8th week flowering: Advice needed please

Hope everyone's had a good Christmas!

I wanted to get some opinions from more experienced growers here. Here's a quick recap: This is my first attempt at growing. I chose Nirvana's feminized Blue Mystic, it's supposed to be a 7-9 week flowering period. She's growing in a coco/perlite mix, I'd guess around 90/10 ratio. I'm hand watering her, mostly at a pH of 5.8 most of the time, but lately at 5.5ish. (Because I think she has a Manganese deficiency, but figure its too late in her cycle to really do much about it. Any thoughts on that?) I did some light LST on her to get her main stalk to grow horizontally.

I'm in the middle of the 8th week of flowering, the lights were flipped on 11-2-12. I've just started to use plain water the last few days, figuring she's got a week or so left. (Is it too early to stop feeding her nutrients now?) I know she's got some maturing to do still, but what do the experts think? How long do you think she has until its time to meet the Reaper?

If I'm reading her right, looks like her trichromes are leaning more towards milky, with some clear still around? Or am I wrong there?

So what I'm wondering:

a) Is it too late to do anything about a Manganese deficiency, aside from what I've done so far? (changing the pH to 5.4-5.5)?

b) Is it too early to stop feeding her nutrients? (I started using plain water the other day)

c) How long do you think she has until its time to start chopping? (I won't chop her all at once, just the flowers that are ready)

d) Am I reading her trichromes right? or am I being too impatient and seeing what I want, instead of what's really there?

Here's the pics!

I can only give you my opinion as a cash cropper. I dont check the color of the trics as far as clarity. I always wait for the bracts to swell up nice and fat. The way they would look if they had a seed inside them and hardly any white pistils left . from what I can see in your pics,I would let them go a few more weeks,and continue feeding them bloom nutes as you have been. I dont know way ppl feel the need to flush. The plant will store about two weeks worth of food in its leaves,so I guess it wouldnt hurt to give them just plain water for those last two weeks. Cant really flush a plant(only its growing medium) but you can let it use up its stored energy. Dont under estimate what two weeks can do. You can add some serious weight in the last two to three weeks.
The short of it is, I wouldnt plan on harvesting in a week or so,maybe two to three weeks. You will be happy you waited.

Thats a pretty awesome first grow...

If there is a deficiency, nothing you could or should do now, in my opinion.
I'd give just plain water until they're ready... it's flush time.
I can't tell you when to chop... that is all personal preference... personally, I prefer milky trichomes, as opposed to clear or amber.
As far as reading the trichs properly... maybe spend the 20 bucks and get a lighted magnifier... something that can show you atleast 30x the naked eye. A friend of mine spent under 20 and got a nice one made by EcoPlus, it zooms between 20x and 100x... with that you can't miss

Good Luck... Hope this helps

What is your set-up, out of curiosity???
Size of grow area and light wattage???

Bringing the Ph down to 5.5 is about all you can do now for mag deficiency imo. The flush or not question is a can of troll worms I'll not open..
I don't check the trichs with a magnifying glass until the pistels are mostly amber either.
A week or two, probably the latter.
If you climbing the walls in need of a smoke, start cutting off those little under bublets, although this is bad form really; I do "graze" off a smoke if needed..after all it's what she's there for.
And good job!

i never flower under 70 days

Alright....I can see that my 1 week estimate was me being greedy . I'll keep feeding her for now, and start to taper off the amount of nutrients over the next 2 weeks, and if she needs a 3rd week use plain water at that point. I'm just anxious to smoke my first homegrown...

I have a pocket microscope, but I don't like it. Its too hard to use on the live plant. It has to be perfectly still in order to bring things into focus at 60x. (it can go up to 100x). So when I want to see them up close, I either take a small snip off a sugar leaf and use the pocket scope...or just use macro mode on the camera and zoom in on the PC. Maybe I'll get a jeweler's loupe for the next grow.

I figure since I get to control everything, I'll sample different stages like mostly milky/slight amber or mostly amber and get the best of both kind of highs . I don't plan on harvesting the whole plant at once, unless all the flowers look to be the same maturity, but from my research, that doesn't happen very often.

As for my setup, check out this thread.
I did take small sample on Christmas...I couldn't help myself

Zubey care to explain why you wait at least 70 days?

Dragon311 said:

Alright....I can see that my 1 week estimate was me being greedy . I'll keep feeding her for now, and start to taper off the amount of nutrients over the next 2 weeks, and if she needs a 3rd week use plain water at that point. I'm just anxious to smoke my first homegrown...

I have a pocket microscope, but I don't like it. Its too hard to use on the live plant. It has to be perfectly still in order to bring things into focus at 60x. (it can go up to 100x). So when I want to see them up close, I either take a small snip off a sugar leaf and use the pocket scope...or just use macro mode on the camera and zoom in on the PC. Maybe I'll get a jeweler's loupe for the next grow.

I figure since I get to control everything, I'll sample different stages like mostly milky/slight amber or mostly amber and get the best of both kind of highs . I don't plan on harvesting the whole plant at once, unless all the flowers look to be the same maturity, but from my research, that doesn't happen very often.

As for my setup, check out this thread.
I did take small sample on Christmas...I couldn't help myself

Zubey care to explain why you wait at least 70 days?

Click to expand...

30X jeweler's loupe with LED - $3.95 on Amazon. 40X handheld scope - no zoom or other gee whiz crap with LED - $15 on Amazon. No need AT ALL for any scope larger than 40X to do trich checks. To be "wowed"? Do whatever.

70 days hard and fast? Silly rule if a bud matures at 55 days and begins to degrade at day 60. Been there and it wasn't an auto.

mountainboy said:

I can only give you my opinion as a cash cropper. I dont check the color of the trics as far as clarity. I always wait for the bracts to swell up nice and fat. The way they would look if they had a seed inside them and hardly any white pistils left . from what I can see in your pics,I would let them go a few more weeks,and continue feeding them bloom nutes as you have been. I dont know way ppl feel the need to flush. The plant will store about two weeks worth of food in its leaves,so I guess it wouldnt hurt to give them just plain water for those last two weeks. Cant really flush a plant(only its growing medium) but you can let it use up its stored energy. Dont under estimate what two weeks can do. You can add some serious weight in the last two to three weeks.
The short of it is, I wouldnt plan on harvesting in a week or so,maybe two to three weeks. You will be happy you waited.

Click to expand...

same here, trich color is over rated in my opinion. if the plant is still producing white pistols then that means its still growing new calyx's (buds) wait it out man

Can we get a big pic of the whole plant. Those close ups are great but dont give me an idea of the whole plant!

I've never in my 20 years of growing seen a plant fully mature at 55 days.. its always been 70 or more and the last plump always seems to happen in that 64-70 day..... although I never grow auto's so i don't know about that.. but that has never failed me and usually the trichs are about 50/50 then.. so since then i've always grown for never under 70 ......but of course if i am growing and the trichs get 50/50 under 70 then i'll chop but that has never happend yet so i use that as a basis of flower time

RetiredMatthebrute said:

same here, trich color is over rated in my opinion. if the plant is still producing white pistols then that means its still growing new calyx's (buds) wait it out man

Click to expand...

it will always produce white hairs. even when its over ripe and seeding

zubey912 said:

it will always produce white hairs. even when its over ripe and seeding

Click to expand...

That's good to know...hadn't run across that tidbit of information yet. Thanks.

It looks like a couple more weeks. I wouldn't stop feeding her just start cutting back on the nutes. Looking good!

She's ready. Flush today and I would harvest in 3-4 days.

BigSteve.