Nute burned flowering white widows!! Collapsed trichomes????

I am currently in DWC Week 7 of bloom on two White Widows. They were doing beautifully and had tons of trichomes that looked like little sticks standing up with tiny little heads on them. I read about Liquid Koolbloom and started adding it to the soup a week ago. I know it's really too late for it, but figured I would try it anyway just in case. Well, what I ended up with is two pretty burned plants - burned leaf tips and yellow leaf margins, dry-feeling leaves, etc. I put the plants on plain ph water to try to flush out the excess nutrients. When I examined them this morning, the trichomes on the little leaves do not appear to be standing. They now just look like someone spread a coat of something shiny on them! Has anyone ever heard of trichomes collapsing????

I am a total noob, and would greatly appreciate any feedback. TY!

Pics or it didn't happen. Lol

A little bit difficult to know from your description. Trichomes on leaves have a different structure from those on the buds and I suspect you are comparing the two. Trichomes will shrink and turn from milky white to amber as they go from ripe to over-ripe. The shiny spread sounds like resin. So what you describe could be normal ripening...

That being said, generally a bad idea to introduce any new products to a plant that late in flowering because you are generally trying to get stuff out of the plants at that point so they will smoke better. The burning it produced is a clear sign that it was overfed something. Add on a flush and your plant is severely stressed so it would not be surprising if it is all related. Pics and further description would help confirm.

Hey thanks for the info. I wish I had some pics to post, but all I got is my phone camera right now. I've just been watching as the trics started to form on the little leaves around the top of the bud, then they got tiny little heads on them, then, boom, everything ground to a halt and started going downhill. I read, read and read, then erred on the side of trimming away about 12 fan leaves, so that may have been part of it. Then the crap with the Koolbloom definitely was another part, and then with this flush after, my poor girls look pretty sad, and so do I. I'm really worried I have completely fucked up what was going to be some really great beginner's luck.

Joti,
I was just talking to a guy who had all his trichomes disappear during the final stretch of growing. Now I wonder if it wasn't a burn like you experienced. Well you know what to do...back off on the nutes and you'll probably need a little extra time to finish. A bloom booster should be added 5th week for most varieties and I always back off on main flower nutes a bit...then build up ppm level with the bloom booster to minimize risk of burning.
JD

Thanks, guys, for the info. JohnDee and Bugeye, I just checked them again - The trichomes that were standing sticks on the little bud leaves now appear to have lost the heads and look like the resin is just spread out flat on them. I SWEAR, it's the truth. Just wish I could post pics.

I have both plants flushing now, and will wait for signs of improvement before putting them back on a weak nute solution. But, just in case anyone is trying to figure out whether to trim or not like I was....... The plant that I did the aggressive trimming on is DEFINITELY worse than the other.

Just show the ugly plants it's OK it happens to everyone some times

Sent from my SCH-I545

This is what they look like.

joti,
They don't look that bad. I hope the trichome situation resolves itself. I just read an interesting use of Final Phase flush formula. That is to use it to clear soil of nutrients in an overfeed situation like yours. It's too late for you to use it for that purpose. I'm just mentioning it for future reference and for other readers. Could help plants to recover faster or maybe even not get burnt quite so much. Hope you get a decent harvest...
Take care,
JD

JohnDee and Bugeye, thanks for the info. So if I continue to flush, it's possible they will recover?? I know anything's "possible," but ... Does anyone know if trichomes come back and start to develop after this type of situation? I'm just wondering....should I keep flushing, waiting for them to start producing more trichomes again? I'm worried that the trichomes have peaked and will not improve with continued flushing. It was around Week 5 that we started adding the Koolbloom and everything started to go downhill. Also, we have been using RO water for the plants all along. The highest nute strength they got up to was about 1050 ppm, including the Koolbloom, so I really don't understand how they got so burnt in the first place!

Good morning Joti,
After flushing, you can resume nutrients at a lower level.

If you added the Koolbloom on top of the base nutrients...that "jump" in ppms may have caused the burn. I don't know why that happens because if you had creeped up to that level, the plant would have adjusted. I've seen it happen before though.

Far as plant recovery...I just don't know. The Widows have a certain sativa component which may help. But if the plant is near senescense, it may not recover and might just fade to death like annuals do in the wild. But sativas will often just keep adding flowers as long as you let them.

Watch for male flowers popping up. A stress during flowering can cause a plant to go herm.

Keep the Koolbloom in the mix but lower ppms of base nutes...start out resuming at half strength and creep up from there. Always watch how plant is doing as you increase nutes. Watch leaf tips for burning. Def don't want to burn her again. Good luck...
JD

I would get some opinions from a few folks before continuing to flush more. It is a pretty stressful event for the plant every time you do it. I prefer at this point to run a standard dose of clearex or some similar cleaning agent about two weeks before harvest. Maybe 20-30% run off with it. Then another 20-30% run off with plain water when they are ready for more water. Not sure you need to do the clearex now that you flushed, I'm just talking about how I cleared them. The goal is to take the shine off them and get them giving up all that nitrogen they have stored in them now. Your flush may be enough and I'd just go with water only for now and hit them with clearex if you don't think the flush worked well enough. I think you'll have something enjoyable in the end.

You mentioned RO but did not mention adding Cal/Mag so I'll just mention that it is a pretty good idea when using RO water to add em in.

Not sure about your trichomes coming back question. I think its just gonna do what its gonna do and you gotta wait to see sometimes. I've definitely smoked some stuff with lousy trichomes that was quite enjoyable.

Regarding you ppm #s, I got my best results when I kept them in the 400-600 ppm range. You can always increase it from there if you see that you have a heavy feeder but I make them ask for it first. Leaves losing their shine is sort of the first tip off that I look for. Good luck!

Thanks so much for the info, JohnDee and Bugeye! I'm still trying to figure this thing out. I have read that the leaves don't recover, but what I'm wondering about is.... should I just let this be the start of their final flush at this stage? My partner thinks we should get them back on nutes so they will grow more, but could that harm them even more? The buds seem a LITTLE fuller, so maybe they're starting to produce again, or it's just wishful thinking!?! I know they don't look too bad in the pics, but they definitely look worse in person -a lot of the burn doesn't even show up in the pics (lousy camera). Bugeye, you talking 400-600 just to start, then work it back up? These WW's are supposed to flower for ten weeks supposedly, and they're on Week 8. So I have no clue if I'm starving them, stressing them more, etc. How do you know when they're in good enough health to be able to handle nutes again? What do I look for????

first off, this is DWC right?? everyone here is talking like it's soil so it threw me off, the ideas are spot on though

john dee is most likely right, i've heard a lot about people over-doing the koolbloom and posting on here, try searching for "overdose liquid koolbloom" or something maybe you'll find somebody who went through the same situation.

bugeye is also right, you should be careful not to over-flush the plant , you're just trying to lower the salinity in the medium (because you over-did it)
if you use plain water, the water can leech too much nutes and damage the plant, if your worried about this try adding in a small dose of ferts , so it doesn't shock the plant as bad
you should be very careful this close to finish

didn't realize you're doing DWC lol till half way posting sorry.... flushing doesn't really apply here IMO, its more of just lowering the ppms to a tolerable amount, dump it when you're ready to step back in with the kool bloom like dee said

i'd be super careful, it's bad to give plants straight r/o as it can shock it , especially this late in flower
add in 1/4 dose nutes for the "flush" if you decide to just do that instead, im sure it wouldn't take more than an hour of sitting in the water to remedy the issue, then dump it and do what dee was saying, Be sure to do the lowest dose you think will be ok

this is all sound advise, jon dee nizza bugeye all have a good deal of knowledge from what ive read. I havent grown dwc so Im not really sure about what to do. Im a soil guy. I ran some hydro but it was in the late 90's, lol the ferts then were completely different than what is on the market today unless your organic!! I cant really give my 2 cents here seeing your are in dwc. sory, but they can help you better than I

I did think you had them in dirt, but the idea is the same. They haves a lot of nitrogen built up in their leaves and you want them to start depleting that in last two weeks. I'd maybe stick them back on 1/4 or 1/2 strength for this week but I haven't grown hydro in a while so more opinions should be welcomed. Are your roots healthy and white?

Thanks, guys, for the advice! At this point, I have them back on 400 ppm's nute strength, but I was afraid to put the liquid Koolbloom in there again. Bugeye, I'm definitely worried that I flushed them too long, though. The plants don't look too bad, but they haven't grown any in the last two and a half or three weeks. After much research, I found a thread where a guy said his plants got badly burned during flowering, but he flushed them for almost three weeks, then he said it took a whole extra month for the plants to reach harvest. I'm hoping that if I give them some nutes and time, the buds/trichomes will start to develop again. Who knows?!?!? All I know is they were doing great and smelled so strong - now they barely smell at all and the buds AREN'T STICKY anymore. Considering all I have put them through.... taking flowering clones, trimming away large fan leaves, and making the nute strength too high... I'm surprised they don't look any worse! Luckily, I have eight clones of the best one now vegging in DWC buckets!

I am holding my breath waiting to see what happens, and will update this thread with whether or not regrowth starts in case anybody's interested.

In addition, during the flush, I was adding CalMag to the plain, ph'd RO water. The reason for the RO water is because I couldn't control the ph of my tap water. Since I have been using RO water on this entire grow, should I have been adding CalMag all along?

Joti,
I was wondering what was going on. That was a long flush. I know you are gunshy on the nutes...but you now specifically want the plant to grow bud and trichomes which probably won't happen at ppm 400 with no added bloom boost. How high were you at when you burned them?

And on RO water and calmag. Depends on your nutrients whether you need to supplement or not. Many nutes are formulated for tap water. If your nute line offers a hard water micro, that means their standard micro should have Calmag in it.
JD

We had the nutes up to about 1050 ppm. When we started adding the LKB, we dropped the nute strength, so with the koolbloom they were still right around 1050. They have tolerated 400 ppm's for the last four days, so today we increased the nute strength to about 550 ppm's, but no bloom booster.

We use the RO water because we couldn't control the ph of our tap water. Will have to research whether GH offers a hard water micro.