Flowering time for unknown strain and a bad looking plant

[Fluke83]

Hi people, I'm hoping some of you nice folks could help out an apparently black-thumbed newbie

I managed to nag my boyfriend into getting me some seeds from one of his friends who grows.
I know he's done big grows with proper strains, but since we got these seeds for free and my boyfriend didn't know to ask I think what I got was just plain bagseed.

That brings me to the problem of flowering time.

The plant has had 8 weeks of flowering time. I have no way of checking the trichomes so I'm going by % of amber colored pistils, which I'm judging to be close to 75% now, but it varies some from bud to bud.
I'll put up some terrible pictures if anyone wants to take a guess as to how far from harvest time we are.

The other problem is that the plant has looked like shit the whole time, heheh.

Each new leaf pair would grow in nice and green and as soon as they reached full size they would start to get brown spots and dry out.
They didn't fall off though, not during veg time at least, but when it started flowering they would slowly die off, the oldest fan leaves first and upwards.

Temps have been around 24-28 c (75-82 f), pretty sure i haven't over- or underwatered, I don't have proper nutes so there's a strong possibility I have fucked up majorly with what I've used and runoff PH have been on the low side no matter what I did, usually around 5.

I want to try buying some proper strains, but since I can't pinpoint the problem with this experiment plant it would just be a waste if the same happened with good seeds, so any input from an experienced eye would be great..!

I'll include some horrible pictures (Warning: sensitive posters may want to skip these due to serious plant abuse) taken with my phone camera. It's the best I can do picture-wise, don't shoot me..

 

[pinecone]

That plant looks over-fertilized and not close to done to me. Typically in a ripe indica-sativa hybrid you will see almost no white pistils. To be honest, I don't really pay attention to published flowering times. Instead, I prefer to judge when to harvest by indicators for ripeness, including the above mentioned pistil indicator.

Pine

 

[Fluke83]

Thanks, too much nutes was something I hadn't considered..!

I know the NPK ratios have been way off, but I thought I'd been gentle with fertilizing in general.

I was originally planning on harvesting in mid december, but the browning pistils threw me off. See what you get for never having done this before..

As for indica/sativa I believe it's mostly indica, you almost never see any sativa dominant strains in northern europe, not even indoors.

Since you mentioned it, is there a different rule of thumb when it comes to pistil color for sativa strains vs. indica?

 

[pinecone]

Since you mentioned it, is there a different rule of thumb when it comes to pistil color for sativa strains vs. indica?

Sativa's tend to keep throwing off white pistils at the top of the colas indefinitely.

Pine

 

[jolygreensprout]

Hey fluke when i first started noticing signs of trouble i found a great thread by mynamestitch with pictures and very detailed explanations... just find the picture of what your plants look like and it will tell you your problem..it helped me big time

here is the link..https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=11688

this is my first time and because of that thread i now have this two weeks into flower

 

[mtbazz]

Definitely over fertilized. The leaves should not be that brown and crispy...You should spend some time looking at some of the grow journals here.

As for being done, not even close..Some tips:

Ignore the pistils turning brown thing, some plants I have found will have pistils never turn brown, some will turn brown mid-way through flowering. The ONLY thing you should be looking at in terms of the pistils is this, when they are close to being done they will wither and look like they are retreating back into the calyxes.

Get a jewelers loop and pay attention to the trics. I like to harvest when there is something like 80% cloudy, 10% clear and 10% amber.

Colas/buds: When they are done, these will be very firm, almost as hard as a golf ball when GENTLY squeezed between your finger and thumb. They should not feel fluffy or have any give.

Container weight: Pay attention to your waterings and container weight. When they are done or close to being done the plant will not be using as much water, resulting in a heavier container.

Once again I really recommend spending some time in the forums here and browsing the grow journals. There is alot of useful info here.

Good Luck!

 

[Fluke83]

Thanks everyone!

I've been reading, breathing, sleeping cannabis forums the past year, but for some reason never heard about anything like my plant, your input was just what I needed

Great plants, jolygreensprout!