anymouse
Active Member
First a little background.
I've highlighted important factors red so it's easier to browse through my wall of text. And I did use the search but none of the many results were a close match to this problem.
I have been growing CFL for about 2 years put together using soil/chemical fert, about 5 or 6 grows ranging from 1-3 plants each. Gaining a little confidence that my results came out better than the mexibrick the seeds came from, I bought seeds from Nirvana; Ice, Northern Light, and AK-48. I have since retrofit my stealth cab to LED since heat was the big killer in my CFL grow (yes it's that small) and am starting this grow as organic as I can to see how that comes out.
I guess you could say my technical knowledge is decent but experience is limited so factor in that I'm not clueless but there will still be plenty of beginner mistakes here. My cell phone measures around 800-1500 lux at leaf height depending how close to the 4 5000k White LEDs and they are on an 18/6 cycle. The plants have been receiving no fertilizers however I have been using 1 drop per liter of superthrive every other watering, especially the couple times I have topped them.
The problem
I have 3 mothers that would have been ready for cloning today. Just before I was planning to clone I noticed something I did not expect, Ice has pistils. I took my loupe out and examined closely just to be sure. Yup, there are brand new stipules and the top nodes have pistils. Checking the other two turns up tiny stipules. The pistils on Ice is somewhat promising since I was hoping at least 1 of the 3 would be female and I will just replace the males until I have all females however I am concerned. I had intended to veg the clones shortly in the mother chamber until around 1/5 the height of the bloom chamber before moving them to 12/12 since I'm unfamiliar with the growth characteristics of these strains.
Possible cause is that recently they were stressed by a textbook match with all of the online guides images and description of Phosphorus deficiency. I doubted this diagnosis and figured it must be a nutrient lock but the tests showed a PH of 6.5 with very high N and low P and K. So my first organic mix seems to be crummy.
I gave them a flush and foliar spray with 1/8 strength chemical bloom fertilizer and superthrive. This caused them to spring back to life and green right back up almost like new in 3 days time, wow. Seeing how IBA in superthrive inhibits flowering, this confuses me a bit. Aside from stress, everything should be keeping them in veg.
Any ideas what the cause of premature preflowering may be in this case and how I could revert it?
I'm thinking if I just water them with 5 or 10 drops per liter of superthrive, this might force them back to vegging but I'd like to hear expert advise first.
For those of you who are stumped, well I appreciate you taking your time so here's a totally unrelated video of a guy winning a Darwin Award
[video=youtube;RrcOshOJC2c]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrcOshOJC2c[/video]
I've highlighted important factors red so it's easier to browse through my wall of text. And I did use the search but none of the many results were a close match to this problem.
I have been growing CFL for about 2 years put together using soil/chemical fert, about 5 or 6 grows ranging from 1-3 plants each. Gaining a little confidence that my results came out better than the mexibrick the seeds came from, I bought seeds from Nirvana; Ice, Northern Light, and AK-48. I have since retrofit my stealth cab to LED since heat was the big killer in my CFL grow (yes it's that small) and am starting this grow as organic as I can to see how that comes out.
I guess you could say my technical knowledge is decent but experience is limited so factor in that I'm not clueless but there will still be plenty of beginner mistakes here. My cell phone measures around 800-1500 lux at leaf height depending how close to the 4 5000k White LEDs and they are on an 18/6 cycle. The plants have been receiving no fertilizers however I have been using 1 drop per liter of superthrive every other watering, especially the couple times I have topped them.
The problem
I have 3 mothers that would have been ready for cloning today. Just before I was planning to clone I noticed something I did not expect, Ice has pistils. I took my loupe out and examined closely just to be sure. Yup, there are brand new stipules and the top nodes have pistils. Checking the other two turns up tiny stipules. The pistils on Ice is somewhat promising since I was hoping at least 1 of the 3 would be female and I will just replace the males until I have all females however I am concerned. I had intended to veg the clones shortly in the mother chamber until around 1/5 the height of the bloom chamber before moving them to 12/12 since I'm unfamiliar with the growth characteristics of these strains.
Possible cause is that recently they were stressed by a textbook match with all of the online guides images and description of Phosphorus deficiency. I doubted this diagnosis and figured it must be a nutrient lock but the tests showed a PH of 6.5 with very high N and low P and K. So my first organic mix seems to be crummy.
I gave them a flush and foliar spray with 1/8 strength chemical bloom fertilizer and superthrive. This caused them to spring back to life and green right back up almost like new in 3 days time, wow. Seeing how IBA in superthrive inhibits flowering, this confuses me a bit. Aside from stress, everything should be keeping them in veg.
Any ideas what the cause of premature preflowering may be in this case and how I could revert it?
I'm thinking if I just water them with 5 or 10 drops per liter of superthrive, this might force them back to vegging but I'd like to hear expert advise first.
For those of you who are stumped, well I appreciate you taking your time so here's a totally unrelated video of a guy winning a Darwin Award
[video=youtube;RrcOshOJC2c]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrcOshOJC2c[/video]