Wanna Ask The Old Farts A Question?

[HempKat]

Hey everyone, so i need some advice. I have 2 plants 56 days into flowering right now. In the last week or so the last one has started to hermie and is getting bananas and ball like things all over the place. The strain is TW x Herijana, and should be like a 65-75 day flowering strain. Should I start flushing now and chop her down in a week? Or should I just flush for a day or 2 and chop her down? I don't want to risk pollinating my other plant...

Here is the link to my grow thread if you want to see some pics or get more background info: http://icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=136839

Peace,
Medichron

Well it kind of all depends on how important that smoke is to you? It sounds like you have just the two plants and so based on that I would assume you're growing for yourself rather then to sell. If you're not selling then the presence of seeds is less important. I know people talk about how having seeds lessens the harvest and quality of the smoke because they feel that the energy used to make the seeds would have made more bud had the seeds not been there. This is true to some degree but on a two plant grow it's not really going to change your yield that much.

Now if it's got 2 to 3 weeks to go yet to cut it down now is definately going to hurt your yield also, probably as much if not more then having seeds would but in addition it's going to mean what you yield from that plant won't be ripe and therefore a full 50% of your yield will be inferior and not get you as high as it should. Another thing to consider is that once a plant is pollenated the seeds don't pop up overnight, they take a couple of weeks to form and another week or so to fully rippen. So it sounds like you'll make harvest before any seeds are made or at least before they're fully formed.

If I were you I wouldn't try to pull the one plant early but rather see if I could somehow lessen the risk of one pollenating the other by putting some sort of divider between them. If I couldn't do that I'd just let them go and not worry about it. Seeds are annoying because it's an extra thing to deal with when cleaning you buds to smoke but it's not that big of a deal. Really where it matters most is when you're selling it because then you got questions of bag appeal and in this day and age no seeds means you can get more money for it. Plus lots of people have become spoiled by growers who grow without seeds. Back in the day when you bought weed you expected there to be some seeds.

Another issue would be with regards to breeding but it doesn't sound like that applies here or else you wouldn't be considering chopping early. If you were growing for breeding though and the plant the seeds came from was the result of hermies then you'd be passing that trait on in the seeds.

Which brings me to my final point. If the plants are from the same strain and one hermied then the other plant likely has the hermie trait as well. If they both have the trait then the other one may already have hermie growths that you just haven't seen yet. Often times they form in parts of the buds where they can't be seen. So in your case you could end up harvesting the one plant only to discover the other one already has hermies too.

All in all, based on your situation, if it were me and since it's likely just personal stash I'd just let them go and do what you can to minimize the risk of one pollenating the other.

 

[Stevius]

Hey Old Farts!

So... we have been arguing yesterday with my friend about industrial cannabis.

As I understand industrial cannabis or hemp is grown mainly for its fibre, right?
He stated that he saw and even smoked industrial cannabis.
That did not made any sense to me, since industrial cannabis is grown for its fibre and it is not intended to produce flowers.... or am I wrong?

He also stated that he saw some of these plants and he said that it had huge buds, very sticky and smelly but when you were smoking it you would not get high. They were rolling 5 grams spliffs and they couldn't get high.

Now that confuses me a bit. If the plant is sticky... what else can it make her sticky except trichomes. So... if trichomes were there, giving that "sticky feeling" of buds... what kind of cannabinoids were produced? I know the synthesis: CBG > CBC/CBD > THC and eventualy THC > CBN (degradation product)...

But I cannot explain myself how could buds be sticky and with all terpenoids inside giving the full visual appeal of a real weed... and would not get you high. What the fuck is in the trichomes then?
And first of all.... is it really industrial hemp producing buds? Cause I see no use in it.

In what way you could use flowers of cannabis in industrial production? Oils....? Bio-fuel???


Please enlight me with this industrial stuff...!


Much respect to you all!!!

 

[medichron]

Well it kind of all depends on how important that smoke is to you? It sounds like you have just the two plants and so based on that I would assume you're growing for yourself rather then to sell. If you're not selling then the presence of seeds is less important. I know people talk about how having seeds lessens the harvest and quality of the smoke because they feel that the energy used to make the seeds would have made more bud had the seeds not been there. This is true to some degree but on a two plant grow it's not really going to change your yield that much.

Now if it's got 2 to 3 weeks to go yet to cut it down now is definately going to hurt your yield also, probably as much if not more then having seeds would but in addition it's going to mean what you yield from that plant won't be ripe and therefore a full 50% of your yield will be inferior and not get you as high as it should. Another thing to consider is that once a plant is pollenated the seeds don't pop up overnight, they take a couple of weeks to form and another week or so to fully rippen. So it sounds like you'll make harvest before any seeds are made or at least before they're fully formed.

If I were you I wouldn't try to pull the one plant early but rather see if I could somehow lessen the risk of one pollenating the other by putting some sort of divider between them. If I couldn't do that I'd just let them go and not worry about it. Seeds are annoying because it's an extra thing to deal with when cleaning you buds to smoke but it's not that big of a deal. Really where it matters most is when you're selling it because then you got questions of bag appeal and in this day and age no seeds means you can get more money for it. Plus lots of people have become spoiled by growers who grow without seeds. Back in the day when you bought weed you expected there to be some seeds.

Another issue would be with regards to breeding but it doesn't sound like that applies here or else you wouldn't be considering chopping early. If you were growing for breeding though and the plant the seeds came from was the result of hermies then you'd be passing that trait on in the seeds.

Which brings me to my final point. If the plants are from the same strain and one hermied then the other plant likely has the hermie trait as well. If they both have the trait then the other one may already have hermie growths that you just haven't seen yet. Often times they form in parts of the buds where they can't be seen. So in your case you could end up harvesting the one plant only to discover the other one already has hermies too.

All in all, based on your situation, if it were me and since it's likely just personal stash I'd just let them go and do what you can to minimize the risk of one pollenating the other.

Wow HempKat thanks for the detailed response, Just to let you know the 2 plants are different strains. The one that is not affected is looking amazingly good, and i've inspected it thoroughly to make sure there are no nanners. I gave the hermie plant a good flush last night, and will propbably be cutting in the next few days only because i can see it herming worse and worse every day. I'm afraid that my plant is going to be half hermie growth, that I'd rather not smoke. And also, I am growing legally for medical purposes, so the harvest is just for me to enjoy. I let u guys know how it works out, and once again, thanks for the advice.

Peace,
Medichron

 

[HempKat]

Hey Old Farts!

So... we have been arguing yesterday with my friend about industrial cannabis.

As I understand industrial cannabis or hemp is grown mainly for its fibre, right?
He stated that he saw and even smoked industrial cannabis.
That did not made any sense to me, since industrial cannabis is grown for its fibre and it is not intended to produce flowers.... or am I wrong?

He also stated that he saw some of these plants and he said that it had huge buds, very sticky and smelly but when you were smoking it you would not get high. They were rolling 5 grams spliffs and they couldn't get high.

Now that confuses me a bit. If the plant is sticky... what else can it make her sticky except trichomes. So... if trichomes were there, giving that "sticky feeling" of buds... what kind of cannabinoids were produced? I know the synthesis: CBG > CBC/CBD > THC and eventualy THC > CBN (degradation product)...

But I cannot explain myself how could buds be sticky and with all terpenoids inside giving the full visual appeal of a real weed... and would not get you high. What the fuck is in the trichomes then?
And first of all.... is it really industrial hemp producing buds? Cause I see no use in it.

In what way you could use flowers of cannabis in industrial production? Oils....? Bio-fuel???


Please enlight me with this industrial stuff...!


Much respect to you all!!!

I don't know much about Industrial marijuana just that it's known for having almost no THC. I also know that just because a plant is resinous and/or has lots of trichomes it doesn't mean it will get you high. THC is only part of what's in the resin it's not the only thing though.

Anyway here's a link to a site that explains more about Industrial Marijuana.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/91602/differences_between_industrial_hemp.html?cat=32

 

[HempKat]

Wow HempKat thanks for the detailed response, Just to let you know the 2 plants are different strains. The one that is not affected is looking amazingly good, and i've inspected it thoroughly to make sure there are no nanners. I gave the hermie plant a good flush last night, and will propbably be cutting in the next few days only because i can see it herming worse and worse every day. I'm afraid that my plant is going to be half hermie growth, that I'd rather not smoke. And also, I am growing legally for medical purposes, so the harvest is just for me to enjoy. I let u guys know how it works out, and once again, thanks for the advice.

Peace,
Medichron

One thing I didn't mention although you may know this already, hermies don't generally just happen for no reason, they typically need to be triggered by stress. So you should try to figure out what stressed the one plant into going hermie to make sure it's not still going on and therefore might still stress your other plants. The most common thing to trigger the hermie response is light leaks although other types of stress can do it too.

 

[noproblempablo]

I'm back and I'm not torturing my babies. Not as much anyway.

I'm back and I'm not torturing my babies. Not as much anyway.

Greetings Hempkat and all, hope things are well. It's been a couple months since my last grow when I was having PH issues. I figured it out and got it down pretty good and ended up with a lame, though much better, yield than I had seen in my previous grows. I have been phing my nutes and water and things are going pretty well but now I am running into another problem. I am pretty sure from looking at the guides that this is an iron deficiency brought on by lockout. The ph chart I have been using makes me think that my near 8ph runoff is the problem. I ph'd my nutes to just under 7 using Earth Juices natural PH up but have since seen some posts elsewhere that say it is not very stable and after sitting for a day often jumps a full ph, which is basically what happened to me. I measured the nutes, sent them through, all seemed good, then when I checked the runoff a second time the next day it was reading a point higher. I have attached some pics and would love a second opinion. I think I may have freaked it out a bit by over doing the first feeding too. Should I flush these out with 6.0-6.5 water? Thanks again guys!

 

[haus]

curing

curing

there are so many ways people flush and cure and it seems the answer to every question is " well it depends on the time and the breed and the this and the that and a million other things" is there one basic guide to curing my plants and keeping that super pungent taste and smell that seems either to go away after time or never be there in some cases? I'm afraid of screwing up months of hard work. thanks for any help

 

[HempKat]

Greetings Hempkat and all, hope things are well. It's been a couple months since my last grow when I was having PH issues. I figured it out and got it down pretty good and ended up with a lame, though much better, yield than I had seen in my previous grows. I have been phing my nutes and water and things are going pretty well but now I am running into another problem. I am pretty sure from looking at the guides that this is an iron deficiency brought on by lockout. The ph chart I have been using makes me think that my near 8ph runoff is the problem. I ph'd my nutes to just under 7 using Earth Juices natural PH up but have since seen some posts elsewhere that say it is not very stable and after sitting for a day often jumps a full ph, which is basically what happened to me. I measured the nutes, sent them through, all seemed good, then when I checked the runoff a second time the next day it was reading a point higher. I have attached some pics and would love a second opinion. I think I may have freaked it out a bit by over doing the first feeding too. Should I flush these out with 6.0-6.5 water? Thanks again guys!

Well first off whenever you become convinced you have a ph imbalance causing nutrient lockout the fix is almost always going to be to flush.

Now in your description you say you ph adjusted your nutes to just under 7 which I would take to be like 6.7, 6.8 or 6.9. A ph of 6.8 is the high end of what's considered acceptable. So to ph things to the highest point of acceptable isn't giving you much room and just a slight increase in ph can put you in a nutrient lockout situation. That's why I keep saying shoot for 6.5, that's in the middle of the acceptable range for soil (6.3 to 6.8) and gives you a little more room for things to swing a little high or low before it causes problems. ACtually in your case, since you always seem to be running into high ph situations you might even want to be shooting for 6.4 or 6.3 to give you even more room for the ph to swing higher over time.

Now another thing you mention is measuring your runoff a day later, this confuses me because if it's runoff it's out of the pot and therefore not effecting the plant. The only way it could be a factor is if you're letting the plants sit in the runoff. If so then yeah, as the soil dries it'll wick that runoff back into the pot and if the ph has risen then yeah you'll have problems. This shouldn't be happening though. If your plants are sitting in runoff until it gets sucked back in then the bottom of your plant's soil is staying wet and the roots there very likely are not getting much if any oxygen and this can cause a condition called root rot which will also interfere with nutrient uptake but in a more serious way and flushing won't fix it if your plants are being allowed to just sit in runoff until it dries out. Runoff should be disposed of not long after the watering. If the water just goes right thru the soil quickly you might let them sit in it for about 30 minutes after watering so it can be sucked back into the soil but then the runoff should be removed.

Finally you mentioned something about over doing the first feeding. Over doing a feeding won't have much of an impact if all the excess nutrients are locked out. They shouldn't be locked out though if the ph was adjusted to an acceptable level, if they were though then you would be seeing signs of nutrient burn rather then nutrient deficiency. If it is nutrient lockout from a ph imbalance then the excess nutrients shouldn't be adding to the problem unless you don't flush.

In looking at the pics I'm not so certain what you're seeing is an iron deficiency, what have temps been like in your grow area? If your temps have been running too low then it can cause a yellowing that is very similar to what you're seeing. Especially with sativas that are more from equatorial regions because they are almost never exposed to cold and don't seem to have the genetic ability to cope with below normal temps. Strains originating from more temperate regions are more likely to be able to handle cooler then normal conditions because they're exposed to it more in nature and therefore are likely to have evolved genetically to cope with it better.

 

[HempKat]

there are so many ways people flush and cure and it seems the answer to every question is " well it depends on the time and the breed and the this and the that and a million other things" is there one basic guide to curing my plants and keeping that super pungent taste and smell that seems either to go away after time or never be there in some cases? I'm afraid of screwing up months of hard work. thanks for any help

Well flushing and curing is more a matter of what each grower feels comfortable with since some methods are more involved then others or better suited to certain conditions then others. That's why you hear so often things like, "it depends on this..." or "it depends on that..." What's going to affect potency and aroma down the road though is how well you store things.

Marijuana is not really meant to be left sitting around for months and months or years. Given enough time, even under the best conditions, marijuana will lose potency and smell. However if you store it in an air tight container and keep those containers in a cool, dark, place then it should stay good for a fairly long time (several years). Now even if you do everything right and you store things right you'll never be able to keep fully the aroma you get from a fully ripened plant just before harvest. Like fruits and vegtables there's a certain amount of loss of it's essence from the point of harvest to the point of storage.

Now as far as what I do, I prefer to dry my buds by hanging them in a dark place with good air circulation and I try to keep the humidity in that place at around 50 to 60% to keep things from drying too quickly. Ideally it should take about 1 to 2 weeks to dry. I judge dryness by testing the stems. If when you bend it the stem snaps, then it's dry. Then I cut the buds from the stalks they were hanging on and place the buds in mason jars for the curing process. For the first week or two in the jars I open the jars for about 10-15 minutes every day. Then after that for the next week or two I open them up every couple of days for 5 to 10 minutes. After that up until two months I open them once a week for 5 minutes. After 2 months I consider them to be fully cured and I store the buds for use. IF I plan on them being in storage for a long time (several months) then I will usually put them in vaccuum sealed packages and store those packages in a refrigerator. If I plan on using them right away then I just leave them in the mason jars and store those jars in a cool dark space but not necessarily refrigerated.

 

[tinman]

need help in sorting males....

need help in sorting males....

up til now i have grown nothing but clones so male plants were not an issue but now i want to start to grow from seeds. is there a thread or site with pics that would teach me what to look for to seperate the males from females?.....regards,tinman

 

[Weezard]

2k words. 2 cents ea.

2k words. 2 cents ea.

up til now i have grown nothing but clones so male plants were not an issue but now i want to start to grow from seeds. is there a thread or site with pics that would teach me what to look for to seperate the males from females?.....regards,tinman

This might help;



This one's a boy



Aloha,
Weezard

 

[whatissixbynine]

weezard, i'm scared to death of bugs and males, its why i dont grow from seed, or brew teas [besides needing another filter for the brew room heh]

How about how to spot them early on?

[added]
yes i'm looking at that first one too, i'm gonna look at one of the girls been vegging a bit, maybe i'm just being dense

so this girl has been vegging [in my tent] for 3 months almost, each area i looked at seemed to have a horn and hair, that just on some ended up horn turning into leaf or something. Am i being blind?

 

[Lord Doobie]

whatissixbynine, why don't you fem your seeds and kick back like the rest of us?
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=60610

 

[Weezard]

It helps to be lucky

It helps to be lucky

How about how to spot them early on?

OK.

Generally, the males grow faster and taller than the females as seedlings.
And, possibly because of the faster growth, they tend to be a lighter shade of green, have longer internode distance, and consequently fewer leaves.

I have noted that the males tend to cluster at the windward edge of wild patches. I figure its a survival trait as the pollen falls downwind.

So, for a better F:M ratio, protect your seedlings from strong drafts and too much light for the first two weeks.
Might help, can't swear to it.

Aloha,
Weezard

 

[tinman]

great info,weez,thanx.............regards,tinman

 

[Noobian]

How old do you have to be to qualify as an "old fart" I'm in my early 30's and I feel like an old fart sometimes when I look at the way these kids in the next generations are coming up

 

[Gold123]

How old do you have to be to qualify as an "old fart" I'm in my early 30's and I feel like an old fart sometimes when I look at the way these kids in the next generations are coming up

I you feel like one I guess you are

 

[HempKat]

How old do you have to be to qualify as an "old fart" I'm in my early 30's and I feel like an old fart sometimes when I look at the way these kids in the next generations are coming up

Technically you're supposed to be above 40 because of the origin of the name Old Fart as it's used in these forums. It started back on Overgrow. There were a number of older folks there who wanted a sub forum where they could communicate and not have to deal with a bunch of younger folks acting as younger folks do. So a sub forum was created and called the "Over Forty Forum" or "OF Forum" for short. Then one day someone was joking around and joked that OF stood for "Old Farts". Well Old Farts tend to have a fair sense of humor and the name stuck.

Now when this help thread concept was first started back in those days the idea was to get a bunch of these experienced older growers to post basic, simple, advice in a not too technical way so as to be easier to digest by new growers. So back then to qualify as an Old Fart you had to be over 40. Then it became clear that this cut out alot of people who had extensive experience but just didn't happen to be over 40 yet. So the help thread segment of the Old Farts community was expanded to include people who were over 40 and/or with over 10 years growing experience.

 

[HempKat]

On the subject of growing from seed and males there's really not much new info I can add.

It was said by someone that males scare them. There's no reason to be scared of males. If it weren't for males we wouldn't be sitting here today discussing how to grow marijuana because seeds wouldn't exist and therefore this site wouldn't exist and we wouldn't enjoy the hobby we all share.

Now a healthy respect for the potency of males I can understand, potency in the terms of pollination, not smoke. The thing to keep in mind is that if you know how to identify the sexes you can spot a male well before it's able to drop pollen. The idea of trying to tell the sex even before it's revealled is what scares me, because there is no sure fire way to tell 100% for sure. The things weezard has mentioned, the height, leaf color, rate of growth, etc are clues that can suggest a plant is likely to be one sex or another but these things don't always hold up for all plants. Like whatissixbynine was saying, they had a hook like growth that ended up just growing into leaves. Now a hook like growth is what a female pre-flower looks like before the two hairs pop out of it. So a female pre-flower can look like a hook like growth but not all hook like growths are female pre-flowers. You really need to wait until you see the hairs. What whatissixbynine saw as a hair wasn't a hair but rather something that forms at all nodes of either sex of marijuana plants. I'm not sure what function this growth serves other then to fool newer growers. The point I'm trying to make here is patience is the key, rather then try to hurry things up and possibly risk throwing out a female you mistook for a male. Or worse yet, keep a male you mistook for a female only to have it pollinate all your other females. It's best to be patient and wait for these things to be revealled for sure and then work from there.

So like if I'm going to grow from seed, I'm not going to sprout those seeds just a few weeks before I want to start flowering. I'm going to start them several months before, so I can sex the plants and be certain of what I'm working with and then take clones of the ones I want and grow those to harvest.

 

[Green Smoke]

How old do you have to be to qualify as an "old fart" I'm in my early 30's and I feel like an old fart sometimes when I look at the way these kids in the next generations are coming up

When you were young did you have fun by pushing a hoop with a stick? If not then you're not an old fart......