2019 New Zealand 30lb Backyard Attempt

[Noonin NorCal]

Nice looking, looking to me that the one on the right is flowering? It doesnt look like its growing vertical

 

[pahut]

Nice looking, looking to me that the one on the right is flowering? It doesnt look like its growing vertical

Cheers mate and yeah there's a few flowering. As we don't know most of the strains it was inevitable that we'd get the timing wrong lol.

Anyways here's the latest vid of a walk around today. The 'hermies' aren't actually hermying, the seed just came from a self seeded heat stressed indoor grow, hence the name. Also the water filled hole at the start is the last hole! Finally haha we've totally run out of room.

Enjoy! https://player.vimeo.com/video/381986069

 

[pahut]

Update time!

Been a week and a half of decent growth, lots of good re-veg and everythings a good green. We've almost fully got the cover back on too which is good coz they getting noticeable. Lost a few more branches on plants but other than that it's all good!

 

[pahut]

 

[Frosty Nuggets]

Fark those plants are looking nice there Pahut, I can see you pulling 30lb from that lot.

 

[KiefRichards]

Very nice update Pahut! When they start flowering? Hello from finland, other side of the world... Helsinki-Wellington 17102km...

 

[pahut]

Fark those plants are looking nice there Pahut, I can see you pulling 30lb from that lot.

Thanks mate!! Here's hoping to 30lb too hahabut we'll be happy with 15lb.

Very nice update Pahut! When they start flowering? Hello from finland, other side of the world... Helsinki-Wellington 17102km...

Heyyy Mr Richards!! Haha wow that's quite the distance mate, how's the weather over in Finland at the mo? Would love to visit one day!



Not sure exactly when they'll start coz it's our first outdoor grow but am anticipating Feb/March and Harvest Late March/April

 

[Swamp Thang]

Wow Pahut that is one healthy canna-jungle you have created. I can definitely see you pulling well over 15 pounds of buddage when all those trees mature and get the chop.

For the first time ever this last December, my overall harvest weight tipped the scales at one pound of dry bud, so I am definitely humbled to see a fellow gardener harvesting more than tenfold that weight, from about the same area of land, in comparison to my recently harvested grow. There is no substitute for experience, in gardening.

I still got a lot of grow learning to do ha ha.

 

[art.spliff]

looks great, horizontal screen trellis or cage of some kind can help with sunlight wind and yield

 

[therevverend]

Nice healthy plants by mid February it's going to be an impenetrable jungle! You're going to need stakes or mesh trelis or something to keep the plants upright. Once they start to flower if a big storm blows through you don't want them thrashed. It looks like you've got some protection from the elements but a big storm can still do damage. I'd keep an eye on the weather.

At this point you should do a big leafing/pruning. I'm not a big proponent of removing big fan leaves, usually if they're green I leave them. I like to remove the lower leaves and branches. Some of the re-vegged plants need to be thinned, if you leave every branch on those afro-looking ones they'll never develop big colas. I've found removing a lot of the oldest leaves on clones along with some thinning will cause the main branches to take off, grow like crazy.

Overall it's looking great, you can't judge what your harvest will be at this stage but you're on the right track. You'll want to switch to bloom fertilizers at the end of the month.

 

[pahut]

Wow Pahut that is one healthy canna-jungle you have created. I can definitely see you pulling well over 15 pounds of buddage when all those trees mature and get the chop.

For the first time ever this last December, my overall harvest weight tipped the scales at one pound of dry bud, so I am definitely humbled to see a fellow gardener harvesting more than tenfold that weight, from about the same area of land, in comparison to my recently harvested grow. There is no substitute for experience, in gardening.

I still got a lot of grow learning to do ha ha.

Cheers mate! We hope so too.
An elbow is a years supply to me so you've done bloody well mate. If you expand don't do what we did and put no thought into it haha, we're learning quick.


And you're right about the experience in gardeinning. Next season will be a total do over, different methods with our holes and making them easy access with no run off issues. Good soil. Adequate cover before the first plant is in the ground.

looks great, horizontal screen trellis or cage of some kind can help with sunlight wind and yield

Thanks for stopping by mate

Will get onto that asap. Guna have to buy some bamboo or timber to cut into stakes. Can't afford mesh net probz it's so expensive over here!

Nice healthy plants by mid February it's going to be an impenetrable jungle! You're going to need stakes or mesh trelis or something to keep the plants upright. Once they start to flower if a big storm blows through you don't want them thrashed. It looks like you've got some protection from the elements but a big storm can still do damage. I'd keep an eye on the weather.

At this point you should do a big leafing/pruning. I'm not a big proponent of removing big fan leaves, usually if they're green I leave them. I like to remove the lower leaves and branches. Some of the re-vegged plants need to be thinned, if you leave every branch on those afro-looking ones they'll never develop big colas. I've found removing a lot of the oldest leaves on clones along with some thinning will cause the main branches to take off, grow like crazy.

Overall it's looking great, you can't judge what your harvest will be at this stage but you're on the right track. You'll want to switch to bloom fertilizers at the end of the month.

Thanks so much for the detailed reply man, so on point it's crazy lol.


We've def cut the wind back a lot with windbreaks but those 1 in a hundred crazy storms don't care for windbreaks so your right lol we'll get into it asap. Bamboo stakes at this stage, unless we get some timber and build cages but thats time consuming.


I'll sit down and do a day or two pruning - I need to sync it up with cloning coz I wanna keep all the good genes going. Brilliant pruning advice, and interesting tip bout the growth spurt clones. Keen to try that.


Yeah we've had the very first of our second lot start flowering, am hoping the third lot gets another 2 weeks veg before flower starts. But there's one or 2 crazy plants that I swear to god will reveg and prob harvest June/July. It's the Ball Sativa from previous pics.


Thanks for the input mate!

 

[kickarse]

Shit hot pahut, you should shit 30 lbs in, if you don't have any dramas

watch out for the caterpillars and other unwanted shit

its a big job trimming 30lbs, especially when the weather turns to shit, and your only half done.

Good luck, plan ahead

 

[Chris P Bacon]

Joining along for the ride. Looks fantastic pahut.

 

[St. Phatty]

I'll sit down and do a day or two pruning - I need to sync it up with cloning coz I wanna keep all the good genes going. Brilliant pruning advice, and interesting tip bout the growth spurt clones. Keen to try that.

If you have any neighbors - with birds - that know about the garden - maybe share the fresh harvested leaves cuttings etc. with them.

Especially chopped up like fresh parsley. They will go gangbusters.

 

[pahut]

Thanks for the advice guys - will def start planning ahead now. Bro has bought a bunch of big bags for storage. We've got carbon filters for drying room. So hopefully no smell once we cut them.


Have spent alot of today and yesterday removing wheelbarrow loads of the dry dusty topsoil and all the twigs and sticks everywhere. Been so worried that the nugs going to be full of dust since we're growing on this shitty barren dirt but now i've removed it I think we're alright.. It'll be used for compost anyway.



Have posted my Seasol fert regime on OzStoners, thought I'd copy paste it here for you guys since it's all about sharing knowledge for those that stumble across this thread in the future!! (Seasol is an AU made Seaweed based plant conditioner..)


Copied post below...:

Yz420, on 18 Jan 2020 - 7:58 PM, said:

I've found personally caterpillars will take hold if you allow grass to grow into your plants. I've also had issues in recent times with moths laying eggs on the plants then tiny caterpillars start munching the plants. Full blown infestation in one case.

What liquid ferts are you guys feeding? I love the shades of green, sign of good health

Posted from the OZ Stoners mobile app​

​

We've got tufts of grass here and there that I've been ripping out but aside from that it's just a big patch of dirt. Dusty dirt. So today and yesterday I've been taking wheelbarrow loads of the shit out and now it's looking alot cleaner and less dusty. Will have to keep an eye on fence line where paddock grass likes to bleed under.

We're pretty simple this year with fert. Mostly organic feeding in veg. We've stayed dedicated to the Aussie Seasol brand after recommendations on threads on here. . No blood/bone. During flower using Liquid Potash and Super Phosphate to boost bud production and density.

After the shit start with the cheap potting mix we started buying good mix + dug about 20-30+ wheel barrows of this beautful dirt/wormcastings - it was a massive mound of few yr old grass clipping turn dirt, chocka full worms.

So that's the base for most of the holes. Plus bit of dolomite, . But all holes we're presoaked with a seasol mix which helped as the grounds so bloody dry. The monster plants had 80-100l holes and the rest are in batches of 20-30l holes and 5-10l holes.

Then we started off easy with the normal white bottle Seasol, 20ml per 9l bucket, shared between 3-4 plants.
As plants get bigger, 20ml per 9l per hole.

Once they're settled in and happy we give them Red Powerfeed (For VEG), 50ml per 9l bucket. Sometimes spread between plants, sometimes one per plant if it's a big one.

Today (18 Jan) some plants have changed over to the Purple Powerfeed (For FLOWER), 50ml per 15l bucket per big plant. So we use a fair bit of it but only dose the Powerfeed once every week or 2. In between it's just straight water or water/white bottle Seasol mix (20-50ml, depending how much is left

).

So 1x Seasol, 1x Powerfeed and 3-4 Water per plant per week is the aim, with some days of no feed.

We've started seeing random branches on the massive plants start wilting, and the plant looks watered - it seems that the roots have gone further out to the dry shit dirt and dying so now we're having to water in between the plants. More water. Fuckit.
We've had the water pressure turned up for some record time bucket filling

can barely hold the hose and the bore pumps singing a tune most days now but these plants are thirsty, and what they want they get.

Thinking about the water usage though, with the amount of plants, can easily use 1000litres a day just maintaining them 9litres each. The big plants would happily drink 50 litres if we'd allow it. That's probably something to do with why they're so green too, and when they got flooded out when the big storm hit - they gotpretty green after that. And the good vibes of course

Sorry for the long reply mate, thought i'd get a wee summary put into writing for future reference. Cheers mate

 

[therevverend]

We've started seeing random branches on the massive plants start wilting, and the plant looks watered

I had this happen to one of my plants last summer.(July up here) It was likely a root infection, either fusarium or pythium wilt. Fusarium is very common in California, it happens during very hot and dry weather. There's other kinds, I think pythium, that happen when it's cooler. No matter how much you water the branches keep wilting. In fact you want to let the ground dry out to slow it down. It started on the lower branches on my plant, spread upward. Very strange. It started after a big summer storm. Here's a couple pics to show you what mine looked like when it started.

And here's the entire plant, to show how healthy it was. If you look closely at the bottom you can see a wilted branch.

It spread until half the plant was wilted. Freaked me out a bit. Never spread to others, I'm guessing the one plant was genetically susceptible. Once the weather pattern changed and I cut back on the watering it slowly recovered. It's hard to over-water big ganja plants and you should never let them get so dry they wilt. But I also like the soil to dry out a little between waterings. It's a tricky balance.

If you search for 'fusarium' in the thread title search you can find lots of information. Probably come up with a cure if it starts spreading or gets worse. One tip is watering a couple times with a hydrogen peroxide solution, it's actually good for your plants if you don't overdo it. This is one of the reasons getting 30 lbs is hard, nature doesn't always play fair. To me 10 lbs to me is kind of the cut off, it takes some ass-kicking to get there. Getting more then 10 is hard. A lb is a lot of ganja. I kind of enjoy the challenges, every year I feel like I learn something new I can apply to my next grow. I try to keep a written record because I probably forget twice as much as I learn each year.

 

[pahut]

I had this happen to one of my plants last summer.(July up here) It was likely a root infection, either fusarium or pythium wilt. Fusarium is very common in California, it happens during very hot and dry weather. There's other kinds, I think pythium, that happen when it's cooler. No matter how much you water the branches keep wilting. In fact you want to let the ground dry out to slow it down. It started on the lower branches on my plant, spread upward. Very strange. It started after a big summer storm. Here's a couple pics to show you what mine looked like when it started.

View Image

And here's the entire plant, to show how healthy it was. If you look closely at the bottom you can see a wilted branch.

View Image

It spread until half the plant was wilted. Freaked me out a bit. Never spread to others, I'm guessing the one plant was genetically susceptible. Once the weather pattern changed and I cut back on the watering it slowly recovered. It's hard to over-water big ganja plants and you should never let them get so dry they wilt. But I also like the soil to dry out a little between waterings. It's a tricky balance.

If you search for 'fusarium' in the thread title search you can find lots of information. Probably come up with a cure if it starts spreading or gets worse. One tip is watering a couple times with a hydrogen peroxide solution, it's actually good for your plants if you don't overdo it. This is one of the reasons getting 30 lbs is hard, nature doesn't always play fair. To me 10 lbs to me is kind of the cut off, it takes some ass-kicking to get there. Getting more then 10 is hard. A lb is a lot of ganja. I kind of enjoy the challenges, every year I feel like I learn something new I can apply to my next grow. I try to keep a written record because I probably forget twice as much as I learn each year.

Thanks for that info mate - that make's more sense than my theory.
We'll keep an eye on it (have only noticed it on 2 plants, ones been cut coz it was a bad branch and not sure if will cut other yet).
We probably wont do the hydrogen perox but bloody good to know, thanks man.



Yeah 30lb is a pain in the ass alright specially how we've done it lol hoping got 15lb at least tho. But we're going to use absoulutely everything up, all trim and shake will be concentrates or edibles hopefully.



We're hopeless with written record lol the forums our only hope for archiving


Hope to see more of your ten pound grows mate!




Anyways... Here's some pics from today (19th Jan)


Gave most plants a top dressing of Super Phosphate today. The plants that have started flowering are really coming along great, looking skunky as fuck, will get some shots of those tomorrow.

 

[pahut]

.

 

[therevverend]

Recording a diary in a forum like this one is a useful tool, especially since you can record pictures and dates. It gives you an advantage we didn't have in the old days. It's also useful for other growers in the region. I'm guessing there isn't a lot of information out there on outdoor growing in New Zealand. What diseases to expect, when to plant out, when to harvest, what strains are successful, which aren't. Even here in the USA there isn't much good information in my region. I find myself referencing my albums and threads here every year.

An example of what you lose when you don't keep a journal, while we're on the subject of peroxide. 20 years ago a chemist friend advised me to use it as a supplement indoors. I had two identical clones next to each other. I did an experiment, gave it to one but not the other. I feel that it worked, the plant I fed the peroxide outgrew it's twin but I didn't keep a journal, and I can't remember what really happened. Here's a link to an article about giving peroxide to plants, explains a bunch of stuff I'd forgotten like why it works and how much to give them. In case your wilt gets worse. My garden soil has great aeration but I may have to run another test with it next year. There's a good chance the wilt is endemic. I grow a lot of tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, they all seem to get wilt type disease to varying degrees. Even though my plants aren't showing symptoms it could be affecting them.

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ga...ilizers/using-hydrogen-peroxide-in-garden.htm

 

[pahut]

Bang on mate. Especially as NZ growers, it's hard to find comparable grows since it's such a small place here and we just don't have the same forum community like over seas. So hopefully this thread here and the one on OzStoners will last an eternity and show up in Google for any other potential Kiwi growers looking for inspiration.



Alot of the growing information here in NZ is passed on verbally. I know the guerilla strain we're growing came from an old battler who lives locally who's grown guerilla maize crops for the past 20 years with the same strain. Sitting down with him smoking a fatty talking shit and listening to his stories is old school knowledge passing on. My fave story would be the one where the farmers were cutting the maize early, and he was out in the feilds running plant to plant, trying to harvest but the tractor was getting closer and closer...then it was too close!! Had to jump down and lie flat as the tractor and blades passed over him..,not a scratch or anything, just stupidly lucky.


I wish I was still in touch with him so could ask more advice, but ill def try find him after the grow and give him some of his weed back


Thanks for the info too mate, I think the wilt is limited to one branch on the plant. Not sure if should cut the branch off though? Could it spread if I dont? I think the peroxide would def help on the bigger plants, but may be something we don't bother with this year and just take the losses of a wilted branch (if it doesn't spread). It's just been so much work so far my backs broken lol