AcrylicGoblin Auto Sativa project

[AcrylicGoblin]

Hi everybody, thanks for stopping by. This is, for the most part, an outdoor grow. I decided to start the journal early as part of my overall strategy to avoid driving myself crazy with current American politics. I should say from the outset, a lot of this might end up off the topic of cannabis... I'm an off topic kind of person. "Shit growing in my yard" might be a more accurate title, but documenting the sativa auto project is the purpose of the journal, so I'm going with that.


This year, I'm trying to move past all of the silly endless crosses I've been making over the years and focus on a specific project: a long flowering sativa that will finish in my environment. I live on the California coast near the Oregon border, 40.5N. It rains a lot here, but the rain doesn't start until September. I can theoretically start a plant inside on groundhog's day, put it out at the end of March after the frosts pass, and let it go outdoors until early October. That's 8 months and long enough for a decent sativa if only I can get the flowering to start early. That's the hope, anyway.


So...where to start? I suppose with the easy part... for the photoperiod side of the equation I'm going to try ace seeds New Caledonia, Ethiopian, and maybe a couple others.


The auto side is a mix of two strains from Flash seeds. One of those is called Ace, not to be confused with the brand Ace Seeds. Here are the genealogies of the two strains used:

***

First phase of the project is to select the auto I want to cross with the photoperiods later in the year. After much deliberation (multiple crosses and a few generations to choose from) I've decided to go with one called *75 [Ace x (strawberry jam x ace)] seeds from 2021. I decided to go back one generation to do better selecting before moving forward. I just started soaking a couple hundred seeds and will gradually cull my way down to a couple males and 5-10 females for seed production and then smoke test to decide which seeds to move forward with. I'm starting early in the greenhouse hoping to get an extra generation in before crossing to New Caledonia and Ethiopian in late summer/fall. Or maybe I'm just starting early because in a month or two my wife will have already claimed all of the greenhouse space. The strawberry jam x ace can take a long time (for an auto), but growing in one gallon pots (this restricting the roots) and pollinating both decrease the time to harvest, so I should have enough time to grow out the seeds again. Unfortunately, I haven't been good about taking pictures in the past. I'm pretty sure, though, that these are representative of the parents. The one with the red stem is strawberry jam x ace and the other is ace.

Finishing the New Caledonia and Ethiopian might be a challenge, but my goal is just to produce a few viable seeds. I should be able to do at least that. I'll also try to take some clones so I can grow a few smaller plants in the greenhouse into the fall.



Finally, let me say that I'm not trying to grow the best cannabis in the world. I'm playing around in my yard and having fun. So if somebody feels the need to say, "dude, your weed sucks", you can skip the comment with the satisfaction that I wouldn't totally disagree. Besides, 90% if it will be made in to hash anyway (that's what I usually smoke). And for you sticklers for terminology out there, you can think NLD type whenever you read the word sativa if that helps you sleep at night.


I'm going to try to keep this journal for a few years, at least until I can grow out the first New Caledonia x *75 auto. I'm really looking forward to this project as well as sharing it and discussing it with you.

 

[Creeperpark]

Hi everybody, thanks for stopping by. This is, for the most part, an outdoor grow. I decided to start the journal early as part of my overall strategy to avoid driving myself crazy with current American politics.


This year, I'm trying to move past all of the silly endless crosses I've been making over the years and focus on a specific project: a long flowering sativa that will finish in my environment. I live on the California coast near the Oregon border. It rains a lot here, but the rain doesn't start until September. I can theoretically start a plant inside on groundhog's day, put it out at the end of March after the frosts pass, and let it go outdoors until mid September. That's 7 1/2 months and long enough for a decent sativa if only I can get the flowering to start early. That's the hope, anyway.


So...where to start? I suppose with the easy part... for the photoperiod side of the equation I'm going to try ace seeds new Caledonia, Ethiopian, and maybe a couple others.


The auto side is a mix of two strains from Flash seeds. One of those is called Ace, not to be confused with the brand of ace seeds. Here is the genealogy of the two strains used to make the auto I'm starting with:
View attachment 19143119

***
View attachment 19143120
First phase of the project is to select the auto I want to cross with the photoperiods later in the year. After much deliberation (multiple crosses and a few generations to choose from) I've decided to go with one called *75 [Ace x (strawberry jam x ace)] seeds from 2021. I decided to go back one generation to do better selecting before moving forward. I just started soaking a couple hundred seeds and will gradually cull my way down to one male and a few females for seed production and then smoke test to decide which seeds to move forward with. I'm starting early in the greenhouse hoping to get an extra generation in before crossing to New Caledonia and Ethiopian in late summer/fall. Or maybe I'm just starting early because in a month or two my wife will have already claimed all of the greenhouse space. The ace x strawberry jam can take a long time, but growing in one gallon pots and pollinating both decrease the time to harvest, so I should have plenty of time to grow out the seeds again. Unfortunately, I haven't been good about taking pictures in the past. I'm pretty sure, though, that these are representative of the parents. The one with the red stem is ace x strawberry jam and the other is ace.
View attachment 19143124

View attachment 19143121

Finishing the new Caledonia and Ethiopian might be a challenge, but my goal is just to produce a few viable seeds. I should be able to do at least that. I'll try to take some clones so I can grow a few smaller plants in the greenhouse into the fall.



Finally, let me say that I'm not trying to grow the best cannabis in the world. I'm playing around in my yard and having fun. So if somebody feels the need to say, "dude, your weed sucks", you can skip the comment with the satisfaction that I wouldn't totally disagree. Besides, 90% if it will be made in to hash anyway (that's what I usually smoke). And for you sticklers for terminology out there, you can think NLD whenever you read the word sativa if that helps you sleep at night.


I'm going to try to keep this journal for a few years, at least until I can grow out the first New Caledonia x *75 auto. I'm really looking forward to this project as well as sharing it and discussing it with you.

Thanks for taking the time to share your project with us friend. Very interesting stuff, I'm riding with ya.

 

[Mitsuharu]

Very ambitious, good selection of strains. Wish you good success with your project!

 

[mr.brunch]

Sounds interesting…..

 

[AcrylicGoblin]

A bunch of seeds and a cloud of smoke...

 

[AcrylicGoblin]

Each little pot has either 2, 3 or "shit, I think I just put seeds in these twice". It's hard to do precise work in the dark with a headlamp, a spliff, and a few strong drinks. It seems I started at least 500 seeds. More to choose from, I suppose.

While I wait for the garden to get rolling, I'll post a little about a relative of *75 and my favorite plant... The Oneness. The oneness is a pheno of Flash seeds strawberry jam. It's what made me think I could breed a real autoflowering sativa. In 2018, when I first started with that strain, I put a few in pots and planted one straight in to the ground. The description said the plants were supposed to stay small and produce an ounce or two. That's not what happened...it turned into a monster that yielded over two pounds! Here are a few pictures (mainly early in flower) from Different years but the same location. The smaller one still ended up being well over a pound.

Both were tied down and sloppily trained. It's got a pretty good sativa high, especially for an auto. I called it the oneness because the first time I smoked a joint of it in my back yard I looked around at the plants and birds and saw the oneness in all of creation. It's not the most potent plant but certainly potent enough. Sometimes it can be quite trippy. Once my friend and I were sitting under a tree and he started picking up rocks and pieces of bark and showing me what looked like faces. After a while I said that was cool and commented on how you can find the pattern of a face in about anything if you look hard enough. He responded with, "DUDE I SEE FACES!!!!" lol...no more for you buddy. He's obviously an indica man.
I considered using the oneness as the auto donor for this project, but decided to go with something else. I love the oneness as it is. Because I'm so fond of it, I've already made tons of crosses with it and am trying to do something a little different. Flash seeds describes ace as the purest sativa autoflower on the market, so I decided the *75 better aligned with my goal for this project.

 

[dilettante]

Cool. I'm following. That's a nice big auto

 

[gedLang]

Good luck on your project! I think you can definitely get the sativas to finish in your climate if you fully seed them. Should reduce the overall flowering time by a couple of weeks. If you are just after seeds, I think you may even be able to pollenate in early spring before the days get too long. I feel like I read somewhere that seeds will continue to develop normally even if the plant is revegged. But I've never tried that.

 

[AcrylicGoblin]

Seedlings are coming up!

I didn't actually sprout the seeds before planting, I just soaked them for about 40 hours. This is the first time I've ever used heated seed sprouting mats and I am really impressed with how effective they are

Someone gave these to my wife years ago...I sure am glad she held on to them.

 

[Popey]

Beware of hermaphrodites in the New Caledonia strain. For a breeding project I would personally use something with a spotless record for hermaphrodites.

 

[AcrylicGoblin]

I've got a couple of planter boxes that I grow in every year. In the off season, I always dig down a couple feet and bury something nutritious. Usually crab leftovers or fish heads. When I dig the hole, it turns over whatever I put in the previous year. That's part of why the oneness plants pictured in a previous post grew so well.
This year, it's crab shells and some of the guts. The remaining leftover crab shells and trace bits of meat get boiled into a crab bisque. After we strain it out, I'll dry it and powder it to mix in to the top of the soil. I mix a lot of random stuff into the dirt in these beds (as well as pee in them throughout the winter) I don't use any other form of fertilizer there and always get big, healthy plants.

 

[AcrylicGoblin]

This was a winter experiment. Oneness x seedsman CBDV auto. While it is on a heating mat now, that only happened recently. These were started on December 1st. Grown in reused potting soil with a few chicken manure pellets, no other nutrients. The CBDV auto is generally a slow growing scrawny plant. it's stated cannabinoid profile is 5% CBD and 5% CBDV. It's an excellent addition to a THC joint.

Anyway, the purpose of the experiment was just to see if plants would survive through the winter without any special treatment. I wanted to see if I could produce a small seed crop to move an autoflower generation along. 25% of the next generation should be very low THC and hopefully have a decent level of CBDV. They may not live that long as I might run out of space and/or patience by the time they finish...too bad I didn't come up with the idea a month earlier. So far, though, I consider the experiment a success.

 

[AcrylicGoblin]

Beware of hermaphrodites in the New Caledonia strain. For a breeding project I would personally use something with a spotless record for hermaphrodites.

Thanks popey, that's solid advice. I really appreciate any advice that you or anyone else here has to offer. That's part of why I started this journal, to get input from people who know what they are doing. I'm no expert grower, just somebody with a yard and a love of cannabis.

I am going to be using at least 3 different photoperiod strains (I've talked 2 other people into letting me grow in their back yards, so I can do a few grows without major pollen contamination). Point being, I don't have all of my eggs in the New Caledonia basket, so to speak.

I've been obsessing over this project for a couple months, trying to think about what traits to select for. Of course, I want it to be excellent in every possible way, but realistically that won't happen and I'll have to make sacrifices.

I've decided all that really matters to me is effect. If I have a hermi that takes 7 months to produce an ounce of seeded bud, I'd take it if it was the absolute best weed I've ever smoked. Dubi's enthusiast endorsement sold me on New Caledonia, I suppose, so I have high hopes for it.

Beyond the previously mentioned New Caledonia and Ethiopian, I've got Nepal Annapurna and Lebanese. I'm also considering incorporating seeds from another auto sativa project based on well selected Ethiopian and Vietnamese, F1'ed to auto C99/punta rojo.

On one hand, growing more strains means less selecting from each variety. But on the other, it gives me a better chance of finding crosses that pass the smoke test to continue on with. So I can grow multiple female varieties at each spot as long as I'm getting the pollen from the auto donor.

I've got a cold, so I guess I'll just lay in bed and obsess over the project some more...

 

[clockwork]

Good luck on this project, AcrylicGoblin! I'll definitely be watching how it turns out for you. I have similar goals of creating a mold resistant autoflower sativa line with some of the ACE lines as well. I definitely agree that it would be nice to be able to finish the longer flowering cultivars before fall weather sets in for outdoor!

 

[AcrylicGoblin]

Good luck on this project, AcrylicGoblin! I'll definitely be watching how it turns out for you. I have similar goals of creating a mold resistant autoflower sativa line with some of the ACE lines as well. I definitely agree that it would be nice to be able to finish the longer flowering cultivars before fall weather sets in for outdoor!

What strains are you playing on using? And how about the auto side? People seem to like the auto zamdelica from Ace, it seems like that would work. As hinted at previously, I'm a fan of flash seeds. I found that breeder because he was the only one who sold non-feminized sativa leaning autos when that's what I was after. To this day, his autos are the only ones that made me think "wow, I sure am happy I bought that!" I gave up on my older auto projects based on crappy ruderalis influenced stuff (except for CBD stuff) after I grew out the first cross that used his strawberry jam strain as the pollen donor... the plants were better in every way.

I heard an interview with the breeder saying he lost a lot of his stuff due to a power failure when on vacation and had to remake many strains. Most of his seeds were out of stock for a long time, but it seems things are finally restocking. Not that I need any...I should never buy another seed... but it's good for him and his customers.

 

[clockwork]

What strains are you playing on using? And how about the auto side? People seem to like the auto zamdelica from Ace, it seems like that would work. As hinted at previously, I'm a fan of flash seeds. I found that breeder because he was the only one who sold non-feminized sativa leaning autos when that's what I was after. To this day, his autos are the only ones that made me think "wow, I sure am happy I bought that!" I gave up on my older auto projects based on crappy ruderalis influenced stuff (except for CBD stuff) after I grew out the first cross that used his strawberry jam strain as the pollen donor... the plants were better in every way.

I heard an interview with the breeder saying he lost a lot of his stuff due to a power failure when on vacation and had to remake many strains. Most of his seeds were out of stock for a long time, but it seems things are finally restocking. Not that I need any...I should never buy another seed... but it's good for him and his customers.

I like the haze type of effects so I have some Honduras and OTH I plan on working into an auto. I think the Honduras has a lot of potential to add size, vigour, resistance, and pleasant effects to the right auto selection. The OTH being more extreme flowering I plan to use to reduce indica influence down the line and increase diversity. For the auto I originally found some white label NL genetics that get a good size outdoor (5-7ft), great resin production, but had a very bland effect and poor mold resistance that needed improved upon. I crossed the NL to my favorite Blue Dream and been working that feminized back to auto a few generations. The BD has a lot of the sativa hybrid qualities I like so its been my starting point, next I plan to work in the Honduras once I find the right male. The auto Zamaldelica I haven't had a chance to try yet but it does sound like a good base for a sativa project looking at its pedigree and reviews. Have you had a chance to try the Zamaldelica? I look forward to seeing what you pull out of the New Caledonia x *75 auto cross, I like what Dubi has wrote about the New Caledonia and had it on my list to get in the future. Have you had any of the finished New Caledonia flower before? And are you going to use the *75 auto as the pollen for the crosses?

 

[AcrylicGoblin]

Have you had any of the finished New Caledonia flower before? And are you going to use the *75 auto as the pollen for the crosses?

I haven't. I just received them in the mail a few weeks ago. I'm certainly excited to give it a try.
I am tentatively planning on using the *75 as the pollen donor because that will allow me to grow multiple varieties of photoperiod plants in the same location, but I will make the final decision later in the season.

 

[AcrylicGoblin]

Probably 200 seeds are up. I've never had a grow where I had to cull as many plants as I will here. That'll be a challenge... it's hard to throw a lovely little plant away...my chickens will probably eat them, though, so it's not a total loss. Oddly enough, chickens love cannabis. I can throw a bunch of lettuce, chard, and of other stuff in there along with cannabis and the weed is the first thing they eat. When I used to let them run free in the area I had plants, they would strip the bottom 24 inches to bare stem. Unfortunately, they'd also jump in them and snap branches along with digging up the roots. Anyway...

I'm only running the heat mats at night now. It's still getting down into the 30s every night, so they appreciate the warmth. I'm going to start running the florescent lights at night as well. I'll turn it on and see how it looks; I'll probably lower it a bit. During the winter, this greenhouse is shaded by my garage in the morning and house in the late afternoon, so a little supplemental light will do them good. We have some LED strip grow lights, but my wife is already using them on the other side of the greenhouse. As I alluded to in my first post, I need to move quickly or our limited garden resources have already been claimed.

 

[AcrylicGoblin]

Also from the yard, another multi-year grow project... walking sticks. When we raised rabbits we planted some special variety of willow for use as animal fodder. We don't have rabbits any longer, so I decided to grow some woven walking sticks/staffs. They still have a number of years to go, but eventually the wood will all grow together and I can cut, dry, and sand them into something awesome. I'll admit, it's a slower process than I expected, but I'm in too deep to quit now.

 

[bonghopper]

View attachment 19149208 View attachment 19149209
Also from the yard, another multi-year grow project... walking sticks. When we raised rabbits we planted some special variety of willow for use as animal feed. We don't have rabbits any longer, so I decided to grow some woven walking sticks/staffs. They still have a number of years to go, but eventually the wood will all grow together and I can cut, dry, and sand them into something awesome. I'll admit, it's a slower process than I expected, but I'm in too deep to quit now.

Liking your style! Ever try growing honeysuckle vine up a tree - it'll make a spiral groove in it, your woven willow reminded me of that. Careful with supplemental light and light hours, I'd still give them a dark nightime