Small buds, healthy plants?

Hey all, maybe I'm jumping the gun since I'm only on day 35.

The strain is animal cookies and I grew it before in rock wool but in a flood and drain system. Plants weren't healthy when flowered during the flood /drain grow, but I remember the buds being bigger.

I also grew the strain in ebb buckets, decent healthy plants when flowered and buds were definitely bigger.

I also have some under de lights now in ebb buckets, which is harder to compare because the DE lights are better, but the buds are probably 4 or 5x bigger.

Now the buds at issue are in my first rockwool grow using drippers. I'm using 3x3 cubes on rockwool slabs, dripping 2-3x a day. The plants are exceptionally healthy, even more healthy then the same strain in the ebb buckets under the DE lights.

Using veg+bloom nutes at 1040ppm, 6.0ph average. Not one spec of nutes burn, or bugs or any issues as far as I can tell. They are pretty green though, but no n claw or anything like that.

The buds are so small and worrying me for this strain since I've grown it before and also comparing to the DE light plants.

Any idea what could cause the issue. It is my first true rw grow, maybe I'm doing something wrong?

These pics are day 28, a week ago.. What gives?

Oh I used my temp gun and Temps are fine, I also have a day /night temp controller which keeps Temps at 68ish night time and 80ish day time. No co2, air in/out.. I think thats it

I don't know if you can tell from the pics, but the buds are maybe the girth of a ring finger

Oh, quick question.

Can n tox not have clawed leaves? I do know n tox causes small buds, but does it always accompany Clawed leaves or can you have n tox but things look OK? Or am I just bugging for no reason, can the same strain I've grown before in a different medium and system fill out differently in another system, like the strain will fill out later but still be OK in one system and in another it can fill out earlier?

roots?

They all look beautiful to me. Do you not think that they will thicken with time?

rkymtnman said:

roots?

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I wish I could check them, but it's tough in the rw slabs, though when I pull the plastic away from the rw cube a bit, they are white and healthy on top of the rw, I think they are good, the stems are even some of the fattest stems I've had in a 4x4 tray about the size of a lighter

Steve Man said:

They all look beautiful to me. Do you not think that they will thicken with time?

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I feel they look really healthy when compared to my last runs with her, they appear to be the best run I've had with the strain, but on past grows, the buds were about the size of gum balls by now, I don't get it, here's a comparison of the same strain, different system /lights that I flowered at the same time as these, it's under de bulbs, but I had about the same size buds on the strain last grow under se bulbs

It's really tripping me out

Both in the pic above are getting the same nutes, only difference is the small buds are in rockwool and it's drain to waste, the other is ebb flow, and my previous grows were ebb flow as well, when the buds were bigger. But the drain to waste problem plants are the healthiest in the room in appearance wtf

what about root mass? ebb/flow should be much bigger root balls= much bigger fruits.

just a guess

alpha,

you use tap or ro?

how hot do the de bulbs run?

I've had same thing. Looked identical.....it was sweet tooth if I remember correctly.

Didn't produce much but was the best of what I grew. Just how it is sometimes.

rkymtnman said:

what about root mass? ebb/flow should be much bigger root balls= much bigger fruits.

just a guess

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Very well could be the root mass, I didn't put them on to the rw slabs until the day of flower.. No veg time in the slabs. I did veg the next batch in 6" Hugo blocks for a week or so before flower and just out them in yesterday for a side by side, same strain. Would be really nice if that's the problem, good tip!

ThaMagnificent said:

alpha,

you use tap or ro?

how hot do the de bulbs run?

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I use tap that is .15ec (about 100ppm)

The DE bulbs run hot but I have ac and the Temps stay around 80 degrees in the room at all canopy levels

BM9AGS said:

I've had same thing. Looked identical.....it was sweet tooth if I remember correctly.

Didn't produce much but was the best of what I grew. Just how it is sometimes.

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That's the wierd thing, I grew the strain before and have it going in another system now and the buds are much bigger.

The buds that are small do look really good though, and dense. Maybe they just are more dense in the rw blocks for this grow, that would be nice if the yield is similar

I figured it out. Someone I follow on ig runs animal cookies and his first run in 1 gal pots of coco had pinky nail sized buds. He switched to 2 gal and all is good. It's the root mass in veg, needs bigger roots /root space in veg before put into flower. Easy fix, makes sense I guess tho other strains don't act as bad as this one if flowered with small roots. Same thing happened in the flood tray on a few sea of green plants in 4" blocks. The ones that had bigger roots in the block when flowered had 5x the size buds. Usually more roots =more fruits, but most strains do fine in small pots. Also, gsc does the same for my buddy. Problem solved!

I have had smaller buds in the summer, from fighting the heat. Then i got a new ac to allow complete control. Also how healthy were they when you went to 12/12? Id rip one up a lil n see if roots are white n fuzzy tbh.

jayjay777 said:

I have had smaller buds in the summer, from fighting the heat. Then i got a new ac to allow complete control. Also how healthy were they when you went to 12/12? Id rip one up a lil n see if roots are white n fuzzy tbh.

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I got the heat covered with an ac / day night temp controller. They were healthy when put into flower, but were in 3' rw blocks, too small I reckon, I pulled the wrapper a little off the cubes the other day and roots are white and healthy. It's gotta just be from having small root mass when flowered, everything else seems in check

Here's what they looked like day 1 of flower

When did you defoliate? If it was while in flower then its stress.

hellmutt bones said:

When did you defoliate? If it was while in flower then its stress.

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I haven't taken any leaves off at all, the animal cookies fills out all the way down which I was stoked about, I did a side by side with a lollipopped animal cookies and one not touched and the one not touched yielded much better. It's a pretty lanky plant with not many leaves

AlphaPhase said:

I haven't taken any leaves off at all, the animal cookies fills out all the way down which I was stoked about, I did a side by side with a lollipopped animal cookies and one not touched and the one not touched yielded much better. It's a pretty lanky plant with not many leaves

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So you did lollipop.. how far into flower did your lollipop?