Lush growth, small colas

[cpliny]

My plants have deep green unblemished leaves, huge fan leaves, very sturdy and vigorous looking. Sounds good, right? Unfortunately, it looks as if my flower colas are petering out at a very small size. The pistils are turning brown and it seems like they are shutting down. The flower bases are frosted with trichromes, pretty tightly packed, the leaves are pretty dense with trichromes, pretty resinous. BUT, not much more than 3-4" size of cola. Well more than half the pistils are brown now. I have grown in 1/gal pots, used schulzes organic indoor potting soil, using a total of about 450W spiral compact flourescent lights for about 6 square feet in my closet. I have been watering with pond water from my koi pond out back. Vegetative was mostly 6500K, and flowering more toward 2700K. Food was Peter's orchid food, 30-10-10 for vegetative, and when flowering started about 10days after going to 12/12, switched to schultz's 10-15-10. Towards the end there was some clawing of the leaves, so I stopped feeding., maybe 10 days ago. There has been no discoloration of the leaves. They are deep green. There have been a few fungus gnats, and I have been using mosquito dunkers, but the gnats have been minor. So Please can somebody tell me why my colas seem ready to harvest, but are so small? Should I not harvest and wait it out? I have fertilized the lower flowers about 5-7 days ago.Did that abort the process? . This is the setup early on.
Here is a family portrait a week or so ago.

Here is one of the flowers. A week or so later, most of the pistils are turning brown, as if they should be harvested, but no cola is more than about 4 inches long!

 

[wisco61]

I am assuming when you said

I have fertilized the lower flowers about 5-7 days ago.

you mean you applied some pollen. If not, correct me and ignore the first paragraph.


You pollinated the entire plant, thats why the pistils are shriveling. It only takes one speck of pollen, and it sticks around. You never said how far along in flower you are, but I'd guess 3-4 weeks looking at the pics. So 4 more weeks and you will have a whole shit ton of seeds.

They also aren't going to get much bigger, and your light is the problem there. Such a small percentage of your light is actually hitting the plants, you would be better off with shop lights I think. Those CFLs are wasting 90% of their lumens hanging vertically like that with no reflectors and above the plants. If you want to keep using them you either need to get reflectors or hang them down in amongst the plants so light coming off the spirals is hitting plant matter. Though you would get such better yields switching to a 400w HPS, or even a 250w.

Sorry, probably not what you wanted to hear.

 

[Puddin'tane]

CFL will never put out what an HID light does imo.

 

[jburns]

the bud pic looks like it needs another month easy. considering your setup i think its a combo of not enough light and poor yielding strains.

 

[cpliny]

Lush growth

Lush growth

If the lighting is so poor, why the lush vegetation? What is the best way to pollinate for your seed bank? I pollinated the lowest flowers, but I was already worried about whether they were shutting down.
I suppose the quality is the seeds might be poor, but the last batch, which I think suffered from underfeeding and severe fungus gnat infestation, yielded enough for my wife and I for the last 6 months!
Last batch, same lighting as this time





Underfertilized?

 

[cpliny]

Obtaining better seed strains

Obtaining better seed strains

Is there any way to safely get good seeds in NY state?

 

[wisco61]

The lush vegetation is because you are feeding them enough. Nitrogen makes for the green, light makes for the growth. Usually my greenest plants are the ones chilling in a corner somewhere. They aren't using any of their stored nutes to grow since they aren't getting much light, so they stay nice and green. As far as pollinating, there are a few thread on here about that. But it involves a paintbrush, no air movement, and liberal water misting to kill any excess pollen.

The second pic looks like a combo of overwatering, late flower yellowing, and a rough childhood. But, it will finish fine and has 1-2 weeks left I'd wager.

As far as getting seeds safely its all relative. This site is owned and sponsored by seedbay.com and seedbotique.com They ship as discreetly as they can, and the vast majority make it through customs fine. There is always a risk, but you are already growing, you understand that.

They have 100s of amazing strains availabe, $20-$200 for 10 seeds.