Blackberry Kush - not sick but weird flowers

[overmyhead]

Hello, I'm not sure how to approach this because I am completely stumped. My plants looked very healthy the whole grow with the exception of some small rust colored spots on some of the lower leaves at about 5-6 weeks 12/12. But the flowers turned out really strange. At first I thought it was because my light (600w digi)was dimmed to 50% for a couple weeks. So, I was willing to accept that and move on, but, I've got some more that are 5 weeks in and have been under 600 the whole time and they've got the same thing going on. Here's a rundown:
Strain: Blackberry Kush, I know it's not genetics b/c I yielded 1+ per straight from rooted clones in perlite / vermiculite mix jrosek style with floronova and no supplements other than a couple foliars of sonic bloom.

Medium: straight atami coco, this is my first time flowering with coco and I decided to use straight because well, I'm lazy and was really trying to avoid mixing anything and I plan to just put the used coco on the lawn and really didn't wante to have perlite in my yard and it seems like plenty of people do it but from now on I'll add the chips to the mix in case this was the problem. They are in 24x36x8 masonry tubs with "better than rocks" at the bottom for drainage.

Food: peters professional hydroponic formula at about 3grams/gallon plus about 1.5 grams of calcium nitrate and drip clean. Drip fed through Tropf Blumats. Basically, they are set to keep the medium moist and I had no runoff but again there were no apparent deficiencies or over feeding. Leaves were nice and green to the end.

Light: 600 watt hps (sunmaster) with lgm 5 led bars around the edges. Oddly enough, the plants under the leds look a little more normal - I attributed this at first to the hps being dimmed but this seems to be the case in the new batch as well so I think that this must be a combination of the light (or heat from it) and some other factor.

Environment: This is where I'm fuzzy, and it might be my biggest problem. Because of all the wet coco the humidity in the tent is pretty high, the only hygrometer I have in there is right on the coco and it stays around 70%, the outside room is 50-55% but in past grows in the same tent I've run high rh and been able to avoid mold by haveing lots of air movement and I don't have to deal with the heat from the dehumidifier. Here's the next thing, the canopy temps stay around 80-85 and CO2 is at 1200 but the injector almost never comes on so maybe the sensor's not calibrated right but again, the other grow had no co2 and no one was ever home, this time there's almost always people around and I'm in the room a lot reading and what not.

So, without further adieu, here are some pics, and I'll open it up to discussion. The buds are covered with resin, huge swolen calyxes with an amazing taste and they burn super clean. Almost too clean considering there was no flush. Maybe the problem is that they were hungry but they sure didn't show it. I was really hoping to set up a system where I could constantly be rotating babies into the system and feeding them off the same rez. Oh well, back to the drawing board I guess. The one that is really thin is dried out, that's what I smoked. The really funky looking thing was coming out of the top of a plant that was right under the light. In this thread, post 281 I believe https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=111046&page=44 you can see the whole setup as well as shots of these girls right after I caught the dimmed light. ANother note, some of the tops did purple up a little which I attributed to phosphorous lockout from being too close to the lights, I guess that's possibly my problem but the others I mentioned were right up to the lights too so maybe that's not the problem???? I really want to keep trying this system b/c of all the thought and work I put into it but . . . I guess my first step should be to switch this res to floronova for now.

 

[MrBlue2]

whats your PH? if you dont know you should definitely find out. When your PH gets out of control it can lock out nutrients.

it could be a could be a magnesium deficiency

another possibility because it happend twice at the five weeks into flowering, and your on a drip system with no run off. it could be excess nutrient salts building up in the coco causing a nutrient lock. did you flush at all during flowering to clean out the salt build up? i saw that you use drip clean, please keep in mind that products like drip clean cant work if there is no run off from your pots.

also, that blackberry kush doesn't look at all like the blackberry kush i was growing about a year ago. My blackberry kush's buds were very round and dense, it not produce very well, and finished in 45-50 days, and it was so frosty it looked silver. your buds look very calixy and more sativa like. theres a chance its just a different pheno, but it could also be strait blackberry not blackberry kush.

hope that helps

 

[overmyhead]

whats your PH? if you dont know you should definitely find out. When your PH gets out of control it can lock out nutrients.

it could be a could be a magnesium deficiency

another possibility because it happend twice at the five weeks into flowering, and your on a drip system with no run off. it could be excess nutrient salts building up in the coco causing a nutrient lock. did you flush at all during flowering to clean out the salt build up? i saw that you use drip clean, please keep in mind that products like drip clean cant work if there is no run off from your pots.

also, that blackberry kush doesn't look at all like the blackberry kush i was growing about a year ago. My blackberry kush's buds were very round and dense, it not produce very well, and finished in 45-50 days, and it was so frosty it looked silver. your buds look very calixy and more sativa like. theres a chance its just a different pheno, but it could also be strait blackberry not blackberry kush.

hope that helps

My ph is always between 5.5-6 and no runoff but I am using a light nutrient regime - never over 800ppm and there were no major signs of burn, very slightly brown tips on some leaves. Also, there are others using drip clean with no runoff with great success (krunchbubble.)

I know that this pheno is good, it's clone only and like I said I've grown it before in different setups and yielded great (avg 30g per in perlite with a tiny bit of vermiculite.) Has anyone else seen this odd phenomenon with BBK? I accidentally put a cut from another strain in the second batch and while the bbk's around it are shoing the same crazy developement, it looks ;much like I remember it at this stage in the perlite system. I guess, I just need to try that system in this environment and play around with the coco on a smaller scale so I can eliminate potential causes. Although, for my sanity's sake, depending on how the next few weeks shake down, switch to a straight pro mix and osmocote plus setup with just straight water in the drippers - I am helping care for a friend/patient and we put bbk in 1 gal smart pots (same mother as mine) with nothing but that, straight from 9 oz cups into flower and they seem to be rockin along without any issues, seem to have solid bud development under just a 400w hps.

 

[BlueberryLovr]

In my very first grow, temps and humidity were too high at one point(80-87F) and my Blueberries made the stacked calyx bud structure. In all grows after that, I kept temps a lot lower and the same plants(clones) gave me completely different bud structures. Denser, shorter, fatter, and less stacked appearance.

Then again I see you are running CO2, which I never had the luxury of using. Now I know plants would like higher temps of CO2, but perhaps you're really pushing it. Are you keeping your temperature probe at the very top of the canopy for a long enough time? I ask this because quick reads (sticking probe in only briefly) can give inaccurate readings. I thought my temps were only 83F, but after having the probe on top of the canopy for awhile, it slowly climbed to high 80s in 0.1 increments. The probe was not made of insulating material, btw.

 

[overmyhead]

Could very well be, I was really trying to cut down on the ac usage and figured that the co2 would be a good safety check, like I said it hardly ever comes on but there is natural co2 from us and heavy traffic nearby.

I bet you're right, the temp near where the tops of the plants are, just to the side of the light is 89, and that's with a cooler ambient temp. Okay, so now I know I need to keep the ambient temp olower and maber up the intake inte the tent, right now there's 440 pulling out through a filter, a seperate run pulling screened outside air through the lights, and the only intake is the flaps in the tent. Oh shit, I just realized something else, the intakes are all below the tub line and the tubs pretty much cover the whole footprint of the tent, that probably really screws with the air flow. Maybe I need to get some more air flowing on the canopy to move that cool air up, and maybe a little 4" fan and some ducting to move air from underneath to the top! I think that would make a world of difference actually. Sorry for the rambling but I made some promises to make some rick simpson oil and I might not have enough now = dissappointed in myself!

 

[overmyhead]

Now for the next step, you see the buds in the pic, they look super done but when I found the microscope the trics are about 80% cloudy, 17%half cloudy half clear and 3% (maybe less) amber. Usually when the hairs turn orange this at 85% cloudy and 15% amber. Should I let it keep going and just trim off the new fox tails? Thanks and I'm glad I think I've got this sorted out!

 

[overmyhead]

Well, I'm almost positive you're right on with the heat. The false floor being created by the tubs is holding lots of cool air below. When you stick your hand under there it's like a whole different world. SO, Just one more "fix" to come up with if I want to keep this set up running. I'm gonna get that fan tomorrow, hopefully the ones who have only been in a couple weeks will be ok. Do you think the heat could've contributed to the extra stretch?

 

[overmyhead]

Now for the next step, you see the buds in the pic, they look super done but when I found the microscope the trics are about 80% cloudy, 17%half cloudy half clear and 3% (maybe less) amber. Usually when the hairs turn orange this at 85% cloudy and 15% amber. Should I let it keep going and just trim off the new fox tails? Thanks and I'm glad I think I've got this sorted out!

I think I'm talking to myself but fyi, i tested some taken at about 55 days clooudy with some clear and it's amaaazing but on the downside almost a sativa type buzz, I'm going to let the rest keep on for a week or so! I think I'll still get 7 per stem (on the very very conservative side but could be a lot more) so that should be 224 not exactly high yield but I think the resin weight is a lot of it because there arent a lot of layers without resin maybe? and the leaf is pretty sugaree too, so hopefully it'll yield a good amount of oil.

So far, I built a pvc "skirt" that sits on the tubs and holds the shape of the tent so that the sides arent sucked in to the tubs. Hopefully that'll make a big difference, I can't do anything about lowering the tubs until they are done and even still it would be one by one. I think the big thing is that they are just too high to the top of the tent.

 

[RedReign]

With all those single bladed leaves in the 2nd pic, it looks like she was starting to autoflower before you flipped her, or she was revegging on you.

 

[overmyhead]

With all those single bladed leaves in the 2nd pic, it looks like she was starting to autoflower before you flipped her, or she was revegging on you.

Anything's possible but my guess is it has somethign to do with heat because that only happend to a couple that were right up to the light. I didn't think anything of it because I've always had them get close but because of the false floor blocking the airflow it was just a lot hotter than it's been before when I had everything sitting on the floor. Thanks.

 

[puff adder]

I agree. Seen this many times. Plants got confused, don't know whether to veg or flower and grow JUST like that.

I have had "Cousin It" plants, big hairy one bladed leaf plants all covered in resin, but no nugs. Others that weren't as confused looked just like your pics.

Do you have light leaks? Photoperiod is ULTRA important. Some strains freak out easily when their dark period is messed with.

With all those single bladed leaves in the 2nd pic, it looks like she was starting to autoflower before you flipped her, or she was revegging on you.

 

[overmyhead]

no light leaks, grown same strain in same tent once before no probs, the new set up cutt off the intake and raised the cannopy in height, I didnt tak that into consideration and didn't check temps, apparently they were hovering in the high 90's at the canopy but then dropping to low 70's lights out. It was / is a heat issue - the crazy growth, not sure.

I agree. Seen this many times. Plants got confused, don't know whether to veg or flower and grow JUST like that.

I have had "Cousin It" plants, big hairy one bladed leaf plants all covered in resin, but no nugs. Others that weren't as confused looked just like your pics.

Do you have light leaks? Photoperiod is ULTRA important. Some strains freak out easily when their dark period is messed with.

 

[BlueberryLovr]

Some strains just pop single blades in flower. The LA Woman I grew went from 1(seedling), 3(veg), 5(veg), 3(flower), 1(flower). Happened both indoor and outdoor when I grew the same cut. I remember a few informative threads on icmag addressing this...just gotta dig around for them though.