13 weeks and counting.. Trics still clear OMG!

Im starting to get impatient. I just finished flushing them a week ago. 13 weeks into flowering 16 weeks 12/12. When it was most cold this winter, i battled for 4 weeks trying to keep the temp's warm enough. I think that period may have slowed them down. I don't think they are sativa. They look ready but trics are clear to cloudy still. I had seeds that fell to the base of soil, they sprouted 2 weeks ago. Just worried about getting them under the right light so im anxious to harvest the others. Anyone with suggestions?

that sure is a long flower period.
what kind of light are they under.
and its possible it is a slow flowering strain or due to the cold. but i noticed the mily color comes on quick so lets see it could be this week

I am just into the last phase of flowering I noticed that within just a few days the tri's began to turn---however the one I put into natural lite (not the beer) seemed to turn quicker---might be the strength of the lumen or lite? I am flowering for 8 weeks going into 9 I think it is because of my flaccid CFL grow of 350 watts total for the two girls. noticed when I separated the two that the own under the lights ripened up sooner but it could have been just a coincidence.

Im using cfl's. 40 watts about 4 to 5 bulbs per sq ft.

have any pics? look for light leaks. make sure it gets no interruptions during the dark period.

i know your feeling of frustration!

i pulle both my GHS strawb hazes out yesterday, week 13, hcopped one cus it had to go, checked the other, still not ready! back on with the nutes for another feed it seems. gah

I had this same problem, got to 10 weeks flowering of an 8 week plant and looked like it had 2+ weeks left, I rechecked my room and I had abit of a light leak, not much but as soon as I fixed it up she started hurring towards finish. Hope that helps.

Could it be becuase Im using 6500k cfl's and not an HPS light in this stage?

lighthouse said:

Could it be becuase Im using 6500k cfl's and not an HPS light in this stage?

Click to expand...

You know the answer to this one is of course it could. Get some 2700-3000k. Time is money.

damn I couldnt even imagine waiting 13 weeks. I only wait 7 and that seems like forever

A tip to get them to finish is to drop your lighting schedule down. So if you're running 12/12 now, drop it to 10(on)/14(off) and see if that does the trick in helping them ripen up. Another thing is some strains/phenos don't get amber no matter how long you run them. You might have to pull when you see most of the trichs are cloudy and not wait for amber, people will tell you to wait for amber to get a couchlock, but ime if you've got a lot of cloudy trichs your pot is already at a pretty damned good potency and you could just be wasting your time waiting for "amber". Something to consider and my $.02

why would lowering the light time on your plants cycle down make them finish faster? if your going to say something about how the flowering hormone is what triggers flowering and since its made in the dark yes, the hormone level will be higher if you give it like 10/14. heres the thing.....it doesnt matter how much it has after it reaches the level that signals the plant to flower. its not a speed dial, its an on/of switch. all the flowering hormone in the world wouldnt make it finish or grow faster. you just give your plant less energy to work with.

If my post came off as real argumentive or something its not meant to, sorry if their is any confusion on that.

We grew arjan's strawberry haze last year...12 week flower...and to be honest it could of went 14/15! All the trics were milky and managed to convince ourselfs that some were amber...nice smoke, tasted great...but just wasnt strong enough.

Big fucking plants tho...tied those bitches down and they still were taller than me

Some plants are just fucked that way, I've come to believe.. I had one bubblelicious and two superskunk side by side this year - both "9-11 week" strains. The bubblelicious never really fininshed; I finally just said "fuck it" and chopped at 13 weeks flowering. It was an atypical sativa pheno that just wouldn't tighten up; trichs were there but the bud was fluff and always springing new white pistils. The superskunks just raced to the finish and were primo-done at 11 weeks -- rock hard nugs, perfect trichs, everything.... including a killer stone. I had four bagseed plants last year out of the same bag -- two finished nicely, one okay, and one that just wouldn't. Chopped that last one and buried it in the backyard just for spite (well.. I kept the top cola, which smoked great, actually).

BTW, cutting back to 10/14 simulates the onset of winter and should prod the plant further to finish. I've never seen anyone come out strongly endorsing it, though. I tried it last year and couldn't see any real diff.

How does switching to 10/14 tell the plant winter is coming and it needs to finish faster? if that were the case shouldnt he make it start getting colder and colder like winter is coming too? lol, no offense man but you even said yourself you didnt notice a difference and none of the veterans endorse the idea. mainly because its a myth, lol, if that added up why not just go 10/14 from the start or drop down to 8/16 or something if you want an early finish? it should bud quicker cuz its getting more of the flowering hormone, right? after you reach the level needed to trigger flowering adding more hormone does nothing to speed up flowering. Again, no offense bro, its nothing personal.

Nothing personal taken... Some plants and animals cue their behavior off of length of daylight, irrespective of temperature. Some cue off temp only, some off of both. So, it doesn't necessarily have to get colder for a shorter light period to have an effect on a plant or animal.

That said, I wasn't weighing in to promote switching to 10/14; jus' telling how it would work if it did work. MJ is still largely a black-market plant, so it doesn't get a lot of tight research to tell us if these things really work. That's why we're all debating so many myths and bromides, and I don't think any of us honestly know for sure if a 10/14 or whatever pushes the finish.

I think if dropping to 10/14 works in any case, it probably would work on temperate strains and hybrids whose landrace material is evolved to a long summer / short winter day length. They would have the genetic material to recognize the shorter day as a cue. Tropical sativas adapted to 12/12 day in and out probably won't appreciate it; a cold-climate Indica might. In any case, you wouldn't start with a 10/14, 8/16 or whatever cuz you need that light and photosynthetic power to actually produce the bud in the first place (flowering horomone is not the limiting factor; it's the ability to build tissue and that comes from photosynthesis). It's when you approach finish that a shorter period might do something for you.

I think not all strains trichs turn amber. Just like BlackHit said. I too have played this waiting game in the past. Good Luck on them.