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Issue #386 - Sunday, September 8, 2019
Dear Fellow Grower,
In today's issue...
- Is your weed taking forever to mature? Is there a way to make your bud ripen faster? We'll explain why your bud is being lazy and how you can fix it!
- If you're the type that's really in a rush to get to harvest, the best thing you can do is start with a strain that finishes quickly! There are photoperiod strains that have been bred to finish in 8 weeks total or even less! Check them out below!
- Living in the city makes me forget about how useful it is to have extra space. The grower of this weeks trophy pics grew some humongous plants in the space next to his house! In the city, I would need an extra room to house these weed-bearing monsters!
- We may have hit critical mass on trophy pics! We have received so many god pics that it's time to make a reader pic newsletter. However, we want this proposed article to be juicier than just awesome pics! So, we need your help with pics, tricks, and tips. Read below for more info on what we're looking for!
Nebula Haze & Sirius Fourside (founders of GrowWeedEasy.com)
"We could never learn to be brave and patient,
if there were only joy in the world."
~Helen Keller
Why Are My Buds
Taking Forever to Mature?
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by Nebula Haze
Sometimes you’ll run into a situation where the buds of one or more of your cannabis plants don’t appear to be maturing as fast as expected, even after you’ve been in the flowering stage as long as the breeder has estimated. Why isn’t your plant ready to harvest yet, and what can you do about it?
Here are some of the most common reasons your buds may be taking a long time to mature. Then, I’ll explain exactly what you need to do to speed things along so your buds ripen faster!
Strain
Some cannabis strains or specific plants take longer than others to finish ripening in the flowering stage, especially Sativa, Haze, and “XXL” strains. However, part of what makes these plants yield so much is the flowering stage takes a lot longer.
Another thing to consider is that some strains are “lazy” and their buds don’t look ready for a long time, but then suddenly look mature almost overnight. I think of these end-heavy flowering plants as “procrastinators” 🙂 Make sure to keep a close eye on your plant if it’s taking a while because you might be surprised to look one day and realize it’s just about ready to harvest!
This bud looks like it’s a long ways from harvest even though it’s been ten weeks in the flowering stage – look at all those white pistils!
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Here’s that same bud only seven days later. It has almost completely matured in that time, and it’s also gained significantly in weight. Nearly all the white pistils have darkened and curled in, and the trichomes
have turned cloudy. I think of strains that do this last-minute spurt as “procrastinators” 🙂
This impressive growth right before buds are mature is one of the reasons why you don’t want to harvest early; you could be losing out on potency and yields when you only need to wait a few more days!
Unrealistic breeder expectations
When looking at the estimated flowering time for a strain (information you can find with nearly every strain from a trustworthy seed source), remember that most breeders start counting when
first flowers appear, not after the switch to 12/12. That makes sense for outdoor growers, but indoor growers should add two weeks to the breeder’s listed time for a more accurate estimate.
Even when doing that, in general, most cannabis plants take a little longer than the breeder’s recommendation to be “fully” mature. This is partially because people are more likely to buy “fast-maturing” strains. Many breeders estimate when to expect the beginning of the harvest window because slightly early-harvested buds will do the job, even if you end up with lower potency and yields.
Heat or Light Stress
High temperatures or very bright light can cause your plant to keep putting out new waves of growth as a result of stress.
If the top leaves of your plant are starting to look yellow or burned and you keep seeing the tops of your buds closest to the lights put out more and more new white pistils or foxtails, it’s a sign of possible light burn or heat burn. Heat and Light stress can both cause the plant to keep trying to make new, “fresh” calyxes that aren’t getting
stressed by heat or light.
If you keep seeing more and more new growth on the buds closest to the lights (especially when combined with all the top leaves being yellow), it is likely a sign of heat or light stress. Buds like this will keep getting thicker and thicker on top closest to the lights.
Another example of the plant making new buds in response to heat or light stress is when you see “foxtails.” Don’t pay attention to the trichomes on this type of new growth when determining when to harvest. Make sure you’re checking the trichomes on the sides of the buds with older growth.
And of course, make sure to prevent further damage until harvest by lowering your temps, raising your grow lights or both.
LED Grow Lights
Some LED growers are getting odd results with flowering times, and some plants seem to take much longer than expected for buds to mature. This seems to happen more often with auto-flowering strains though this issue can also affect photoperiod (regular) strains.
At this point, we’re not sure if it’s just specific LED models or light spectrums that are causing this, or if it’s more of a strain thing. Since LED models can perform vastly different from each other, it’s tough to tell what’s responsible! In either case, you can usually get plants to mature faster by reducing the number of hours of light they’re getting each day.
For some growers, LED grow lights seem to be associated with lengthier flowering periods. However, I’ve also done testing where LEDs made plants flower faster! I think it goes to show how much variance there is between LED models.
Reverting to the Vegetative Stage
One possible reason your buds may have stopped maturing is the plant is “re-vegging.” “Re-vegging” means the plant is returning to the vegetative stage in which the plant only grows stems and leaves.
Re-vegging happens most often when plants are somehow getting light during their 12-hour dark period. Sometimes it can take just a small amount of light to trigger the plant to reveg (for example an indicator light, or a small light leak).
Re-vegging will cause buds to stop maturing, and if the plant isn’t put back into flowering, the buds will turn brown and die after a few weeks. If you see new round or “smooth” leaves appearing on the buds, and buds stop getting bigger, it’s a sign the plant is revegging.
Sometimes an extremely stressed plant may show similar symptoms. How can you tell the difference? In the case of heat/light stress, your plant puts out lots of new foxtails/buds, while a re-vegging plant stops making new buds or fattening the ones that are there.
In this example, you can see the strange leaves are appearing on new buds/foxtails. If you observe the plant making lots of new, strange-looking buds, it’s most likely heat stress or light stress because a re-vegging plant doesn’t create new buds. These are more like out-of-control sugar leaves.
Check Trichomes on Buds, Not Leaves
Make sure you’re looking in the right places. Check the trichomes only on buds, not any of the leaves including the small sugar leaves. If plant keeps putting out new white hairs over and over, check the trichomes on the sides of the buds where the older growth is, instead of looking only at younger growth.
Ignore trichomes on leaves because it’s the buds you want to harvest on time!
Okay, now you know what causes cannabis to mature at a slower rate!
But how do you fix the problem? How do you tell your plants to "speed it up?"
Skip to:
But what if they've already spent a long time maturing. Should you harvest them anyway?
In that case, check out:
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Do you hate waiting for your cannabis plants to finish flowering?
Do you ever ask them, "Why can't you just go faster?!"
If so, be nicer to your plants. They're trying their best! 😂
But next time, you can get some strains that finish quickly and you might be harvesting weeks earlier!
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And that's after adding 2 weeks to the breeder estimate!
Send Us Your Plants, Tips, and Tricks!
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You all have been sending in A TON of trophy pics. In fact, you've sent in so many that we're pretty much obligated to do an article full of the excellent picture you all have sent in. 👌
However, we also have some cool tips and tricks from our readers so we want to include those, too. This is where we need your help...
Do you have trophy pics? Cool growing tips? Maybe you know a neat trick other growers don't know about?
Reply to this message with your picture attached, or just let us know about your tip or trick and we'll feature it in a soon-to-come newsletter!
Tip: If you want to get your trophy pics posted, make sure you include a little info about them such as their strain, or how you grew them. A story about your plants is more interesting than pictures by themselves. 📷
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"[...]I went searching for cannabis grow info, read about a dozen and found this page. This is day 5 reading GWE. This site is intense. It’s so good, I wanted to send a message and say thank you. I feel so much more confident moving forward to a grow tent now than I did last week. I feel after having this resource hat I can do this, and if I struggle I have solutions I can find.
Thank you for putting this website together. It’s the best one I’ve seen"
~Kyle
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"Girls coming of age"
Grower: Greg
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Who Runs This
Newsletter? |
Nebula Haze:
I'll be honest with you, when I first started growing, I struggled. Now, it is my
mission to make it easier for new growers to get started as well as help advanced growers get bigger, better yields with less time and money. We are updating and adding articles every single week and our goal is to eventually build a comprehensive growing resource so anyone and everyone can grow if they want to! If we all share the knowledge there's more buds in the world for everyone :) |
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Learn which seed sources are personally recommended by Nebula Haze |
Sirius Fourside:
Sirius Fourside is a hobbyist grower who has gained the bulk of his experience growing in water as a medium (deep water culture, bubbleponics).
"Growing cannabis can be a relaxing hobby in and of itself, but it also saves you money and keeps you from having to deal with shady characters. Cannabis is much easier to grow than people give it credit for, and growing in water
doesn't increase the difficulty much, if any. But whether you want to grow in water, coco, or a different medium, we'll show you how easy it can be!"
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