How Long for Good Bud Formation/Growth

[glderguy]

Hi all. Been flowering my 2 plants for 2-1/2 weeks now. Plants seems to be increasing growth rate and are forming clusters of white pistils. How long approx before we see some serious bud formation? it just seems at this current rate I will never see any serious bud formation.
Thanks

 

[lordhighlama]

patience is key at this point glderguy... without it you'll never make it all the way through flowering.

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

Hi all. Been flowering my 2 plants for 2-1/2 weeks now. Plants seems to be increasing growth rate and are forming clusters of white pistils. How long approx before we see some serious bud formation? it just seems at this current rate I will never see any serious bud formation.
Thanks

This is largely determined by strain. If you have a long flowering sativa, it could be a few more weeks.

There are, however, many other things that affect flowering. Was the plant sexually mature when it was put into flowering? Is your space 100% dark with no light leaks? What size and type of lights are you using to flower? Do you have adequate ventilation? What are the temps?

 

[glderguy]

Thanks. Yes I must be patient. I believe plants were sexually mature at the time I put them to 12/12. I have a small grow tent, roughly 3 x 3 x 6 feet, pretty light proof. Two females, hempy buckets, GH Flora Nova, veg and bloom nutes.
I am oversized on fan, 6 inch inline vortex type fan on speed contol due to its size, it can suck in tent at its full 400cfm, so it is slowed down but still pulling adequate air changes per minute. Small stand alone fan for air circulation around plants. Temps average in 70s during light on cycle. 40 to 60 percent humidity. 400W HPS in cool tube on a seperate fan helps keep good temps and allows me to get light down close to plants.

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[maineharvest]

Have you stood inside the tent with the lights off to see if there is any light leaks? You should see a big stretch in the first couple weeks of flower and I dont see any stretch at all. Looks like they are still in veg. Just a thought. They do look very healthy and happy.

 

[glderguy]

I will go inside tent to be sure but think its pretty dark in there. Images 305/306 are current ones, others are when plants were younger.
thanks

 

[SensiStarFan]

I do have one male that I cut down to just two small branches that I want to try and use for selective pollination of a few buds. Anyway, it has quite a few male flowers beginning to show, and I mean quite a few. I have the branches tightly bagged but will remove it before flowers open anyway.
thanks

From experience, one male flower can pollenate your entire grow if you miss it. I have bred twice. Once with a male plant in the room, and once where I collected pollen from a male plant that I seperated from my females. Both times my crop got totally seeded. The time I collected pollen from a male and then went to put it on one female, I took a teaspoon and shook a little bit of pollen over one branch. The entire plant ended up seeded and produced over 300 seeds. If you do want to try your own breeding, I would highly recomend growing the male completely away from the females. It is amazing how quickly they pollenate everything in site.
EDIT: They will also leave residual pollen all over your tent. So that before you run your next crop you will need to wash every single surface down or you will find seeds in your buds for grow cycles to come.

 

[Locked]

It is hard to tell from those pics if you have alternating nodes or not. If you are seeing clusters of white pistils then you are in flower for sure. The strain will determine quite a bit as far as how your buds develop....indicas will develop harder dense buds while Sats tend to develop lighter fluffier buds....light, ventilation and feeding will also impact bud development. Judging by the size of those plants you probably flipped them early and now they are starting to bud.

 

[SensiStarFan]

If you do decide to collect pollen, the thing people tend to forget is that you only need to grow your male for 3-4 weeks at most. So if you have plants grown from seed flowering in your grow room, and at two weeks one shows male, and you can seperate that male for just two weeks it will give you viable pollen. Even if you can seperate it in a closet somewhere with a couple of CFL's flowering it, you can still get good pollen. It isn't like you need to flower your males for as long as females. The females need the pollen in weeks 2-4 depending on the strain in order to produce seeds by the end of the flowering cycle. Once you have some open flowers on the male, I just turn it upside down and shake it over a piece of newspaper, then pour the pollen into a little prescription bottle, and keep it in a dry dark place.

Your plants look great by the way, very healthy.

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

It didn't really look like you had alternating nodes yet, although it was a little hard to tell. How old were your plants when you switched to 12/12?

Is there a reason that you are making seeds rather than cloning?

Nice bushy looking plants you have there.

 

[glderguy]

Thanks again for all your help! These silly plants were like 6-7 weeks and were showing early signs of sex when put into flower. Most branches are alternating nodes, main stalk isnt. Yes its hard to capture the node spacing on film, the darn things are just so bushy and node spacing is very tight, Im thinking maybe I made a mistake by keeping light too close to plant. Perhaps moving light away will make em stretch a little??? Anyway they do seem to be picking up speed this past week growth wise. I think max height on these at finish is only around 30" at best, believe maybe they were bred to be extra short, which is kinda what I wanted for indoors anyway. Right now dont have room/area for clones. Since I cant clone this time, we need the seeds for next grow, I hope to be able to clone next time around. 30 years ago I selectively pollinated buds indoors hopefully I can pull it off this time. Ill probably end up screwing the whole grow up though!!!! Matter of fact I bought this small tent specifically for cloning/seedling/etc later on down the road. Many thanks again to all.

 

[vdog]

I have had plants that went 9 weeks, at the start of week 6, I was about ready to pull them because it looked like all popcorn buds, Im glad I didnt, because in the following and final 3 weeks they swelled over 500% in mass. As someone said, patience, they will fatten up.

P.S. Dont go off the advertised flower time, go off the resin heads, that will tell you when their done for sure.

 

[The Hemp Goddess]

Thanks again for all your help! These silly plants were like 6-7 weeks and were showing early signs of sex when put into flower. Most branches are alternating nodes, main stalk isnt. Yes its hard to capture the node spacing on film, the darn things are just so bushy and node spacing is very tight, Im thinking maybe I made a mistake by keeping light too close to plant. Perhaps moving light away will make em stretch a little??? Anyway they do seem to be picking up speed this past week growth wise. I think max height on these at finish is only around 30" at best, believe maybe they were bred to be extra short, which is kinda what I wanted for indoors anyway. Right now dont have room/area for clones. Since I cant clone this time, we need the seeds for next grow, I hope to be able to clone next time around. 30 years ago I selectively pollinated buds indoors hopefully I can pull it off this time. Ill probably end up screwing the whole grow up though!!!! Matter of fact I bought this small tent specifically for cloning/seedling/etc later on down the road. Many thanks again to all.

If you do not have alternating nodes on the main stem, the plants are not sexually mature. The side branches are always alternating.

I you do not have room for clones, where are you going to put the male to keep from pollinating your entire crop?

What are you feeding them? High amounts of N can slow flowering.

 

[Roddy]

Stretch....not a favored result. Keeping light close so the nodes are tight is what you're after...more nodes=more branches=more buds

 

[Melvan]

I have one strain that looks like its going to be a bust all the way to week 6, then goes crazy before coming out week 9.

Don't try to find stretch, tight nodes are good and the goal of all.

 

[glderguy]

Will keep light close. Didnt want to wait any longer for main stalk to alternate, kept them in veg for at least 6-7 weeks. Ive heard people put them into flower from day one, so hopefully my 6-7 week veg will be OK although I suppose its more like wait longer in veg if not have a longer wait for bloom. Using GH Flora Nova Bloom now. Male is removed from tent, cut down to two small branches, bagged and resides elswhere....thanks!

 

[glderguy]

Well, things are a little better but not much. Getting more and more of these(see below) but none of the "good looking, resin coated stuff" as of yet. Will be patient although Im beginning to think my stuff may just be ragweed!

 

[Locked]

Well you are flowering for sure now...you have to be patient for the "good looking, resin coated stuff"...where did these beans come from? Not all strains look like the cover of high times magazine. I wld reserve judgement until you harvest, cure and then smoke. I have smoked bud that looked like crap but packed a punch and I have smoked the stuff that looks coated but hits mildly.

 

[7greeneyes]

Well you are flowering for sure now...you have to be patient for the "good looking, resin coated stuff"...where did these beans come from? Not all strains look like the cover of high times magazine. I wld reserve judgement until you harvest, cure and then smoke. I have smoked bud that looked like crap but packed a punch and I have smoked the stuff that looks coated but hits mildly.

AYUP (same here)...wont know till its run its course and it hasnt from the pic.

 

[Roddy]

Nice looking buddling there.