1st grow ever, 18 NL girls

[Parcero]

Thanks for dropping by lordhighlama.

Looks like something went wrong, these buds are lightweight??????????
Mierda
I dont know.

 

[Parcero]

Potent yes, but like feathers, no weight..

 

[Parcero]

Hmmmn, no good.
I've been scraching my head to think why they came out like this, very light and dont really have any idea. It´s because of something but what?
What I´ve read is that some prefer to let the plants get really dry before harvesting to shorten the drying time, right? Now can the actual drying of a bud start while the plants havent been chopped yet, when the plant is still alive? I have this humidity problem going on sometime now and I've kept them quite dry for a while now so did they dry already? Or did they lack water so they didnt get heavy?This drying already thing is one thing with what I've tried to consolate myself but I dont really buy it, cant really cheat myself to it. IMO they grew nice, green, bushy healthy looking and then this. They´re potent, yes and quite big aswell but why light like that, airy? Bothers me and if I cant pinpoint a reason to this I might end up doing the same thing unknowingly again next time and then I would be an ***.

I havent chopped them all yet. Not even one whole plant, just tops from few plants and as they dried they came soft, sponge like light.

 

[lordhighlama]

hhmmmm...

Light and fluffy buds you say. Sounds like the lighting would be the first thing to look at. Refresh me again on the space of your grow and the lighting you used.

Edit : ok just looked back to the beginning of your grow,, it looks like you ended up using (4) 400w hps lamps for flower in a 3.5sq m space. Is this correct? That would give you roughly 5950 lumens per sq ft. Sounds sufficient,, but a 400w lamp can only penetrate a canopy so far before the light is ineffective. Also the further away the light from the canopy the less lumens the plants are receiving. Maybe if you aren't satisfied with your yield at the end of this grow you could look into upgrading to 600 or 1000w light's.

 

[CungaBreath]

How many weeks into flower are they?
Sometimes they just take a little longer....it's amazing how much they can fatten up in the last week or two.
Hang in there dude....they look sweet

 

[x Big Dave x]

Hi there Parcero, first of many congrats on your first grow! The fact you got to this stage on your first go always deserves mad props! Alot of people fail on there first grow because they don't research enough in the first place and when they run in to problems, by the time they find the answer it's too late. Read through the whole thread and you couldn't of done much else IMHO. I think you've done a brilliant job and I can't help but chuckle to myself with the lighting you've got set up

My advice (im no expert mind) would be to have less lighting of better quality, in this I mean rather than having 3x 400w hps, i'd go for 2 600w's (although as you already have the 400's it would be costly to replace them). I only say this because the 600'w will penetrate further down and im sure I read somewhere that you get more lumens per watt with the 600's than you do with the 400's. I think your having the same issue I had with my first couple of grows, I was growing 3-4 plants with a 400w in 10L pots and they grew to be around 4ft tall and whilst it looked great the only real dense buds were at the top/main colas, all the rest, like you say were as light as a feather, especially when dried out. So for my next grow I intend on keeping them shorter, i'd rather have a short, 90% dense buds plant than a tall 50% dense/50% airy bud plant. Hope that makes some sense? Like i said im no expert though, i've just started a grow and even though im using 600's I still hope to have a finishing height of 3ft.

Great job again though, enjoy the fruits of your labour! :aok:

p.s forget to add, getting dense buds isn't just about the light but I know it goes a fair way to helping. The best dense bud plants i've seen generally are from plants grown with air cooled hoods, this enables the light to be sometimes 6-8" away from the top of the canopy without burning 'em. A 600w air cooled light 8" away is far batter than a 1000w non air cooled light as it would have to be around 2ft away from the plants to stop heat burn. In turn this means the light intesitiy is lost the further the bulb is away from the plants. Sorry if you already knew this, just thought i'd try to explain where the bud light'ness is coming from. Everything else your doing seems to be just fine.

 

[Parcero]

Thanks to all replies.

My grow area is 2.3 squae meter and I have 3x 400w HPS lamps and two 150w HPS above. On every side I have two 5foot fluoro tubes.
Lights been anywhere between 40cm to 22cm above the plants, depending of the heat. Cooler air I lowerd them, warmer I lifted. Outdoor temps do a lot to this in my room. Depending on that lapms could be close, fans blowing straight at or further up and less wind movement..

 

[Parcero]

Thanks to all replies.

My grow area is 2.3 squae meter and I have 3x 400w HPS lamps and two 150w HPS above. On every side I have two 5foot fluoro tubes.
Lights been anywhere between 40cm to 22cm above the plants, depending of the heat. Cooler air I lowerd them, warmer I lifted. Outdoor temps do a lot to this in my room. Depending on that lapms could be close, fans blowing straight at or further up and less wind movement..

 

[x Big Dave x]

I think your coverage is fine but not the penetration, personally I don't think fluoro's are much use for flowering but then thats just my view. How is the bud density on the top sites compared to the lower half? is there much difference? even when mine weren't great the top main cola still had a nice bit of weight to it, saying that once dried properly it was pretty light. Thing is, when you pick up a bag from the street it's rarely dried properly, they quick dry it so it's dry enough on the outside but still has moisture on the inside thus more weight & more $$..

 

[Parcero]

All same man, density wise. I only cut maybe 1/3 of the bottom part of the main cola from 4 plants that looked in most need of and realised they hold no weight and afterwards 2 main colas from two different plants, light.
Odd, because before they seemed very heavy and hard and I saw one main cola collapse under my eyes, I was just tying a head upsidedown hangin lower branch when I noticed one main cola bending down, bending a bit more and then just gave up, snaped, not loose but totally lost ability to hold, bend upside donw like supercropped stem. Still they feel hard when you press them but light, light, light

 

[Parcero]

Mind bogging...
I just had proper "second look" around the plants. I´m doubting it could be too much heat or lack of light. Can these get lighter by day? Man, I see new growth daily so them plants must be still alive but IMO they´re losing weight! Very tired by now but dont think I´m imagining this. A fresh bud, weight 1 once+ should not bend a main stem untill it breaks, correct?

 

[PUFF MONKEY]

great lookin' setup and very pretty buds man... if i were you, i'd install 4 1000w HPS's and try adding some bone meal to the top of the soil and water in...just my thoughts..still looks good though..

 

[Parcero]

day 69

Thanks for dropping by PUFF MONKEY
I would prefer bigger lights myself aswell but all of these what I have now are free! Thats why I chose them.

New growht still, lightweight still. My scope says not ready.

Be well

 

[lordhighlama]

still time for them to fatten up,, keep hope friend your doing great!!!

 

[legalize_freedom]

hey you don't have any bugs do you??? any holes in the main stalk? I was just wondering when you said that about the one bud just bending over and breaking if maybe you had a problem with a boring type bug, maybe boring into the main stem???...I don't know? I have grown 3 setups flowered with 400w hps, and had nice hard compact buds...so your light should be sufficient, for as many as you have. I have 600w now, but all it's really doing IMO is giveing me more sq ft to grow in. I also have a/c hoods though and am able to keep my light 8 to 10 " away....I don't know buddy..cause the NL#5 I have is nice tight compact bud...just trying to help you look for something you maybe missed?

Look close at your stems and see if you have any small holes going through them

 

[Parcero]

Thanks lordhighlama for your encouraging words. I try to keep hope but I seem to fail momentarily. I not totally satisfied but I have given up beating myself for this one. Something went wrong, maybe it's the sum of all things that happened, maybe bad seed, maybe something else. Theres nothing I can do to it at the moment just have to try again later.
Interested to hear how others will do with the clones from these ones. If it's genetics I suppose they get same kind of plants.

legalize_freedom thanks for you visit. I havent seen any holes in the stems and havent had bugs excluding fruitflies and some spiders. IMO aswell 400w HPS is capable of growing nice buds and the other NL's what I've come across has been a good smoke and yieldy plants but not these ones..

Well they still grow and look good if you ask me but still hold no weight.
About 4 weeks ago I tought

 

[Parcero]

odd could not continue on writing on that post, will finish it here...

...ago I thougt they were close getting ready and I flushed them. They showed sings of N def. wich is supposed to be normal in this stage. Since that it´s been only water, I was kind of advised to do this so I did. Who would have thougt that they would not finish in two weeks, or three. It's day 71 now ,still growing and not ready. They're turning purple now aswell. Now I think that maybe I should have kept feeding them but there was no way for me knowing that they would not ripen. They've been in this def. stage for a long time now and by today it's more than just N they lack!!
Now what?

ooooooh Judas, what a grow it's been

 

[Parcero]

weird thing I found out is that the're less sticky than before?
Maybe I just give them full water tonight, bit bloom and alc-a-mic aswell and leave to that, chop when next time dry....

 

[legalize_freedom]

I dunno what to tell ya bud....seems strange because they look beautiful...I don't understand why they would have no weight. Where did you get your seeds from, who is the breeder?

 

[lordhighlama]

I would give them a feed and wait for a few amber tric's before flush again. Looks like they are still putting on mass and are hungry for some food.