does over feeding reduce tric production??

.. i'm trying to get me grows dialed in as much as i can, and the one area that i'm not happy overall with is my tric production.. sometimes i'll have some plants that have pretty decent tric production, and others not as much..
then i end up looking at pix of plants others have grown and i see plants covered in trics from head to toe, and often wonder to myself what i'm doing wrong.. i have a good medium, ffof, good bulbs, good ventilation, have tried various types of nutes everything from fox farms lines to general hydroponics to botanicare to advanced nutes along with a few others i forget about..
i do think that i tend to feed on the heavier side of things, and feed usually every other watering with the max dose on the bottles once the plants are established... so it makes me wonder if the over feeding is hurting my tric production??
anyone have any insight or thoughts on the subject, i'd be glad to hear them...

Racer you can juice it up a bit with some uvb rays to increase trich production. Feeding heavy in my book not going to effect
things unless your burning them, a few thing i target is light and lots of it! And 48hr of dark prior to chop. I also see a increase
in trich production during flush.

I use to different nute lines side by side,
an wins for trich production in my rooms
and technoflora is my power house when
it comes to weight.

From the sounds of it you have all the right tools, Firist thing id say it's the strains if every thing else is ideal, what are your flower temps like? and ya over fert will fuck stuff up but, i mean i prolly almost always burn a new strain im working with. I doubt you over feed long enough to really fuck things up, but fixing things in soil seems to take a lil time. Then again i stop messing with soil out of lack of experience to tell what def or build up i had so i switched to coco.

yah, i wouldn't say i end up burning a lot of shit, but like i said, i usually don't even measure shit, just dump it in by eye and wing it, lol... i just think that i tend to feed on the heavier side of things and not the lighter..
i've thought about uv light, but have never tried it.. i'd just like to be a big more happy with my tric production on the whole is all.. like i said, some strains i'm almost happy with, and others, well, not so much...
i just can't pin down exactly where i'm going wrong is all...

I mean uvb is the biggest offender for thc production, but any type of stress could induce more trichs... I agree with HR, i definitely see the sugar during flush... but that could be the plants response in dying, not so much the flush.

My thoughts are as the plant gets closer to the end it signals trich production to protect seed stock! From uvb ray from the sun,
so adding this would trick the plant to produce! There is another factor here, and thats soil or hydro. I tent to feel dro produces
a more trich filled buds, i have grown for years in the dirt and only a hand full in dro but hands down hydro wins.

When you say you have good bulbs what does that mean,what type lighting is it,how large an area is each bulb covering,what is the distance from bulb to canopy & how hot is room temp.

Overfeeding will seriously effect trichome production,so will high humidity,over watering,hot temps ect,anything that has an effect on the overall vigor or happiness of the plant will allways reduce trichome production & bud growth.

Another issue is lack of red/orange spectrum,this is why metal halide isnt prefered for budding & hps is a better choice,keep in mind that all hps bulbs are not the same in spectrum,some are seriously lacking in red spectrum,bulb hours also plays a role,if the bulbs have burned over 5 or 6 months most likely the output is diminished atleast 25%.

You mentioned feeding the plants every other watering,why so much ? In all likelyhood you are seriously overfeeding them,in soil it takes time for the plants to absorb the nutes & all nutes are never consumed,there is allways residule nutes/salts left over.

Your using FF soil which is extremely nutrient rich then using max dose fertilization with every other watering,in all likelyhood your plants are way overfed,its better & more productive to fertilize lower doses & less frequency in most cases,leeching or flushing the soil to remove excess salts only stresses the plant from water logging the soil,this will play a role in trichome development,high levels of nitrogen durring bud phase is proven to diminish trichome production as well as lengthen maturation times of the buds & resins.

When i grew soil i used 2 quart pots & grew 4 ft tall full plants,in such small pots i had to water every day, or a slow constant drip feed once full budding took place,even with those small pots i only needed to fertilize every 10 days or so,with 3 gallon pots once every 2 weeks,i grew soil over 20 yrs before going flood n drain hydro & my soil buds were sticky icky resin covered rocks,actually a bit more resin covered than my hydro buds.

Reduced resin production can be as simple as 1 issue or as complicated as adjusting every area of the grow,these are the areas to look at.

What type bulbs.
How far from canopy to bulb.
How old are bulbs.
How many days between watering.
How high is humidity.
How hot/cold is room.
Are fans blowing directly on the buds,if so with what force is the air flow.
How high ppm nutes are used.
How many days between fertilizing.

With soil less water & fertilizer is a good place to start.

thanks panhead.. great post.. i'll get a link for my bulbs.. i have used everything from digilux hps and eye hortiux blues, but the blues blew in my digi ballast at around a month or so old..
i have recently, last two grows, been using sunpulse mh's, start to finish, only switching k's for each phase of growth..i use the 6ks for veg and the 3k's for flower
.. 4oo watts in about a lil under a 3 x 3 area or so.. http://sunpulselamps.com/Home_Page.html

just bought new 3k bulb for this last grow, so maybe 2 or so months of use on it..

usually water about every other day or so

humidity is low in flower, under 30%, mostly in the 20's

temps lights on are about 82 or so

fans blowing directly across tops of canopy.. about a 10 inch fan on medium speed, only runs lights on..

no ppm meter

water about every other day, feed every other water..

missed light distance to canopy ??... about 20 inches or so

Why are you running MH for the bud phase ? I dont know anything about the type bulb your running but i'd be willing to bet it has a role in the lack of trichomes,fyi MH bulbs generaly have less lumens per watt than like size HPS bulbs,in a small 400 watter those decreased lumens could be something else adding to the fray,the other areas of your grow sound good.

Are you cooling the light via cool tube or air cooled hood ? If so 20 inches from glass to canopy is way too far,i run 3 600 watt HPS per 4x8 flood table & i let the top of the canopy touch the glass in a few spots,the average distance is about 1 to 2 inches from the glass & i never get leaf burn or light poisening where the leaves go yellow,when i ran 1,000's i had to keep them farther because of the radient heat but that distance was closer than 20 inches,im thinking i had them at about 14 inches & woulda had them closer if i coulda cooled them more.

Take a look at your fertilizer regime also,look to see how much nitrogen the fertilizer contains thats fed to the plants durring mid to late budding,after week 4 or 5 the plants require only a tiny amount of N,when i was doing soil my average finish time for an 8 week strain was 9 to 10 weeks,i cut back on the N & things fell back in line where finish times were much closer to the 8 week mark.

If possible switch back to full HPS & get the light cooled enough so it can ride at 2 to 3 inches from the canopy ,just those 2 variables are sure to help increase resin production & will also help alot with the denisty of lower bud sites.

panhead said:

Why are you running MH for the bud phase ? I dont know anything about the type bulb your running but i'd be willing to bet it has a role in the lack of trichomes,fyi MH bulbs generaly have less lumens per watt than like size HPS bulbs,in a small 400 watter those decreased lumens could be something else adding to the fray,the other areas of your grow sound good.

Are you cooling the light via cool tube or air cooled hood ? If so 20 inches from glass to canopy is way too far,i run 3 600 watt HPS per 4x8 flood table & i let the top of the canopy touch the glass in a few spots,the average distance is about 1 to 2 inches from the glass & i never get leaf burn or light poisening where the leaves go yellow,when i ran 1,000's i had to keep them farther because of the radient heat but that distance was closer than 20 inches,im thinking i had them at about 14 inches & woulda had them closer if i coulda cooled them more.

Take a look at your fertilizer regime also,look to see how much nitrogen the fertilizer contains thats fed to the plants durring mid to late budding,after week 4 or 5 the plants require only a tiny amount of N,when i was doing soil my average finish time for an 8 week strain was 9 to 10 weeks,i cut back on the N & things fell back in line where finish times were much closer to the 8 week mark.

If possible switch back to full HPS & get the light cooled enough so it can ride at 2 to 3 inches from the canopy ,just those 2 variables are sure to help increase resin production & will also help alot with the denisty of lower bud sites.

Click to expand...

i get the same tric production using hps as i did with the mh's,
they come in different spectrums for different phases of growth.. i'd rather concentrate on better spectrum them lumens.. also, hps bulbs lack the uv spectrum, and mh's do not, and we all know that uv is good for tric production..
i have seen some grows from other growers on another site using the sunpulses, which is why i originally tried them out, and their grows surely don't lack the trics at all...
. i'll try anything once or twice if i see ohters getting the same results i am looking for..


here's a few things i copy and pasted from their site.. it makes sense to me, if i'm wrong in the way i'm reading this, by all means please tell me i'm an idiot, lol, and i'll go back to hps, but it just don't make sense after reading some of these things to me like this one..


A: Sun Pulse makes an HPS lamp, but it can never be used in high frequency electronic ballasts. Millions of dollars were spent by Sun Pulse Labs, and research clearly proves the HPS lamp cannot be used for electronic HID ballasts, ever. Like the typewriter, HPS lamps are a thing of the past. In addition, an HPS lamp is approx. 2.2K,( or 22% of the Sun) and has a narrow band of light. Red light also has the least amount of energy of all the colors of the spectrum. Why pay money to make light that has the least amount of energy?

and lastly this part mostly...

HPS Light (pictured below left) is missing spectral information in the left portion of the graph, which the
Sun would normally provide. You can also see the wide, bandwidth narrowed peaks of the HPS graph
which represent the reds and oranges we see in the sodium lamps. These peaks don’t exist in nature and
extreme light saturation clips the photo-receptors of the leaf, shutting it down in a process called photoinhibition. HPS is proven inefficient for living things.
SunPulse Lamps, (pictured below right), show a spectral graph that has “wave form linearity”, or a
shape that is more like the Sun’s graph as it hits the Earth. The Sun provides all the colors, all the time,
that’s evolution. The Sun is high frequency, full spectrum light, and that’s what Sun Pulse provides...
http://sunpulselamps.com/uploads/hps_vs_sp_white_sheet__2_.pdf

and don't most people use hps over mh's for flowering as hps bulbs tend to have a better k rating for flowering, ie, 2100k for the eye blues i was running prior, compared to normal mh's k rating of 6.4k for digilux's mh's??
i just fail to not see benefits of mh's if they are in the correct k range if they are said to produce more uv light then hps bulbs is all..
ha
again, i'm just throwing this all up in the air.. just trying to learn is all.. but everything i read makes sense to me, but who knows, wouldn't be the first time i've been wrong, that's for sure..

thanks again for the help panhead..

Lumens is what we see and PAR is what plants see, so your right racer to focus your bulbs like you are.
i personaly dont like sun pulse! I have ran them in the past, didnt see anymore or less in trich production.
but i did see a lack in wieght so now i stick with digi lux

if you're not using a digital ballast cant go wrong with hortilux eye bulbs

In theory all the scientific stuff wrote on spectraly enhanced MH bulbs sounds great,it even makes sense but dig this,take the literature the manufacturer supplys & compare it side by side with manufacturer literature for LED lights & you'll see much of the same claims,they too focus on spectrum & wavelength vs lumens or penetration,to date ive yet to see any realistic competition from led vs hps,or even mh,a standard mh will far outperform led any day,main reason is lumens & penetration,not spectrum,penetration is & allways will be the number 1 key factor in bud development.

The way i see spectrums is this,if we know that blues are not a main factor durring mid & late flowering then why use them,the energy used creating those wavelengths would be better used on the reds & oranges,while i do agree a standard hps dont produce perfect reds its still putting out way more of the desired spectrum over the enhanced mh bulbs.

A good case in point are the LUX HPS bulbs,weather its eye hortilux or digilux both focus on the reds & oranges & at the same time retain the higher lumen output over any enhanced mh.

If your set on running spectral enhanced bulbs im positive a better route would be hortilux or digilux hps,both have excellent reds & oranges & give you the high lumens needed for saturation & penetration.

When you 1st started growing did you ever try enhanced hps for bud in the same set up your using now ? If so how did it compare to all the other bulbs you've ran ?

If you have a ballast that can push a 600 hps i'll send you 1 for free to try out,i have a shitload of extra bulbs.

No matter what you do getting the light alot closer is going to increase both density & resin production,can you get it to within an inch or two ?

I cant belive no one is saying it could be the strains your growing i have found in my time the genetics is always biggest factor if your a good grower which you are

ogkush420 said:

I cant belive no one is saying it could be the strains your growing i have found in my time the genetics is always biggest factor if your a good grower which you are

Click to expand...

Racer has some of the best genetics so i think that rules out this

Yo racerboy do u foilar feed at all? If so how often and how far into budding? This grow I'm running blue berry fire og x grandaddy .tahoe og.nyc disel afganhi x bubblegum and pineapple thai and there all frosty as fuck and I'm 4 weeks into 1212 and only. Been giving them plain filtered water in ffof ..fed them some flora nova once or twice but nutes dont get u frostyness. If u do foilar make sure its only a mist I noticed when I foilar with the high power it knocks them off and makes the buds less sticky jus some of my thoughts....

I agree with those who mentioned genetics. Hands down the biggest factor, imo.

I suppose we could discuss how to best maximize a plants inherent potential, but we will always be limited by it's genetics.

Stressing the plant has been mentioned. Sticky resin is the plants natural defense mechanism, and it would make sense that if the plant is introduced to an environmental stress, then it's resin production could perhaps increase. The flip side to this is the possibility of hermmies due to the stress.

Good question ...

If you have the right genetics you won't be able to stop the trichs...

eh theirs a middle ground here ive run the same strain side by side and ya some are frostier that is genetics but still if someone else took my place in the same scenario maybe theirs would be frostier thats grower skill! so if some of you are repping his genetics then your inadvertantely putting down his skill lol truly i think the pics your looking at are of "the one" i see those pics that are so frosty and nice but i notice those ppls plants dont all look like that, i think its genetics. also i notice that quality of bud doesnt come around all the time so i think thats an exception when they get their plant looking that good...imo your way over feeding i thought i overfeed and i do like you i just throw what i feel is good in from exp. however i only feed once a week even if i watered 3 times that week..sometimes once every 8-10 days...if you find out the trick on how to get that extra sheet of frost let us know the secret lol cuz i cant get that to happen either...this was the best i could do, maybe second best but i dont have the other pics https://www.rollitup.org/smoke-reports/523547-paradise-whiteberry-grow-smoke-report.html