I have a question. I'm harvesting my ladies and am finding seeds, more in some of the plants than others. There were no males, could stress of any kind have caused the ladies to seed or do seeds develop only after pollination?
there are a couple options... its hard to say which one.. but ill tell you all 3 or 4 ways in which seeds can be produced...
1) the first and obvious one is there is a male present.. you said that isnt the case.. so we'll continue..
2) there was a hermie... hermies can show from stress or just genetics... sometimes it can be hard to find the banana sacs on them... i had this issue once.. i had a rouge hermie i didnt know about who let pollen sacs pop causing surrounding ladies to be pollenated somewhat... there is a HUGE difference in a hermie pollination and a male/female pollination.. when males pollinate the entire plant is damn near seeds... when its a hermie, although there are seeds present, the buds are still usually salvageable...
3) in nature, when there is a group of all females, its not uncommon for 1 or more of the females to produce seeds throughout flowering.. its a survival thing.. to make sure their genetics are carried on... this can happen indoors as well... but it sounds like this isnt the case...
4) this is definitely not the situation, but using collodial silver on a female will cause it to produce pollen sacs.. this is how they make true fem'd seeds.. but thats another lesson..
out of these, and from what you said, its most likely you had a hermie or two... whether it was do to stress or genetics or both there was a female or two or more that produced pollen sacs that were released... thus the seeds... the buds still should be good... you'll just have to remove the seeds... it sucks, i know.. but it happens...
try to limit all the stress you can in the future to avoid this situation... good luck bro!!
I have a question, I have seedlings that are about 2-3 inches high, and have a 400mh light on them, how often should I water them , and should I wait til 2-3 weeks before adding any nutes to them, I have the 3 prt system, and when I get the veg stage how often do I feed them, seen some post saying 4-6 times a day is that correct, and is that all nutes with water or some just with water, so confused.
well the question you asked is sort of.. vague... only because you are not saying whether its soil or hydro.. ill cover both tho.. just to be safe...
if you are using soil - i found the easiest place to start seeds was in dixie cups with drains house cut in the bottom.. once the seed is placed in the soil saturate the soil until it is draining out the bottom.. dont water again until the soil has dried out.. this could be 5 days or more.. dont worry tho.. the seedling wont use a lot of water in the very beginning.. once the soil is dried out water again, until it starts to drain.. when you see roots coming out of the bottom you know its time to transplant.. when you transplant you should saturate the soil (after you move the plant into the new soil) until you see water running from the bottom and start your watering schedule from there... making sure to allow the soil to dry out in between watering...
2) if using hydro - it will vary a little bit depending on the medium you are using.. if you are using a moisture holding medium, like coco coir or peat moss, you may only need to water 2 times a day... if you are using a medium like hydroton or rocks or something similar you may need to water 4 or 5 times a day.. basically you want to look for signs of underwatering or over watering and adjust from there... ill explain more shortly..
i wont bother with aeroponics right now... if someone has questions about it i will be happy to answer tho...
now... its always better to underwater than over water.. over watering will cause the entire plant to sag... stems and all.. to me, it looks like the plant is drenched... like a wet dog.... just completely sagged and drooped and sad... underwatering looks similar, but the stems seem to retain some of their rigidity.. signs will show at the bottom of the plant and work up.. the leaves seem to go limp.. but the stems hold their shapes... again... its better to underwater, where you can simply add another watering (if in hydro) or just water (if in soil) than to over water... because if you over water in soil you can remove the water.. hydro is more forgiving there.. but you still need to watch out for it..
as far as nutes go there is a big difference in when you should start...
in soil there should be enough nutes to get through the first couple weeks... whether you are starting in a dixie cup or bigger container, you probably will have 2 to 3 weeks from seed before you need to worry about nutes.. the best way to tell if its time to add nutes is if you start to see yellowing on the plant.. the yellowing is a sign of an N deficiency... you can start before you see the yellowing if you want.. but i'd wait until they are at least 2 to 3 weeks old either way...
start out with a 1/4 strength application... this means use 1/4 of the recommended amount... this will give your plant a chance to adjust to the nutes.. and you a chance to see how they react to them... increase the amount used over time... this is a better area to under do than over do again... i recommend an every other feeding schedule.. which means everyother time you feed you use nutes.. so nutes, water, nutes, water, nutes, water, and so on....
with hydro you pretty much need to start out nutes from the beginning.. the soil provides enough nutes for the seedling.. with hydro there is nothing to absorb nutes from.. so you need to feed the seedlings from the beginning... similar to the soil in that you should start with 1/4 strength nutes to begin with and gradually increase each week.. the best way to know if you need to increase or decrease the amount of nutes is to watch the plant... hydro will show deficiencies and burn much quicker than soil since there is no buffer.. if you see signs of deficiencies, then you know you need to add more nutes.. if you see signs of burn you know you need to cut back... i keep my ph just high enough that the plants barely show signs of burn on the leaf edges... and i do mean barely... keeping the ph correct in a hydro system is very important to make sure the plant can absorb all the nutes... you dont want to increase nutes because you think you have a deficiency, and that def is related to ph lock out and not plant needs.. that can easily lead to nute burn...
i hope i answered your questions.. if you have any more please ask..
