Jack's 321 Gorilla Glue #4 bud shots. Need opinions. Day 54 flower

jonnynobody

Well-Known Member
I've got 4 gg#4 clones I'm flowering in 5 gallon coco hempy buckets that I'm feeding with Jack's 5-12-26, calcium nitrate, and epsom salt. This is Jack's 321 system. I'm flowering under 1 600 W HPS in an air cooled hood and I have the light 8" from the canopy. The buds are dense, sticky, and very smelly. I have concerns though that I am losing yield due to my fertilizer feeding regimen in flower.

I snapped several pictures to show the bud size and plant health in hopes that somebody can tell me whether or not this flower size is typical for gg#4 or if mine are below average. The final dry weight is the only thing that matters, but I'd like some input from other growers that have run gg#4. I looked at a thread on icmag that was all gg#4 bud shots and some had large colas and some didn't. I really didn't see consistent flower sizes in the sample pics I looked at. Some were very large colas and some were relatively small but covered in trichomes.

Jack's recommends running the same fertilizer in veg through flower which is what I've done. I think continuing to feed calcium nitrate may have impacted my plants flower size negatively, and if my final weight is not at least 14 ounces then I will no longer run Jack's in flower. I have a small bag of Maxi Bloom I just snagged off amazon and will switch to it on my next flower cycle. That's only if my weight is off. The buds are very dense and if you squeeze one there is no give - they're rock solid. Without the large colas that I'm use to seeing, I just don't know if I'm going to hit my 14 ounce goal.

I did grow some hash plant years ago that grew buds like this though, and the shit was amazing. It was just a genetic trait the way that strain produced flowers. I'm hoping maybe this gg#4 is the same, but I have my doubts. Pics....
 

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OneHitDone

Well-Known Member
Maybe just need to water feed down a bit. ( a bit of tip burn and dark green)
You definitely want calcium throughout flower
I'd say its a big part the genetics :peace:
 

icetech

Well-Known Member
That's weird, i have spent the morning reading up on GG4 and read in a few places they want more and more calcium through flower. BTW.. i use jacks and felt the same, then added some FF tiger bloom and completely toasted a plant.. just saying be gentle :) Love jacks though..
 

danjac82

Well-Known Member
You're right. I should have decreased the calcium nitrate and didn't. No shortage of frost though. I'm looking forward to seeing the dry weight.
Looks great. Nitrogen is fine. Looking like they’re on their final lap. Week and a half or so.
 

jonnynobody

Well-Known Member
View attachment 4339770

This is a shot of my GG4 same age as yours. How far away is your light from canopy?
About 8". Good looking glue you've got growing there. I'm going to experiment on the next flower cycle after I chop these down. Instead of running jack's 5-12-26 in flower, I'm going to switch over to maxi bloom and compare my results. Same strain, same grow method, but different flower fertilizer. If I get more weight with bigger flowers then that will certainly be something to consider. It was only around $15 for 2.2lbs of maxi bloom on amazon, so it's not like it's a big investment I'm putting into this experiment. I've got 25 LBS of jack's so I guess I'm kinda vested for the long haul there.

As the flowers keep packing on the weight I still have a full 14 days to go before the chop so I'm optimistic that I might hit my target weight. I'll post the results when the time comes.
 
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jonnynobody

Well-Known Member
Chopped Sunday. I don't think I'll hit my 1lb target. I'll have dry weight by tomorrow. I feel that I should have discontinued the calcium nitrate 2 weeks into flower and switched to a different bloom formula. I didn't get the large colas that I should have gotten, but have tons of bud sites. It's still a successful harvest, but seeing how the colas didn't develop fully just bums me out a bit.

It's been a good learning experience though. I now have Maxi Grow and Maxi Bloom. The Maxi Grow seems to be performing the same as Jack's. Also, I did a 3 day flush and the bud tastes great with no cure and not even completely dry. That leads me to believe the whole flushing thing is a bit of nonsense. I'll post some post harvest pics with final weight. Jack's is good stuff, but I'm flowering with Maxi Bloom this time to see if I get fully developed colas on this cycle. Same strain and same grow method. 100% perlite instead of coco / perlite mix.

Both maxi grow and bloom are a bitch to mix. I solved this problem by using my high power blender with a quart of very hot water on high for a minute. Added that to my mixing container and no fallout. Otherwise the shit just does not go into solution. Blending beats the hell out of shaking for 30 minutes.

BTW, it's very potent and induces sleep and peacefulness. It's quite the pleasure to smoke. I want to do an all soil run after this next cycle. Soil is where the real flavor and resin production is a
 

Ryante55

Well-Known Member
Chopped Sunday. I don't think I'll hit my 1lb target. I'll have dry weight by tomorrow. I feel that I should have discontinued the calcium nitrate 2 weeks into flower and switched to a different bloom formula. I didn't get the large colas that I should have gotten, but have tons of bud sites. It's still a successful harvest, but seeing how the colas didn't develop fully just bums me out a bit.

It's been a good learning experience though. I now have Maxi Grow and Maxi Bloom. The Maxi Grow seems to be performing the same as Jack's. Also, I did a 3 day flush and the bud tastes great with no cure and not even completely dry. That leads me to believe the whole flushing thing is a bit of nonsense. I'll post some post harvest pics with final weight. Jack's is good stuff, but I'm flowering with Maxi Bloom this time to see if I get fully developed colas on this cycle. Same strain and same grow method. 100% perlite instead of coco / perlite mix.

Both maxi grow and bloom are a bitch to mix. I solved this problem by using my high power blender with a quart of very hot water on high for a minute. Added that to my mixing container and no fallout. Otherwise the shit just does not go into solution. Blending beats the hell out of shaking for 30 minutes.
I had some kinda small buds a couple times with Jack's it was always when I ran out of my beneficial microbes or a pH issue most of my grows with Jack's and microbes made some fat super dense buds but my environment is never really perfect so there could have been other factors other than nutrients
 

icetech

Well-Known Member
I just put my grow with jacks to cure last night.. 3oz from one plant 2.5 from another. nothing amazing, the 2.5 one was only 18" tall.. could have been worse. Was my first grow, will see how the next goes.

I didn't do anything for microbes,.. too cheap to buy tribus
 

Ryante55

Well-Known Member
I just put my grow with jacks to cure last night.. 3oz from one plant 2.5 from another. nothing amazing, the 2.5 one was only 18" tall.. could have been worse. Was my first grow, will see how the next goes.

I didn't do anything for microbes,.. too cheap to buy tribus
Yeah microbes are expensive I don't use them in veg anymore but in my opinion it helps during flower
 

Ryante55

Well-Known Member
What ppm was you running them? I’ve heard great things about jacks and just started using it
3.6-2.4-1.2 grams per gallon is full strength that's Jack's hydro,calnitrate, epsom salt you can use it clone to harvest at that strength if in the right conditions.

Edit: I'm assuming you are in coco that's all I've used if you're not in coco just ignore what I said haha
 

jonnynobody

Well-Known Member
What ppm was you running them? I’ve heard great things about jacks and just started using it
Here a chart Jack 321
I went through veg at 600 PPM. I finished at full strength Jacks and Calcium Nitrate which was a feed strength of approximately 750 PPM if I remember correctly. My tap water is 150 PPM so my total PPM was 900 weeks 5-10. I will be flowering my next cycle with Maxi Bloom which has less nitrogen. If the plants produce far more flower sites with larger colas then I will use jack's in veg and maxi bloom in flower. If I see little to no change I'll go back to jack's with confidence that the product is performing well and I'll look into flowering with 2 x 600's.

I won't have a final weight until next thursday, so there's chance my concerns are much ado about nothing. If I hit 13+ I'll consider it a solid grow. Less than that would be disappointing. The smoke quality is very nice. Potent, smooth, and long lasting. Sleep inducing too.
 

Thundercat

Well-Known Member
I'm curious To see the weight. What size container was this in?

It seems like you had tons of bud sites which can result in lots of smaller colas instead of big fat colas.

In the end it seems many times the final weight for the space vs amount of light ends up being similar, the buds are just a different size/shape.
 

jonnynobody

Well-Known Member
I'm curious To see the weight. What size container was this in?

It seems like you had tons of bud sites which can result in lots of smaller colas instead of big fat colas.

In the end it seems many times the final weight for the space vs amount of light ends up being similar, the buds are just a different size/shape.
I will have a final weight on Thursday. If I had to guess I'd estimate 13 ounces give or take an ounce. 5 gallon hempy buckets is what they were grown in with a coco and perlite mixture. My next cycle is in 100% perlite, but I may switch back to soil after this one. I'm still kicking around the idea.

I'm very satisfied with the performance of jack's in regards to potency and quality of the finished product even prior to curing. The shit is an absolute pleasure to smoke and is very potent. I'm trying maxi bloom in flower this cycle to see if I get larger colas. If I don't see a noticeable difference then I'm just gonna keep rocking the jack's. In all fairness I didn't strip down my lower branches and had tons of small flowers sucking up energy that should have gone to my canopy. If I had stripped down the lower branches I believe I would have had much larger colas, and that's just operator error.
 
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