Six Ace Monsters Outdoors

I wanna grow some big plants outdoors this summer, and I originally wrote a long-winded and scattered bunch of stoned thoughts about my plans.


This is the much-edited version, written with only a mild high, and much simpler to follow!


I plan to grow several long-flowering Ace sativas: Zamaldelica, Malawi, Golden Tiger, Bangi Haze x Ethiopian.

My plan for the long-flowering strains is to force-flower them in some manner, so that they start flowering in mid July, making it much more likely that they will flower and mature before the weather turns too hatefully cold.

This is what my garden looked like on October 14 last year, so the Malawi, Zam and GT might enjoy a similar fate to the girl under that snow, if I get a long-finishing pheno!





By an odd coincidence, I'm enjoying a pleasant buzz at the moment, compliments of that very plant. Right after I took that photo, I cut the stem, shook off the snow, and took her inside to dry and cure. Besides cutting her earlier than I'd like (she could have used at least another week) that snow didn't deprive me of much.



But had she been a Malawi or GT, I would have been rushing to build a structure to cover her that night, because she would be nowhere near ready to harvest yet.


AT this point, I have a couple questions for the hive-mind to ponder: First, given the strains I'm hoping to grow, is there any reason to think that Zam, GT, Malawi or BHxE would not excel with longer, warmer days during flowering? They would then enjoy full twelve-hour days of sunlight in late July for their stretch, rather than the much shorter, cooler days of late August. (daytime temperatures in the summer rarely get over ninety degrees here.) Second, having grown these strains, do any of you have suggestions for training the plants during veg so that they have a good structure to carry the weight of the ginormous harvest I'm envisioning?







(could there be a more perfect smiley to accompany that notion?)

You’re contemplating many more moves than I can presently organize, but a few things arise to my thinking: All those strains sound like the kind of thing that you would love for high level mental activity; Improvised shelters needn’t be an extravagant buzzkill; Dep is a technology you could explore further; Maybe focus on indoor production; Experiment with leaving some more of that insane Sativa “roller coaster” stuff out in the snow for a couple days longer—if not a week or two (heads will say you’ll get max oils and trich production from dark and cold..also color.)

Can you get mold in the snow?

I’m not trying to harsh on you. I want to do Zamdelica and GT and Malawi, too. Whilst I can probably only handle an Erdpurt buzz. I guess I’m saying work the plant limit year-round to achieve your/more dream(s).

Following.

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If I was in your location I would replace Malawi, Zamaldelica and Golden Tiger with Panama, Purple Satellite and auto Malawi X NL to increase my chances of success.

Best of luck

Interesting plan I like it. I've flowered plants outdoors in late spring (April/May) after going 12/12 for a week or two indoors and it worked great. These were regular 8 week flowering strains not the long season types you're growing. I like your selection of strains you picked ones that are more tame. I wouldn't try this with wilder, untamed, longer flowering tropical types, Mangobiche and Hazes and such.

One year I did the opposite, started Vietnamese Black x Thai, Malawi, and a few other plants outdoors in July. Moved them indoors to finish flowering under artificial lighting in late October. Harvested between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Worked well except a couple of the Malawi showed nanners at the end of their flowering cycle. It wasn't a big deal, didn't cause my crop to be seeded but you'll be growing big outdoor plants so be aware it could be a problem.

The Kali China and especially the Lebanese are the oddballs. What's interesting about the Lebanese and other strains from the area, they begin flowering much earlier then other strains. Usually after a month or two. Then it takes them 12 weeks or so to finish. I'm not precise about this Lebanese because I haven't grown it but it finishes earlier not because it flowers quicker but because it stays in Veg for less time. This effects yield.

You're taking a big risk putting them out so early. Equatorial strains never see days longer then 13 hours or so. Going from 12/12 to the long days of early July could flip them back. By the time they do they'll want to go back into flowering again creating a mess. Even though the days are getting shorter they still may be long enough to confuse the plant. This also raises the potential of sex reversal. Putting them out after July 15 would be much safer but it's not an option with these strains.

Hoop houses are a great solution but then you're size limited. No matter how you do it you'll be pushing limits in some way. I'm looking forward to your updates this is an interesting experiment, one I've thought of trying myself. There's a chance the Kali China or Lebanese could get snowed in there's always the possibility of them taking until mid October to finish.

Myself I'd plant out a few normal main run type strains that finish by the end of September. That would hedge your bets in case your experiment runs astray. It'll be great if it all works out smooth you are correct to anticipate a huge harvest.

People think high altitude ganja is excellent because of the UV radiation. I'm not sure that's true. It's more likely the very low humidity and the temperatures which can be hot during the day and very cold at night. Perfect for flowering ganja to reach it's peak.

Me, I'd be looking for mountain strains that naturally love the high altitude. The Ethiopian is the closest you've got and the Bangi contains quite a bit of Nepalese. I'd expect this strain to shine under your conditions. Of course Central Asian strains would do great at your altitude. I'd guess you don't worry about grey mold.

The Lebanese may benefit, show a side the growers at lower altitudes don't get to see. It can make a huge difference we grow our plants in different and unnatural environments compared to the ones they're adapted to. In the future you could find a strain that's adapted to the cold and the heat and hit the harvest period just right.

AT this point, I have a couple questions for the hive-mind to ponder: First, given the strains I'm hoping to grow, is there any reason to think that Zam, GT, Malawi or BHxE would not excel with longer, warmer days during flowering? (daytime temperatures in the summer rarely get over ninety degrees.) Second, having grown these strains, do any of you have suggestions for training the plants during veg so that they have a good structure to carry the weight of the ginormous harvest I'm envisioning?

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Didn't really answer your questions so I'll have a go. Most strains are at their optimum production level in the 80s. Temperatures in the high 90s aren't the best for flowering. I think you'll be just right. I worry a bit about the cold night temperatures some of the tropical varieties may have a bit of trouble.

The question about training is a good one, whatever structure the plants have when you place them outside you'll have to live with. Mountains can have high winds which can be highly destructive. I've never been a big pruner I'd probably tie them over when they get put in the ground. This will create lots of tops all your long season strains would benefit from this treatment.

I'd tie the top to a stake 4 to 5 feet off the ground. This should make for dozens of tops instead of just a few without sacrificing the vigorous growth you get at the top of the plant. Hopefully with their tropical long flowering vigor the branches will pop up to the 6 to 8 foot range. The Malawi was ideal for this treatment and from the pictures I've seen of the Zamal and the others I'd guess they'd thrive as well.

Tying over works especially well with large bushy strains, where the branches on the lowest part of the plant curve out almost as far as the plant is tall. Not so well with short branched Afghan types. In a lot of ways we end up fighting nature, you're making things unnaturally hard on yourself and the plants by force flowering indoors and choosing strains that aren't adapted to your environment. I like tying off because it's something that happens often in nature, a large plant gets blown over or falls over from it's own weight.

waste of time grow some more freeeze dried

spazspaz said:

You’re contemplating many more moves than I can presently organize,

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Ha! I'm contemplating more than my brain can organize too. Thankfully, I hang out with a professional project planner, and she has coached me well: break a big project into a bunch of smaller ones and it becomes much more easily manageable. Oh, and write it down, because humans forget stuff.



That's part of the purpose of this thread: I'm writing down my plan, well in advance, and also seeking input from folks who can offer useful instruction. Thanks for spending part of your day helping me, ICMagers!

spazspaz said:

but a few things arise to my thinking: All those strains sound like the kind of thing that you would love for high level mental activity;

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Yes, no doubt that's why some silly cowboy wants to try using them to treat a mental illness. More "high level mental activity" would be welcome in my brain.

spazspaz said:

Improvised shelters needn’t be an extravagant buzzkill; Dep is a technology you could explore further;

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We're on the same page. I'm already designing a lightweight, portable light dep tent in my mind, and thinking about a full-on light dep cover for my entire hoophouse.

spazspaz said:

I want to do Zamdelica and GT and Malawi, too. Whilst I can probably only handle an Erdpurt buzz. I guess I’m saying work the plant limit year-round to achieve your/more dream(s).


Following.

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Oh yeah. We're on the same page there. While it's beyond the subject of this thread, I plan to try keeping six plants in flower pretty much continually, either indoors or out, year-round. While I'm talking with you guys about the four plants I want to put outside to flower in July, I'm thinking in the back of my mind: what OTHER two plants will be flowering, either inside or out, to make sure I have SIX flowering somewhere!


In truth, I think plant counts are silly. I'd prefer to be growing less bud more economically by using a sea of green indoors, but because of the plant count, I'm stuck growing fewer plants, less efficiently.

therevverend said:

You're taking a big risk putting them out so early. Equatorial strains never see days longer then 13 hours or so. Going from 12/12 to the long days of early July could flip them back. By the time they do they'll want to go back into flowering again creating a mess. Even though the days are getting shorter they still may be long enough to confuse the plant. This also raises the potential of sex reversal. Putting them out after July 15 would be much safer but it's not an option with these strains.

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I'm open to adjusting the dates. I'll be curious to learn whether anybody else around here has tried something like this with any of the Ace sativas. I read a great explanation of this method for moving force-flowered plants outdoors early. The guy was talking about growing smaller plants, basically starting hundreds of clones, already in flower when they go outside, so that they would finish before the LEOS start flying around, and they would also be small enough that they wouldn't be so easily visible from the air.


I liked the theory behind what he was doing, but since I don't need the stealth of small plants, I want to try it with big ones. I can't think of any reason the size should make any difference.

therevverend said:

Me, I'd be looking for mountain strains that naturally love the high altitude. The Ethiopian is the closest you've got and the Bangi contains quite a bit of Nepalese. I'd expect this strain to shine under your conditions. Of course Central Asian strains would do great at your altitude. I'd guess you don't worry about grey mold.

The Lebanese may benefit, show a side the growers at lower altitudes don't get to see. It can make a huge difference we grow our plants in different and unnatural environments compared to the ones they're adapted to. In the future you could find a strain that's adapted to the cold and the heat and hit the harvest period just right.

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Yep. Makes sense. But part of what I'm trying to do here is to learn how ACE strains that interest me will react to this method. I'm also in experimentation mode, to figure out which of these Ace genetics I like, and which ones I can make grow well here in the future. This grow is all about the experimentation and learning. (Naturally, as I'm the son of a scientist: the cowboy chemist.)

I agree I'd love to try out those strains. I'm further north then you, the only way I'm pulling it off is with a light dep hoophouse, preferably in the eastern desert side of the state. This guy is the model I wonder if there's any Rec people doing it like him in Colorado. Only Rec stuff around here I'd pay money for.

https://kionathc.com/sativa/

I accidentally grew an equatorial plant last summer and I'm glad I did. We didn't have a real frost until February, I was harvesting crappy stringy buds at Christmas but at least I harvested. I learned an important lesson and it's the Achilles' heel of your project. It wasn't that the equatorial NLD variety took a long time to flower (it did), it's that it wasn't triggered to flower until the autumn equinox.

In the tropics the summer days are almost 12/12 so the day length has to be at or drop below 12/12 to flower. I expected the plant to flower along with the others, late August or early Sept. Instead it waited until the last week of Sept to show hair clusters. With a normal main run plant that's triggered to start flowering in early August, especially clones, early July for you should work. After 3 or 4 weeks they will notice the days getting shorter in late July, early August and stop producing hormones telling them to revert to Veg.

The tropical plants may not start doing this until the end of August or early to mid September which gives them 8 weeks or more to produce hormones causing them to revert to Veg. I'm skeptical they could stay stable that long. You could try starting later but then you'll get frozen. It's a hard call I'll be rooting for you.

I've already posted this before but I'll post it again. Useful tool for figuring flowering times and day length. If you're growing a strain from Malawi for instance you can compare the day length their to the same day where you're located.

https://www.timeanddate.com/

It may help if you can plant them where they get shaded completely in the evening for awhile before sundown as the prolonged shade is high in IR and makes them react similar to darkness.

therevverend said:

. . .
In the tropics the summer days are almost 12/12 so the day length has to be at or drop below 12/12 to flower. I expected the plant to flower along with the others, late August or early Sept. Instead it waited until the last week of Sept to show hair clusters. With a normal main run plant that's triggered to start flowering in early August, especially clones, early July for you should work. After 3 or 4 weeks they will notice the days getting shorter in late July, early August and stop producing hormones telling them to revert to Veg.

The tropical plants may not start doing this until the end of August or early to mid September which gives them 8 weeks or more to produce hormones causing them to revert to Veg. I'm skeptical they could stay stable that long. You could try starting later but then you'll get frozen. It's a hard call I'll be rooting for you.

I've already posted this before but I'll post it again. Useful tool for figuring flowering times and day length. If you're growing a strain from Malawi for instance you can compare the day length their to the same day where you're located.

https://www.timeanddate.com/

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Thanks!


If I didn't have to worry about a plant count, I could do an experiment, to see if there is an optimum time to put tropical plants out already flowering. I could cut ten cuttings, each a week apart, and start each of them rooting under 20 hours light for the first seven days, then switch to 12/12. Each clone will remain indoors for 30 days, and then harden off and go outdoors, each a week apart, starting in mid June, and continuing into August.


It would be interesting to see which ones stayed in flower and which ones revegged. If you were serious about growing these tropical sativas outdoors at a given location, it would be invaluable information.


Thanks for the links!

Ibechillin said:

It may help if you can plant them where they get shaded completely in the evening for awhile before sundown as the prolonged shade is high in IR and makes them react similar to darkness.

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Hmmm, that's an interesting thought. I wonder how long I would need to provide the shade to keep the girls flowering. It would be easy enough to build a simple portable wall that I could set right next to the plant at a given time of day, so that it would be shaded from direct light for the rest of the day. Would shade in the morning be equally effective? I could achieve that very easily with some small adjustments to the garden plan. It seems that I read somewhere that morning shade causes slow maturation, though.

Sativas are very likely to reveg if put out already flowering too early, indicas and indica hybrid ~8 week or less strains seem to resist the reveg better and finish.

You would want the shade in the evening similar to doing light deprivation. On the June solstice (longest day 22nd) your at 15hr of sunlight 5:30am sunrise then decreasing. If you shade/light dep them at 5:30 pm every day it will simulate being september already. As days pass the sun is rising later in the morning each day simulating shorter daylengths going forward, just keep shading/covering at 5:30 pm until they finish hopefully mid to late september (10-12 weeks of flowering).

Light deprivation covering would be ideal.

That's a good idea ibechillin. I've seen plants in partial shade, the shaded parts flowered quicker then the un-shaded parts. Especially tropical type strains. You'll see half the plant finished and half still immature. You'll still have to worry about the plants reverting and reversing sex.

A simple light dep setup you could try is to dig a pit. Maybe not a swimming pool but if it's 6 feet deep and 8 feet square you could fit a plant into it and tie it down. Cover it with a heavy tarp either in the mornings or in the evening. In some cases this is easier and more practical then a hoop house, all you're doing is digging a hole. No building material.

I saw it mentioned in Silverback's threads awhile ago when I was looking into outdoor force flowering:

Silverback said:

Thats very interesting Jungle Jim. In fact, it may explain a condition that I know exist in cannabis whereas certain shading situations trigger flowering faster. Ive had plants of the same strain, sometimes only 20' or so apart where one of the plants goes into the shade before the other and the plant starts and finishes as much as a week more than its sister. The effect is increased as the end of summer approaches and the sun starts lowering in the sky, consistently lowering the daylight recieved by the shaded plant.

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Silverback said:

I bury that bucket in a location that recieves morning sun until 2-3:00 pm and then sinks into deep shade. Over the years, Ive had patch after patch that had some plants that fell into afternoon shade, and they always finished several days sooner than the other plants. The plants need 6-7 full hours of light to grow and mature properly, but after that SHADE.

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Even a monster starts life as a seedling:






I enjoyed 100% germination, at last. That little Zamaldelica has been at least a day behind the others, both germinating in the paper towel, and pushing through the soil.


These six are twin Malawis, Zamaldelicas and Golden Tigers.


If any are males, I'll collect pollen, if appropriate, and then cull them. I'll probably just grow out the females from these seedlings, and then add additional plants to fill out my six-plant limit for the outdoor season.


I'll scratch Lebanese off the list of potential strains for the summer: she hermied. No sweat, though. I can easily add Orient Express or Snow Moon, maybe Erdpurt, to finish out my plant count, and ensure that my harvest doesn't depend on the success of a bunch of experiments.

CowboyTed said:

. . . and ensure that my harvest doesn't depend on the success of a bunch of experiments.

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'
Hell, who am I kidding? I've managed to complete exactly one successful outdoor grow to date. My entire experience with growing cannabis is nothing but a bunch of experiments.

If all goes well, my six outdoor monsters should be in this photo (with a couple extra seedlings thrown in, assuming I'll get some males.)





The six seeds I started last month are all growing steadily, and should show sex in the next couple weeks. I'll decide then which ones will earn a place in the garden outdoors. They are two each of Malawi, Golden Tiger and Zamaldelica. The other plants in the photo are re-vegged clones of Orient Express and Bangi Haze x Ethiopian. They are typical for re-vegged clones: branches and more branches. I've been training the branches already, and they are both looking like Octopuses, each with about twelve main branches.


Updates when they go outside! Let's aim for 4/20!

Hi CowboyTed,

Thanks for choosing ACE Seeds genetics for your outdoor season, much appreciated!

All the strains you comment have similar flowering times so they all can be grown in the same garden or greenhouse.
Obviously, your climate doesn't allow these longer flowering sativas to finish properly before the frosts and snows unless you force their flowering earlier than you planned.

If the weather at your location starts to get cold in late August and September, then i would recommend you to force their flowering in late May/first half of June to make sure they will receive warm temps and strong light intensity throughout all their flowering stage. That's what we did last season: start to force the flowering of the sativa light deps in late May so the long flowering sativas like yours were ready to harvest in early August.

Revegged clones can easily start to flower or get frozen during an unexpected bad weather if you bring them too early outdoors in early spring, so i would recommend you to bring them from an indoor 18/6 growing photoperiod and plant them outdoors in May, in that way you will avoid undesired flowerings in spring and there will be lesser chances that the plants suffer bad weather.

Hope it helps and good luck for the outdoor season!