DAY 32 healthy but lacking flowers (pics)

[inreplyavalon]

Hello folks. I find myself here in this forum AT LEAST once a grow. Guess that means i am still a newb and will be for a long time to come!

ARE THESE PLANTS LACKING CO2?

Here is the issue. I have what i believe to be healthy plants that have under developed flowers. My hypothesis is that this is due to lack of CO2. Here is why.

The garden is a 19 x 12 foot space and it is packed with plants. Lots of them.

Temps have been a bit challenging to get a grip on because nightime outside temps are around 20-35 degrees and daytime are 40-70 this time of year. Large fluctuations. So since the only source of CO2 also brings in 20 degree air into the room, i have been forced to moderate it.

For ventilation i am using a 14 inch can fan max hooked up to a 14 inch mountain air filterfor an outake. Have been using a 10 inch passive intake. I am thinking the small diameter of the passive intake air may be the cause of the small flowers.

This is a new room and my 4-5th grow with coco. I am using heads 6/9 recipe which is GH flora 6 ml micro, gh flora bloom 9 ml.

I know what a healthy plant looks like as i have grown enough unhealthy to compare it with. These have been flowering for 32 days and some of them look like they have only been flowering for 14 days. They are proven high yielders, like G13xdiesel and critical mass.

What i am hoping is that someone who has seen CO2 deprived plants can confirm this may be the problem. THANKS and Blessings

 

[MynameStitch]

Dude, those plants are so healthy it's not even funny, what light do you have it in? How far away is it? I have never seen any plant suffer from lack of o2 and I Have seen some crazy small grows in my life, talking about growing in filing cabinets with little airflow and plants still produced, so your plants are 100% happy, do not mess with anything, except see the pot size and see if it's too small, I know your growing coco and with coco you can get away with having a smaller pot size to plant size than if you were growing in soil.

Your pot size also looks too small for the plant, small pots and big plants lack growth in everyway and it locks out nutrients the plant can't absorb, even if it's in the mixture.


Early on when your plants were young; your lights were too far away and the plants stretched to the light and notice at the top of the plant how the nodes are closer together and the lower half is farther apart>? This is due to the light being too far away.

Co2 just makes the plant use energy quicker and you get explosive growths. The only thing I see wrong is possibly the pot to plant size problem.

Also strain as a lot to do with yield, not all plants produce the same. Youe plant is also much sativa and they tend to grow better in bigger areas and they need bigger pot sizes to produce. They also don't put on weight until the last 2 to 3 weeks before harvest and they take longer to harvest then other indica dominate traits.

 

[inreplyavalon]

Thanks for commenting stitch. FOr once i am in the infirmary with 'healthy' plants. I agree they look good.

The thing is i have plants in both 2 and 3.5 gallon pots. They are not even close to root bound. They were put in there pots a week before flower. They stretched extra large amounts because they were packed too tightly on the trays i believe. Each top was fighting for some light.

I have grown these strains and they are hybrids for sure. They do finish in 8-9 weeks though.

The strange thing is the two trays next to the intake are filled with plants that are about twice the size. They are about 3.4-4ft tall plants. They were destined for another space but ended up being used to fill this space. They are in 3.5 gallon pots as are half of the smaller plants. These big plants have the most full flowers on the top. The same sized flowers as most of the 30-35 day flowering plants i have grown. I was thinking it may be because they were in the best CO2 spot in the room.

Thanks for helping out Stitch i have read many of your posts and threads!

 

[inreplyavalon]

sorry forgot. they are under 600W HPS and the lights are about 12-18 inches away.

 

[Yeti]

I wouldn't jump to any conclusions quite yet. Do you know the flowering times on those ladies? It doesn't look to shabby for day 32. I would expect them to get quite a bit chubbier from this day on.

Good luck. Your mix looks likes its doing its job.

 

[MynameStitch]

were these grown from clone or seeds?

Also with the roots, the plant will grow a vast majority of it's roots in the first 2 weeks and slow down from then on.

Just added that for a tip

how far away from the light is the plants that are near the intake?

It does not matter honestly, your not using a co2 genny so the same amount of co2 is coming in there sounds like something else is possibly the cause of them, could be a lot of things that factor why they are bigger......

You got a picture of these plants that are near the intake and show the rest of the plants near those?

 

[inreplyavalon]

Thanks for the encouragement Yeti. I'll keep my fingers crossed.


Stitch, they are grown from clone, taken off doner mothers that i have had for about a year.

The plants closer to the intake are about the smae distance from their light. 12-18 inches. I think you are probably right because the plants across the aisle but adjacent to the big ums are the ones pictured and they are relatively close to the intake.

I can take photos of some of the larger ones tomorrow evening and i will, and i'll cross my fingers on you wandering back in for a lesson or two

 

[MynameStitch]

I'll be here, when ya post here I will know :O)

 

[inreplyavalon]

well i have an update and i am armed with a bit more details than last night. I have photos to explain what my words cannot.

I pulled a few of the undeveloped plants out of there shoes to see how the roots were looking. They did not look great. Minimal fuzzy roots. I then looked at the healthy plants and the roots looked nice and fuzzywhite.

I managed to take a better photo to illustrate exactly how UNdeveloped some of these girls are. Here is one. These plants dont seem to be getting any bigger in the last week. Yet they still seem perfectly healthy.

This is the top cola on a single cola plant Day 33 flower G13xDiesel

Another shot of the whole plant. This plant was directly under the 600 Watt.

I also noticed in some of the pots on the top of the coco surface were these small white fragments. They look nearly identical to Perlite except this room has never seen even a molecule of perlite, and the coco came from dried compressed bails so it was not in there to start. Here is a photo. It feels a lot like a rice crisp when i crush it in my hand.

Finally here is a photo of a healthy tray of the same strains that were veged for a few weeks longer but are also on day 33 of flower. Most of the plants are in the same 3.5 gallon containers as these.

Lastly a picture of the two trays next to each other. Most of the hurting looking plants are on this tray on the left, but there are at least twenty others scattered throughout the room.

So i do not think it has anything to do with CO2 anymore as i have been convinced that they are getting enough, and some plants look developed and chunky.
Any ideas anyone?

 

[MynameStitch]

You should take a picture of the roots that you are saying have minimal fuzzy white too, the whole thing that can stunt a plant and slow it down is it's root system like the way you are explaining, I had a plant that did the exact same damn thing yours did, healthy as can be and then one day it stopped growing and no matter what I did the damn thing would not grow a cm! It took a while, but the plant started to eat off itself using stored nutes after I quit giving it food, just for the hell of it I let this thing go 2 months and the damn thing still did not grow; now that I think about it, the roots on that plant, which a boggle gum strain that did this...... the roots did not have much fuzzy white on them either..... just a root with hardly any fuzziness too it,

I did not find out what caused it..... obviously something attacked the root system weather it be a bacteria or something I have no clue, but I hope it don't do that to your plants I would be so freaking pissed off, cause I had only 1 plant in veg and 1 plant in flowering do that; you got a nice freaking grow going there......

I forgot all about that plant too it's been so damn long that happened...... I think I may have a photo in my gallery of it too, it's a small plant and it started to look droopy after awhile, but I have seen many plants grow and then stunt and stop growing for no reason; never been able to figure that out......

For my first grow I had 2 in one pot and 1 big sativa in it's own pot.
The one pot that had the 2 one was male and I plucked it and the other was a female so I kept her in the 5 gallon size, she got around 4 1/2 weeks of flowering and just quit just like my boggle gum. She never finished out and still kept her green leaves

It's like these plants go into a state of hibernation or something.....

 

[EvilTwin]

Inreply...
The one thing that jumped out at me was the dark color of the leaves. those plants have so much stored N that you needn't feed them any N for the rest of the grow.

Just P and K and micros from now on and the buds should start developing more. Too much N in bloom delays flowering.
ET

 

[inreplyavalon]

Evil twin i agree. I was planning on cutting out the N part of my recipe this sunday after 4 weeks of bloom. I agree they could probably stand to have it done now, problem is my res is still have full. So sunday it is. Thanks for the tip.


Stitch thanks for trying to help me 'stitch'(sorry could not resist) things up.
Yeah root issues can be a strange thing. From all other appearances other than lack of growth and whats under the coco service, the plants look like a picture of health. I wish i had thought to pull the plants out of their pots sooner. Its funn y to think back on my last grow, as i had a few plants dod the same thing. Round week three in flower they just slammed on the brakes and never got any bigger. I assumed it was my fault, poor feeding or something, and so just swallowed my pride and kept plugging away.

I'll take a bunch of pictures tonight and hopefully someone can offer me some advice on whether i can do anything this late in flower, or maybe as a prevantative for next grow. I already add SM-90 to the res as a prevantitive t keep the roots healthy.

Thanks again

 

[inreplyavalon]

Well here are some pics of the roots on the plants that have stopped growing. It has been over a week since i have seen any growth and these roots don't look so hot.
Any ideas as to what could have caused this? I put SM-90 in the res to prevent bacteria issues.

The res temp tend to be a little on the cold side at times due to being on a basement floor. 50-60f.

Whad ya'll think?

 

[hazy]

roots look nice
Is there supposed to be a problem?

 

[d00rbeaker]

My first post ever but my guess would be that the cold temperatures slows growth down? I'm growing on the balcony myself with temps of 50 (fahrenheit) as lowest and the growth is slightly halted, at least from what i can see?

Good luck! The rest of your plants look great!

 

[MynameStitch]

that 2nd picture you posted is exactly how my roots looked, they got bacteria/fungus going, roots on the bottom if the holes on the bottom are not over abundance they are not supposed to be that color, they are supposed to be bright white and very fuzzy.

Now there can be some brown spots here and there, but that will be mostly found where the holes in the bottom of the pot is and the roots get too much air from the bottom and dry out slightly.....

Ya, the first picture does look like a healthy root system, but your right there is no fuzzy too it..... even root hairs growing from the main tap root, there should be some amount of fuzzy too it..... your mixture may have gotten fungus/bacteria hit it.... hopefully sm90 will clear ikt up if it ever recovers, cause once it hits it it's up to the plant to help grow again....

Ya,. eveil twin is very right about the nitrogen in flowering issue, but I think the plants are normal green color that the strain is just a little darker, because if plants had too much N they would start to show rams horn eventually, the plants leaves vigor would not be up high in the air either, they only do that when all there needs have been met..... there is also no burn like on the leaves tips or anywhere that I can see....

Nitrogen does slow down flowering a lot..... but imo I think it has more to do with the root system than anything else......

 

[ScrubNinja]

Kinda skimmed a bit, but as soon as I saw the photos of perlite, that's exactly what happened to me, except it appeared inside the coco/rootzone - I was able to view in there because I used a clear container taped over. I sincerely hope you don't have phylloxera like I did. I also had/have the crappy roots.

I would suggest going over the surface with a loupe or good magnifying glass and look for tiny mites just in case. I mean tiny. Stare at the coco surface for 10 minutes. It took me about 15 minutes of staring to see them, now I'm a master spotter. Best of luck, I mean it!

 

[EvilTwin]

inreply...
I also think you're roots look ok. There aren't a whole lot of them though. Did you, by any chance, up-pot and then go directly to 12/12? That slows flowering and root development.
ET

 

[inreplyavalon]

Sure does feel good when great minds get together and help a fellow grower out with some concerns. Much Respect to ya'll.


Stitch thanks again for sticking with me on this one. Gracious of ya. They are not the worst root system's i have seen, but compared to my healthy full flowering girls they are pathetic and clearly ill. I use H+G Roots Excellerator until week two of bloom and get LOTS of hairy White roots. It is obvious to me now that this is a root issue.

Scrubninja i just got done reading a long thread on those phylloxera. Sounds like a nightmare i may be in store for. At the start of Bloom i was seeing thousands of small bugs cruising all over my irrigation lines. They loook like tiny baby spiders and moved too quick for me to get a good look at with my magnifier. They were White though. I checked the coco and the pklants and never saw them on either. So i just let them be. Then temps dropped a lot and i thought they all died. One day they were gone. Now i am wondering if the survivors camped out in the coco and are causing mayhem. I'll need to investigate further.

Eviltwin I ended up vegging for another week in those containers. The healthy nonstunted plants have very well developed and Furry white root systems. I agree they don't look terrible, but compared to the healthy plants i can see something is not right. The plants with the root systems that look like those stopped growing about8-9 days ago as all the others around them get bigger. Weird.
I agree they need no more Nitrogen. These are 8-10 week strains and my first time using the GH flora. They are getting no more micro(which contains a good amount of N) on the next res change. I don't think the N has slowed flowering much as the healthier plants are looking voluptuous.

Not to belabor the point, but thanks for helping!

Inreply

 

[ScrubNinja]

Damn dude, that sounds just like them. If you settle that that's it, don't hit the ones in flower with imidacloprid. You have to wait 90 days after treatment to harvest. Treat newer plants in veg. It's a systemic so read up good on how it's doing what it does. I've got it largely under control now. I think the main problem people have on the epic phylloxera thread is they don't realise how a systemic works. With mine, any plants that didn't clear up after the first treatment, were the ones that were heavily affected and growing slowly, thus they weren't able to take up the required amounts of imid. I had like 20 plants and all were infested heavily (only 2 weed plants). Two remained infested and that was a light-leak-locked-up dope plant which is getting trashed soon, and a slow growing potted palm which was heavily infested and dying quicker than it was growing.

You can try dealing with it other ways, but really I think imid is the best option, it's not that toxic considering it could cure the growing equivalent of herpes. But even that is a gamble if you read the thread! Scay Beez created the thread and he's still there years later with the same problem after trying every god damn thing!! It won't wipe you out altogether, but I've been just like you guys, just casually wondering what was up with the browny roots and low yields and unexplainable plant illnesses. Now things are coming back on line

All my friends were infested with them too. Nobody would even know if icmag hadn't told me so straightforwardly, and I told them. They are kind of in denial and not even treating it as far as I'm aware - the outdoors infestations were not so heavy anyway. Anyway, I can tell you're a bit unsure at this time, and I feel bad for being a debbie downer, but you should treat it if you identify it as root aphids. Thousands of anything crawling around your pots is not good, and IMO is obviously the reason. Best of luck

Oh by the way, have you noticed ants?