having yellow on fan leaves ( Actually they’re starting to fall off...) so I added Tsp of Epson salt to add magnesium.
Overall, you look good. Sometimes it’s all just a “damn if I do, damn if I don’t” decision!

Followup- Its gotta be my crappy lights. I dont know why I didnt realize it. Got too focused on everything else and didnt realize my grow had far outgrown my light power. I also think I had them too far away, due to my initial concerns of them being too close and attempting to get wider coverage by moving them up. Bummer, but at least it won’t be a complete loss and definitely has been a big learning experience!

Yeah, id wager your on the right track about the lighting... you just didn't have enough for bigger nugs. Still look like some nice buds! Looks like your close to harvest from those first couple pics ... just keep an eye on those trichs.

The yellowing is likely an immobile micronutrient deficiency, ive never been great at singling them out ... iron or manganese looks most likely using the old trusty chart here

Since your feeding the whole trio an actual deficiency seems unlikely Id guess its pH related ... but thats just a guess. This late in flower I wouldnt stress it.

Im in the flushing is a big waste of time camp, so its always too early in my book. No point in starving your plant and there's no science at all supporting that flushing removes anything from the plant.

Gentlemencorpse said:

Yeah, id wager your on the right track about the lighting... you just didn't have enough for bigger nugs. Still look like some nice buds! Looks like your close to harvest from those first couple pics ... just keep an eye on those trichs.

The yellowing is likely an immobile micronutrient deficiency, ive never been great at singling them out ... iron or manganese looks most likely using the old trusty chart hereView attachment 4633235

Since your feeding the whole trio an actual deficiency seems unlikely Id guess its pH related ... but thats just a guess. This late in flower I wouldnt stress it.

Im in the flushing is a big waste of time camp, so its always too early in my book. No point in starving your plant and there's no science at all supporting that flushing removes anything from the plant.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info! I think you are right about the iron or maganese, and yeah perhaps my next grow i will pay more attention to my water ph and not go directly from tap to plant

I think one of my plants is ready to get chopped, the others have a ways more to go. The buds are fat, calyxes are bursting and some trichs are starting to turn amber. Question: does it matter where on the bud/plant I observe the trichs? What about top buds vs lower buds maturing differently? All my plants still have newer popcorn buds with bright white hairs at the bottom lol. And the buds on that good plant are absolutely covered wall to wall in trichs. Makes it difficult to see what is going on, even with a scope! But from what I can tell, its about 75-80% cloudy, 10-15% clear and maybe 5-10% amber at this point. Getting anxious to chop it! Do we think it’s ready?

Orangina said:

Thanks for the info! I think you are right about the iron or maganese, and yeah perhaps my next grow i will pay more attention to my water ph and not go directly from tap to plant

I think one of my plants is ready to get chopped, the others have a ways more to go. The buds are fat, calyxes are bursting and some trichs are starting to turn amber. Question: does it matter where on the bud/plant I observe the trichs? What about top buds vs lower buds maturing differently? All my plants still have newer popcorn buds with bright white hairs at the bottom lol. And the buds on that good plant are absolutely covered wall to wall in trichs. Makes it difficult to see what is going on, even with a scope! But from what I can tell, its about 75-80% cloudy, 10-15% clear and maybe 5-10% amber at this point. Getting anxious to chop it! Do we think it’s ready?
View attachment 4633469

Click to expand...

Definitely check the trichs on the buds themselves and not the sugar leaves ... the trichs on the leaves develop faster than on the bud proper.

Some people harvest in stages ... take the top buds first and let the lowers continue to develop... the reason you see such a drastic difference in yours is again, your light ...not enough penetration so the lower buds weren't getting a ton of light needed to develop faster

From your description it sounds like those top buds are just about ready to come down

And the only reason you need to worry about pH in soil is when your using lots of liquid nutes that can acidify the soil ... otherwise soil naturally buffers against pH fluctuations

Gentlemencorpse said:

Definitely check the trichs on the buds themselves and not the sugar leaves ... the trichs on the leaves develop faster than on the bud proper.

Some people harvest in stages ... take the top buds first and let the lowers continue to develop... the reason you see such a drastic difference in yours is again, your light ...not enough penetration so the lower buds weren't getting a ton of light needed to develop faster

From your description it sounds like those top buds are just about ready to come down

And the only reason you need to worry about pH in soil is when your using lots of liquid nutes that can acidify the soil ... otherwise soil naturally buffers against pH fluctuations

Click to expand...

Thanks again, super helpful! I decided to chop the top half of the plant today. Not too shabby!