Great pics on those buds bro. Nice long buds can tell its a more sativa dom strain. Cutting nutes back will cause the fade to happen. Like now1more and urself said ive drilled holes in main stalks to speed up the finish. My dad said back in the day he wood stick thumb tacks up n down the main stalks to stress em into finishing. But only when uve got 7-10 days left b4 harvest.
U could also cut ur lights back to like 10 on 14 off.. Another one that helped me a time or 2 was in last week b4 harvest was using ice cold water in a hydro setup.
The age old question of if the dark period at end does help sum strains throw that last little bit of crystals and finish up to. From my experience usually the 3rd day of complete darkness was the best.. But on other hand ive had sum strains that looked worse after couple days of dark period.. Sum it helps , and sum it hurts i guess..? Lowering temps helps sum.
Its your grow so do what u want and go with ur gut feeling on these decisions.
My first semi hydro setup was making my own octopots. Soil and hydro in same pot. Top pot was compost n perlite sitting on top of a Rubbermaid tote like a dwc bubbling away. The 15 gallon tote was jammed packed with roots at the end.. I had like 4 airstones (2inch round disc's) per tote to pump as much oxygen as i could into rootzone. It was easy to run for sumbody who only has done organics for 25 yrs. No fancy ph &ppm meters. Id use those cheap pool kits from wally world to check em. Feed daily by having a gravity fed resivor with a hose on it. Id lower ph to low 5's at beginning of week and 7 days later it wood b in mid 6's. Keep that routine whole time. Only flushed totes out when flippd to flower and at end when id use ice cold water.
I had no clue there was even a fancy name for my diy pot at the time i made mine. Afterwards learned the make pots similar to mine called octopots.. Lol. I allways herd u cant use organic methods into a hydro setup is why i tried them pots. As long as u use a airy mix in top pot that drained well. When i started the plants in early veg i used a dtw hempys with airstones. Then when they got bigger i transplanted into 5 gallon smart pots and sat them onto the bubbling totes. Worked well. I like the dtw hempys with the airstones. Whatever the runoff that came out id use a 3 gallon shop vacuum to empty drip pans. Then id use the runoff nutes in my veggie garden and for wifes flowers.. No waste of nutes. Lol.
I cant say enough good things bout the botainicare pure blend pro line. Good for all mediums. Id usually mix at bout half strength. The veg bottle was a good even amount of nutes. The compost in top pot was prime stuff that helped out big time. I used the veg nutes bottle, and botainicares tea, with big bloom fox farm and made my own aact & sst teas the whole cycle up to the beginning of week 7. Then last week -10 days only chilled water and set timer to the 10 on and 14 off. Plants finished at 58 days. The same strain outdoors took 63 days of flower. Not sure what made them flower quicker but i wasnt complaining.. Lol. Dtw hempys with airstones and octopots will be the main ways i use from now on indoors. All tho i allways have at least 1 organic soil pot each time so i can see what style of growing makes the best product at end for that particular strain. I like the indica dom strains myself. Sumthing that will knock a horse down and finishes quick.
Sorry 4 long message that is all over the place. Just wanted to share sum stuff ive learned along the way. Just wanted to also say nice job with ur plants dude, uve got nice long ball bat buds dude! Sometimes as much as it sucks the only way u learn is by making mistakes and ive definitely made my share of mistakes in my years.. Thanks and keep up the good work dude i enjoy ur pics..!