Final stages, some cola's seem stunted or stopped

Hi All,

Details:
Super soil grow, 60 days veg, going on day 64 of flower, 600W HPS, all organic. I feed with a "flower" tea using 1 part N guano, 2 parts P guano, ewc, 1tbps molasses at full strength every 3rd watering or so.. I've also got a bottle of big bloom I've used a few times as well, but i prefer the teas. The smaller plants all look *much* farther along than these big girls do despite the same veg teas, flower teas, and soil..

Looking for some sage advice from the old hats around.. Day 64 of flower and I've been noticing the main cola really hasn't been doing much compared to the rest for the last week or so. Most of the fan leaves have dropped leaving mainly bud leaves, and I may have let it get a little *too* dry the other day while trying to combat a fungus gnat problem. Long story short, of the two cola's below you'll notice one is still kicking out pistils, looks plumper, and still has big trichs forming and sugar leaves are getting more so by the day. The other cola appears to have stopped. No new pistils for some time, no sugar developing on the leaves, and most of the fan leaves, and quite a few bud leaves as well are/have died and fallen off..

I suspected I had a soil compaction/drying issue recently and it turns out I did. The majority of the root bottom (maybe bottom 2-3") was getting wet, and staying so. The mid and upper layers were *not* absorbing water, but rather it was running off the sides down to the bottom and failing to adequately soak back into the upper soil layers.. I know this because I had a finger down past the second knuckle and it was bone dry, but the bottom drain holes were still saturated and lifting the root ball out of the pot shows a sopping wet base.This of course lead to a dual scenario where some roots were drowning and always saturated, while others dried up and presumably caused the plant to show "wilt" in the bottom leaves. Brought everyone outside for a thorough and extensive soaking to make sure *everything* got wet. Going on day 3 of no water, and the pot is *still* pretty well saturated. Makes me wonder how long that went on..

So.. Is something actually wrong, or has the plant simply decided that cola's done and some others need the remaining energy? I'm also not seeing the last swell I've been expecting to start for a week or so now.. Could I just have 5-10 more days to wait?

The big cola that seems to have stopped developing..


Another primary still going strong


The whole bush .. you'll notice most of the fan leaves have fallen off leaving primarily bud leaves.. I think that was from a dry-out that they never fully recovered from..


One of the little ones for reference.. Notice the overall greater development of calyx's and trichs compared to the large cola in the first pic, or even the second one..

Day 64 of flower...so you're just starting week 10. The plants must be nearing the end, or even reached it. Have you reached 70% opaque on your trichomes? I think the plants are done growing, at least that's my best guess.

What are you expecting for a flower time in days? Is it a pure sativa, which could flower up to 80 days or more? What strain are you growing?

If you've already flushed for a week, then you could start harvest the buds that are done. There's no law that says you have to harvest the whole thing at once.

Dipsomaniac420 said:

Day 64 of flower...so you're just starting week 10. The plants must be nearing the end, or even reached it. Have you reached 70% opaque on your trichomes? I think the plants are done growing, at least that's my best guess.

What are you expecting for a flower time in days? Is it a pure sativa, which could flower up to 80 days or more? What strain are you growing?

If you've already flushed for a week, then you could start harvest the buds that are done. There's no law that says you have to harvest the whole thing at once.

Click to expand...

I'm seeing a mix depending on where I look from, but I'd say a 50/50 mix of clear cloudy, with just a few ambers starting to poke through. This one in particular is an indica dom pheno of unknown origin. Her sister is a sativa dom who's basically lived as a twin but appears to be still moving through it's calyx development stages, kicking out pistils, and getting plumper/more sugary by the day. I was expecting to go at least 8 weeks on the Indica, I'm determined not to take her too early! Now @ 10 weeks i'm still second guessing whether I should cut or not.

Hopefully the two pics below give a better example.. The main cola while quite large and thick, roughly the size of a pop can, but doesn't really look "finished" like you would expect, sort of lumpy and swollen looking. It's a rock hard nugget w/o pistils or extensive trich development. The lower tops on the second and 3rd rung down all have that traditional centerfold high-times esque look - sugary, healthy leaves, pistils, almost wet looking, etc..

Main:

Secondary:

After a thorough saturating soak w/ some fresh pond water, everyone appears to have restarted! New pistils, new growth, new sugar, leaves look happier..

Any suggestions on how to prevent dry spots in the soil? Any good organic friendly surfactants out there? A master gardener friend of mine swears by dawn soap, but I'd be concerned about doing damage to the micro-beasties roaming the pot though.. Though I suppose sitting in a dry pocket of soil for who knows how long is probably worse on them than dawn could be..