Need help with these autos

[bullmark]

I’ve grown plenty of mature plants outside but it was many years ago…25 yrs to be exact. Back then we didn’t carry around a jewelers loupe to check trichs. Hell we didn’t know what a trich was….just called em crystals. I was always taught and stood by the motto that once a plant stopped producing white pistils and they all turned color and receded they were basically ripe on the outside. We would then wait another week or so and harvest. It worked fine as our bud was outstanding….mainly due to the genetics.
Anyway, I decided to get back into the game and grow a few autos indoors. I knew nothing about the lights or autos. I thought a short grow would be a good idea to gain knowledge and learn from any mistakes.
On Oct 13 my 3 Super Skunk autos sprouted and I was off to the races. They’re under a HLG 320xl LED, growing in Fox farms ocean forest.
I made some mistakes but the grow progressed and all 3 plants have done ok. They are all very very different phenos but that’s fine. They are supposed to be indica dominant.
My issue/concern is they are not finishing…..yes they are still growing…..16 weeks by my count.
Two of the plants are looking really close but show hardly any amber trichs except on the sugar leaves. And there are still a fair number, maybe 20% of clear ones.
The third plant is lagging big time. It has a mess of white/orange hairs that just don’t wanna recede like they should. It’s about the same level with its trichomes.
The only thing I did that was a clear mistake was aggressively defoliate about 3 weeks ago. The plants have looked right on the edge of finishing for damn near a month….but they just won’t wrap it up.
I took some advice a week ago and reduced the light cycle to 11/13……I went from 18/6 for 14weeks to 14/10 for a week then 11/13 for the last week.
Since I clipped all the big fan leaves the ones left are not in great shape…..I’m very leery of bud rot, so I’m running my temps around 72f with 36-40% RH.
Just When I think they look like they’ve moved in the right direction, I see a few more calyces spitting off white pistils.
I really don’t know what to do….I’ve heard some phenos won’t really amber up their trichs. I’ve also heard some strains will continue to produce white pistils in perpetuity. I’ve never seen bud that stayed in the same phase for so long.
For the record I am not a “flusher”, except to clear the medium and fix a lockout. I feed until harvest….or really close to it. I will titrate down the nutrients as the end nears.
I had to water yesterday and gave a tiny dose of bloom nute along with molasses.
I hope someone can help me…..what’s going on with this grow??
I know the breeder timeline of 9-10 weeks seed to harvest is fiction, but 16 weeks and still not there has to be uncommon and I wanna know what I’ve done wrong and what I can do to fix it.
The pics are from yesterday and it’s mainly the hairy plant that I’m worried about. The other two I can harvest now and they’ll be fine, although I’m giving them more time to get at least 10-20% amber trichs. Right now it’s maybe 1% amber on the calyces and interior of the buds.
Thanks and please don’t be shy about giving me your theories…..I’ve heard quite a few already.
Cheers and have a great day.

 

[2budz]

They look great. I would keep watching the trichomes. They will all turn cloudy even if they never turn amber. The one with the white pistils still has some time left, maybe weeks. The others look really close. Where are you looking at the trichs? I look at the top then down lower somewhere. Sometimes I’ll see amber down lower even though I’m not seeing it up top. When I see mostly cloudy and a few ambers I chop.

 

[bullmark]

They look great. I would keep watching the trichomes. They will all turn cloudy even if they never turn amber. The one with the white pistils still has some time left, maybe weeks. The others look really close. Where are you looking at the trichs? I look at the top then down lower somewhere. Sometimes I’ll see amber down lower even though I’m not seeing it up top. When I see mostly cloudy and a few ambers I chop.

I’m looking all over the plant….of course there are tons of ambers on the leaves but almost none on the calyces or the interior crevices of the bud. It’s weird, there’s a spot or two where there might be 8-10 ambers bunched together, then not a single one anywhere else in the vicinity. But that’s just on the one plant that’s looking pretty ripe.
The two others, the hairy one especially, looked to have more sativa genes. They were a lighter shade of green from the start and their leaves were skinnier. Either way they’ve been budding for 12 weeks. They started forming buds around day 32-33.
The way I understand it, LEDs really require higher temps, and I kept mine around 74f the entire grow. That could have slowed them down, and the massive defoliation certainly stressed the hell out of them.
I’ll keep doing what I’m doing and they have to either finish or die…lol.
thanks for your input….it’s nice to hear a voice of reason from others.

 

[2budz]

I’m looking all over the plant….of course there are tons of ambers on the leaves but almost none on the calyces or the interior crevices of the bud. It’s weird, there’s a spot or two where there might be 8-10 ambers bunched together, then not a single one anywhere else in the vicinity. But that’s just on the one plant that’s looking pretty ripe.
The two others, the hairy one especially, looked to have more sativa genes. They were a lighter shade of green from the start and their leaves were skinnier. Either way they’ve been budding for 12 weeks. They started forming buds around day 32-33.
The way I understand it, LEDs really require higher temps, and I kept mine around 74f the entire grow. That could have slowed them down, and the massive defoliation certainly stressed the hell out of them.
I’ll keep doing what I’m doing and they have to either finish or die…lol.
thanks for your input….it’s nice to hear a voice of reason from others.

I don’t think you did much of anything wrong with them. Like I said, they look great. I’d probably chop the ripest one. Especially if she’s showing amber. The other 2 are healthy and look to still have some time left. Patience is vital at this point lol.