First grow - In the home stretch. Ready or not? How long to go?

[Reg Dixon]

Now my grow is nearing completion. Day 60 flower. I have some questions. If you can answer even one it would be appreciated greatly.

First my critical + auto by Dinafem. Looks ready to me but has hardly any amber tric's.

Ready or not ready?

 

[Reg Dixon]

Blue Widow by Dinafem day 60 flower

Blue Widow by Dinafem day 60 flower

Despite being advertised as 50-55 days finisher this one does not look even close to being ready yet IMHO.

I think the heat in my grow room has slowed it down a little.

So I would say not ready in this case. So the question is when?

 

[stihgnobevoli]

by which criteria are you judging? looks pretty done to me, at most another week or two.

coming down in 1-2 weeks depending on how i feel about it in a week.
dunno what day this is cuz i don't take good notes, but even without them i can tell this plant is almost done and i will chop it in a week or so.


when most of the pistils turn and no more white pistils are being produced. it's safe to say it's done.

 

[Reg Dixon]

by which criteria are you judging?

The guide I've been using is to wait for the tric's to be 50% amber.

 

[daishere]

50% amber is more a personal preference. Ive seen them chopped with much lower amber, say 20% amber and 60% milky/cloudy.

 

[hazy]

chop it!

 

[Reg Dixon]

Day 62 flower 1 down and 3 to go!

Day 62 flower 1 down and 3 to go!

chop it!

Critical + auto (1st post pics) chopped, trimmed and now hanging up to dry.

The Blue Widow (plant from 2nd post) seems like it still has a little way to go though.

Also have a Tangerine Dream which looks no where near ready and a NL auto which I have no clue about!

More pics soon.

 

[blackosprey]

Are you doing a cfl-only grow? There are some out there that would say that cfls take a little bit longer to finish than recommended, 5-10 days.
With that said, those look good for your first grow. The blue widow has a bit farther to go, maybe 10-14 days.
Can't wait to see the others,

 

[mrgrowmez]

IME when you think its done, give it another week...maybe two. For my first grow I chopped half with 20% amber and the other half with 50%amber a couple weeks later and the buds I left till later were much better smoke.

Do yourself a favor, pick up a cheap handheld 100X microscope off eBay and start studying your ladies up close!

 

[Reg Dixon]

IME when you think its done, give it another week...maybe two. For my first grow I chopped half with 20% amber and the other half with 50%amber a couple weeks later and the buds I left till later were much better smoke.

Do yourself a favor, pick up a cheap handheld 100X microscope off eBay and start studying your ladies up close!

Have a 30x jewellers loop which does the job but a 100x one would be super. Might pick up one of these on my travels!

 

[mrgrowmez]

Sounds good, I got mine for 5 bucks on ebay, from hong kong. Does the trick

 

[Reg Dixon]

Blue Widow. Day 65 flower.

Blue Widow. Day 65 flower.

So I know now that breeders guidelines for flower are just that. Guidelines and nothing more. According to the Dinafem blurb this one should be finished 10 days ago.

Seeing as I've been battling hot temps throughout the grow it comes as no surprise this one still has a bit to run. I'm being patient like a man curing his weed has to be patient.

How long to chop? Tric's are all cloudy or clear. Nothing amber yet. White Hairs still getting pushed out. Retreat of hair beginning on tops. Elsewhere the plant is still growing a little.

Tops appear better developed than lower parts. More white hairs lower down plant.

Will put up pics of the Tangerine Dream and Northern Lights Auto next week. They seem to be a bit further behind the Blue Widow.

For future ref I think the Northern Lights does not like hot temps. It continues to develop slowly and look very unhealthy.

At this late stage I'm almost afraid to find out what may be wrong with it if it is not simple heat and nute/lack of nute stress.

Ph on the Blue Widow has been a bit high so used a little PH down with the molasses water. Am going to carry on with molasses water only on the Blue Widow. Will give it a good 4 gallon flush in a week . Hopefully will be ready a few days after that. Around day 75-78.

 

[stihgnobevoli]

what are your temps? i've had grows in the 90's and it really never effected finishing times only the yield and foxtails.

instead of flushing with 4 gallons, which will remove the salts from the soil but do nothing for the plant. just water with plain water till the end instead. that plant you posted just now looks like it's pretty done. i would have already been watering plain water. like the plant i posted up there, it's been water+molasses for the past 3 weeks prior to this last week which was plain water and will be plain water till sometime next week when i chop. ill post a fresh picture for you to see later today. at a point the plant stops drinking water at a fast rate as it was, and everything slows to the point where it's almost stopped doing anything for days. this is when you are ready to chop, plant is done producing.

 

[Reg Dixon]

what are your temps? i've had grows in the 90's and it really never effected finishing times only the yield and foxtails.

instead of flushing with 4 gallons, which will remove the salts from the soil but do nothing for the plant. just water with plain water till the end instead. that plant you posted just now looks like it's pretty done. i would have already been watering plain water. like the plant i posted up there, it's been water+molasses for the past 3 weeks prior to this last week which was plain water and will be plain water till sometime next week when i chop. ill post a fresh picture for you to see later today. at a point the plant stops drinking water at a fast rate as it was, and everything slows to the point where it's almost stopped doing anything for days. this is when you are ready to chop, plant is done producing.

Temp is 80-85 degrees lights off and 90-95 degrees lights on.

Apart from a small solid food tablet inserted around a week ago to help with flower the Blue Widow has not been fed anyhing besides molasses and water for almost 10 days.

Will keep the molasses water going and perhaps do a full flush with 4 gallons a few days before chop.

Funny you should mention drinking rates. Despite all the searching for trichromes and their color it was the lack of water drinking that finally persuaded me that the Critical + auto was ready. Maybe the BW will be the same?

The tric's on the BW are still clear and I think it still has a '3rd phase' of flower to push on through to finish.

Desperately trying to get and keep the temps down now so they can keep going and finish.

On a positive side note RH is all the way down to 50% so at least I've got one environmental factor right!

Today was in the cab turning the plants to make sure they get even light coverage. Due to the nature of my cab this takes some time and it a bit fiddly.

The NL auto water was dry already so fed it with some molasses water.

The other just needed a light trim and a turn. Maybe 2-3 days before they need watering again.

 

[stihgnobevoli]

isn't the food tablet still feeding the plant?

 

[Reg Dixon]

isn't the food tablet still feeding the plant?

Yes but for this size plant I should be using more tablets. So it is hardly overpowering.

The problem is I stopped feeding the Critical + way too early and didn't want to make the same mistake twice.

The tablet lasts 1 month.

 

[Reg Dixon]

Pictorial update. Day 67 flower

Pictorial update. Day 67 flower

Pic one is the Blue Widow. Seems to be developing quite quickly. The tops seem to be getting close to being ready. The tops have the occasional amber tric. The lower buds are still pushing out white hairs and featuring clear tric's. They don't seem so close.

Is it a good idea to selectively harvest my plant tops and let the rest of the buds develop in their own time?

Next 2 pics are Northern Lights auto. If anyone can tell me anything useful about this plant I'd be very grateful.
Have no idea when to chop. Not many if any trics. Looks close tho.

Finally we have the Tangerine Dream both top bud close up and the lower buds. as you can see it still looks like it is developing. Bleaching a bit but that is normal for late flower right?

Many thanks for any useful comments.

 

[Proper]

Yea bro, thats def done enough to be smokeable, but it still has time to get bigger and better. Take a sample bud and quick dry it on a radiator or such for like 2 hours until its bone dry and smoke it. Dont smoke it before its bone dry or it wont get you as high and you will be disappointed.

 

[187020]

Ready?

Ready?

U kno it's ready when it's bagged and sold... I'll go grab my wallet

 

[stihgnobevoli]

this is the one i took down the other day. somewhere between 65 and 75 days. i don't keep good enough notes to know the day specifically but first day of flower was around the beginning of feb.

i suppose i could have gone another week with the plain water but i needed the space.