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Diary 2024 by the Danube: Zamaldelica x Kullu, Kullu x Zacateca Tribute, Purple Mexican x PCK, Kerala Chellakutti, Chiang Mai Thai

yoss33

yoss33

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Hello there!
The 2024 season has started! :) As usual I'm making a thread to use as a diary for my outdoor adventures. My place is at 44 degrees north, in the north Balkans, some 30 km south from the southernmost point of the river Danube. Fertile soil called Chernozem ("black land"). Dry summer and autumn. I grow a few plants in a deserted neighboring property in a village in a small valley in the plain.
This year the plan is to grow 2 big plants - a Kullu x Zacateca Tribute (sativa) and a Purple Mexican x Pakistan Chitral Kush (indica). I'm a sativa fan and I grow the indica mostly to make medical hash for a family member.
Starting them indoors and transplant outdoors sometime in April.
I'll also be growing a dozen small plants for fun breeding experiments, starting to flower and pollinating them indoors before moving them outdoors to finish producing the seeds in the early summer. After evaluating the seeded buds, some of them will be left to reveg and produce some sinsemilla bud in the autumn for proper evaluation of the high. Some seeds of the freshly produced will also be started in the summer.

Started seeds:
8 x Kullu x Zacateca Tribute (own cross of Khalifa Genetics' Kullu and Green Mountain Seeds' Zacateca Tribute)
5 x Purple Mexican x PCK (own cross of Cannabiogen's Purple Mexican and Ace Seeds' PCK)

5 x Zacateca Tribute F2 (own F2)
4 x Kerala Chellakutti (Khalifa Genetics)
3 x Chiang Mai Thai (Ace Seeds)

12 x Zamaldelica x Kullu (or ZamKullu, own cross, Ace Seeds' Zamaldelica)
12 x Zamaldelica x (Zamaldelica x Kullu) (or ZamZamKullu, own backcross)
4 x Kullu x (Zamaldelica x Kullu) (or KulluZamKullu, own backcross)

I hope to find good parental plants among the Zam x Kullu crosses to make the first breeding step of my "ZamKullu" line (just been making and testing the base crosses up to now). It has to produce plants at least as good as the ZamKullu cross in order to call that step a success. If not, stepping back and trying again in the following years.
I also want to try the Chellakutti and Chiang Mai Thai, but since they are supposed to be too long-flowering for our climate, I'll cross them to ZamKullu and check out the results.
Last year I was very impressed by the high of a Zacateca Tribute plant grown by a friend. Early picked, but very very nice. That's why this year I'll grow Kullu x Zacateca Tribute, hoping for a similar but maybe more intense high and later flowering. I hope for later flowering because Zacateca Tribute starts to flower too early and gets pollinated by the local feral hemp.
I also started the Zacateca Tribute F2 to compare to the Kullu cross and eventually to cross to Chellakutti and Thai.

I had some germination problems with the Kullu crosses and mutant problems with the Zacateca Tribute. The Kullu x Zacateca Tribute suffered from both, so I've got only 2 healthy plants out of 8 seeds...
Germination: 2 / 4 for KulluZamKullu, 8 / 12 for ZamKullu and 10 / 12 for ZamZamKullu
One ZamKullu was runt and removed, all Zacateca Tribute F2's are mutants (still kept out of curiosity), one mutant of the Kullu x ZacTrib is also kept.

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yoss33

yoss33

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2 weeks later the progress is not as good as expected. The plants grow slow, small and as if hungry, some of them overwatered, especially the Thai and Kerala. I blame the soil, sold as "soil for seedlings". It had fungus gnats flying a few days after it was watered for the first time and the plants grew slow and small, like bonsai, don't know if from the gnats or from lack of nutrients, or from the insecticide I sprayed with against the gnats. So I removed the bottom half of the soil in the cups and substituted it with another soil (own mix of peat and compost), which made the plants happy and they started growing. But after 2 weeks that new soil wasn't enough (it's only 150-200ml per plant), the plants started to pale at the bottom, so I fed with some general purpose fertilizer with NPK of 10-9-8, twice as diluted as per the instructions on the bottle. That somewhat helped but not as much as I expected, so I watered with more of the same fertilizer and all I got was burned leaf tips and overwatering symptoms, plants are still pale.
The only plant in perfect condition is PurpleMexPCK #4, which I've transplanted into a bigger pot with more of the "good" soil. Its top reeks of hash! If female, it will be the chosen one for the "indica" slot in the garden :)
I didn't have compost available at the time I started the seeds and that was a mistake, because the plan is for the plants to stay in these 400ml cups till they are pollinated. I've easily done that but with soil rich in compost / warm castings. Just water for the few months, adding a little NPK a couple of times when plants start to pale.
A few days ago the Thai, Kerala and Kullu x ZacT had their cups top dressed with some worm castings. Will do the same with all other cups tomorrow. I also have tomato fertilizer made from brown algae, that I've used on tomatoes with good results, but I'm not sure how good (and how rich in N) it is for cannabis, might try it at some of the plants.

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yoss33

yoss33

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The stem smell of Kerala Chellakutti is similar to the stem smell of Kullu, very different from all other popular strains. Anise, metalic, herbs/spices, mushrooms. Kerala #4, the most wide-leaf one, has some citric fruitiness added to this "indian" smell. I also had one Kullu plant that had some citric notes added, but it seems that in both strains it's mosty the metalic herb smell.
Kerala #3 was very quick to start alternating branching but it still hasn't shown sex.
 
RizlaMan

RizlaMan

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Yoss33,

It is unfortunate you're experiencing problems from falsely advertised soil.

However, I have confidence in your ability modify and adapt to yield a successful season.

I have been following your yearly grows since 2012 and you always impress.

This year could you please share with us again how to determine sex, with >95% accuracy, of seedlings before putting them into flower.

May this year's grow accomplish all your goals!
 
yoss33

yoss33

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Thanks, man! May this year be good for everybody.. hmm.. but the bad people :)
I'm not sure I understand your question completely, especially with the cited precision of 5% :)... All I do is wait for the preflowers, which takes longer to some strains and individuals, and never really happens to others (to have fully-developed preflowers), but to most strains it happens on the 6th-8th node of a well developed seedling, sometimes even earlier. I really like the "semi-autoflowering" trait of Zamaldelica because it causes the plant to start early and produce a lot of preflowers, especially when in a small container. I haven't had a Zamaldelica that has produced many well-developed female preflowers and then turned male at flowering. Plants that can't produce (developed) preflowers are suspicios, as if they still haven't determined their sex.
Hope that helps, I think it's common knowledge and experience.
 
buteo

buteo

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Youve got quite a lot of work going on there. I want to follow this one.

There is always some drawbacks every year but i think you have it handled.
 
Old Uncle Ben

Old Uncle Ben

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Nice job and lots of challenges with all the interesting varieties. Because you're using clear pots which promote algae, which robs your faves of N, watch out for that issue which results in stunting, yellowing and in some cases chlorosis. Case in point. I usually go all black pots, but.....
 

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yoss33

yoss33

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I use clear plastic pots exactly to see what's going on in the cups, and no, there's no algae in there. I neither water so much, nor fertilise with nitrogen salts so much.
I've seen some algae, especially in the cups with big hungry tomato seedlings that I watered and fertilised too much. When my cups with seedlings are too close to each other and I have a lot of them, it becomes difficult to pick up and weight the cups one by one, so many times I just water all of them with the same amount of water, which inevitably leads to overwatering some of the plants. I always weight by hand each of the cups with weed seedlings before watering them, so no water clogging and no algae in them.
If your plants are not healthy and you have algae, most probably both have the same cause (overwatering) and not that one of them is the cause for the other. Yes, algae can eat some of the nitrogen salts, but that's only on the soil surface, there are no algae inside the soil where it's dark.
Anyways, I'm keeping an eye for algae too, thanks for the heads-up!
I'm happy that adding a top layer of warm castings "fixed" the soil, whatever its issue was. Plants now grow much faster and happier.

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Old Uncle Ben

Old Uncle Ben

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yoss33 said:
I use clear plastic pots exactly to see what's going on in the cups, and no, there's no algae in there. I neither water so much, nor fertilise with nitrogen salts so much.
I've seen some algae, especially in the cups with big hungry tomato seedlings that I watered and fertilised too much. When my cups with seedlings are too close to each other and I have a lot of them, it becomes difficult to pick up and weight the cups one by one, so many times I just water all of them with the same amount of water, which inevitably leads to overwatering some of the plants. I always weight by hand each of the cups with weed seedlings before watering them, so no water clogging and no algae in them.
If your plants are not healthy and you have algae, most probably both have the same cause (overwatering) and not that one of them is the cause for the other. Yes, algae can eat some of the nitrogen salts, but that's only on the soil surface, there are no algae inside the soil where it's dark.
Anyways, I'm keeping an eye for algae too, thanks for the heads-up!
I'm happy that adding a top layer of warm castings "fixed" the soil, whatever its issue was. Plants now grow much faster and happier.

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Click to expand...

You don't need to see what's going on. Why do you think all commercial nurseries grow in plastic molded black pots?

Maybe your water quality is sanitized. I use mainly rain water which does contain algae spores.

Some of your faves are already showing signs of N deficiency. Check out the yellowing lower leafsets.

Where did you get the pure Thai from? Been shopping for Thai recently.

Good luck
 
yoss33

yoss33

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Hey, I don't know about nurseries and you, but I like to see the roots of different strains and individuals, just as I like to observe the leaves and structure of the plants, don't mind to pay the low price :) Sativas usually have thicker and more vigorous roots than indicas. Out of the strains currently in the box, the Thai (from Ace Seeds, as the first post in the thread says) has the most vigourous roots, followed by the Kerala and ZamKullu crosses. The Thai's are very vigorous above the ground too.
It was Easter holidays here and I was busy with family gatherings, didn't have time to take photos. Will do it in the following days when I buy batteries for the camera.
PurpleMexPCK #1 and Kullu x ZacTribute #2 (the first plants of these crosses to show pre-flower pistils) were transplanted outdoors to grow big. Another PurpleMexPCK (#3) and a ZamZamKullu (#10) were given to a friend for his guerrilla grow.
Light in the box for the remaining plants has been 11/13 for the last several days. Almost all plants have shown sex.

For the last 2 weeks I've been enjoying something that I haven't thought I might like so much - smoking quickly-dried leaves to evaluate the effects of the different strains and phenos. I intentionally don't smoke indicas and hybrids to lower my tolerance, and the leaves of the sativas actually feel potent enough, they give pretty good impressions from one big hit from the pipe. I first tried leaves from the males, as I read that some people do it. But then thought, "why not also try the females, it might give more 'correct' impressions than trying the seeded buds".
Found that I have to blast the leaves in the microwave (30-40 sec at max power, flip leaves, another 30 sec at max power), instead of drying them more slowly. It blows away the terpenes but perhaps also decarboxylates the cannabinoid acids and gives a high which is like the high after good drying and curing. I use this method for drying buds when quickly sampling early samples of the plants I grow outdoors. I use slower drying to try the flavour/taste but use this microwave scorching to quickly get the proper high following the muddy stony initial high that many strains give when still not dry.
From the leaves that I've tried, the Kerala Chellakutti impressed me the most. It has very very clear high that is stimulating without being edgy. Good focus and motivation, all in the head. All 4 plants consistently give this effect. Top notch sativa, perhaps the purest sativa effect that I've tried.
The 3 Thai plants have more variable effect. #1, the most vigorous one with biggest leaves, has a great clear and positive happy effect. #2 (thinnest leaves) is not as happy, still positive but with some subtle anxiety. #3 was more buzzy and a bit dense (not as clear), but just a tiny bit. In general, the Thai also has good sativa highs.
The Zam Kullu crosses (ZK, ZZK and KZK) have the variety of effects that I've already known from my previous tests with them - from more devastating and extremely potent (a-la mother Zamaldelica), to more clear (Kullu) and variable more comfortable, not as intense, or more gloomy recessive phenos (like other Zamaldelica plants that I've tried, sisters of the Zam mother used in these crosses). The female KZK #2 gives the most impressive lyzergic effect, intense yet clear, electric. The male (still not 100% sure though) ZZK #3 has the strongest most dense effect, electric head storm with slight tinnitus. As expected, the Zam x Kullu cross gives more clear effect than the ZamZamKullu backcross on average. Both backcrosses (ZZK and KZK) display many unique recombinations of characteristics.
So far, so good.
 
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yoss33

yoss33

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Here are some photos of all plants but the fastest males (ZT, Kullu x ZT, PM x PCK), which were moved away and not available for taking photos of.
Unfortunately, most of the males of the Zam Kullu crosses have hermie issues, with only one (ZamKullu #7) not showing any pistils. The females are much more firm, with only a couple (both being ZamZamKullu) showing balls.

The 2 outdoor plants:

Kullu x Zacateca Tribute
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Purple Mexican x PCK
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And the flowering indoor plants. I guess the first pollinations will happen after one more week.. I don't need many seeds, and besides the plants will hardly make many flowers in these small cups.

Thai
The most attractive one, #2, which also happens to be the fastest to flower and to have the best effect from smoked leaves.. is also hermie :(
#1 is male, #3 is slow female
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Kerala
#1 and #4 are males, #2 and #3 - females. Fairly consistent effect from leaves. Strong, emotionally balanced, focused, very clear energy. The type of high is somewhat similar to the Zamal(delica). The funny thing is that the fastest one to start flowering (#2) is also the one that looks the most sativa.
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yoss33

yoss33

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Zam Kullu crosses
I intentionally don't show them separately, because they somehow behave as a single "strain", both as high and appearance, despite the 25% to 75% variation in genes. The more Kullu genes adding more height, slower flowering and more clear / less overwhelming high. But in general, it's just variation of the same high.
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Zacateca Tribute and Kullu x ZT:
I liked a lot the ZT grown by a friend in 2023. And I like a lot smoking the leaves of these F2s. They feel just as pure sativas as the Kerala and Thai, though looking like 50/50 sativa/indica hybrids. Some of the F2s are very energetic (a little anxious), while others are very pleasant. But all of them feel like oldschool proper sativa, with emotional high/trip. I'd say ZT feels more sativa than the Thai!
Kullu x ZT is a mixed bag. I still haven't tried smoking leaves from my outdoor female plant. The male #3 has a not-so-refined somewhat foggy high, worse in quality than the ZTs. But the female #1 is the BEST high from all plants - very energetic and lysergic. I liken it to small dose of mescaline or acid + mdma. It just transforms the rest of the day. It's the only female I transplanted into a bigger pot for more seeds, and plan to pollinate it with pollen from a very pleasant lucid ZT male.
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With the ZT's quality high, and seeing what the Kullu cross is capable of, I want to also cross ZT to Kerala, Thai and Zam Kullu.
Soon.. :)
 
yoss33

yoss33

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If you look at the first picture in the thread, you can see that there wasn't space for bigger pots. Now that the plants are fewer, I could transplant them in bigger pots, like I did for Kullu x ZacTribute #1, because I want more seeds from it. But for the other females, I don't really want many seeds, 50 per plant is the minimal target, and I think these cups will be enough. I also want the plants smaller and easier to transport because I'll be transplanting them outdoors once they are pollinated.
 
yoss33

yoss33

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In the last day of May, the first pollinated mothers got translanted outdoors, the other half (the ones to be pollinated by the ZamKullu #7 male) will be pollinated and transplanted outdoors in the following days.
The 2 outdoor plants are speeding up :)

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yoss33

yoss33

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Weekly update.

Purple Mexican x PCK
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Kullu x Zacateca Tribute
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And the seeded plants:
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Unfortunately, my attempt at making a breeding step with the Zam Kullu crosses was unsuccessful - there were several males (ZamZamKullu, ZamKullu and KulluZamKullu) and all of them brought out some pistils at their tops in later flowering. While I didn't have any herm issues with the other males (Kerala, Thai and ZacTribute). Which leads me to think that the Kullu male used for the initial ZamKullu cross was a hermie and so there are no 'true' males in the offspring.
Anyways, I decided to introduce some true males to the Zam Kullu mix and pollinated all Zam Kullu females with Zacateca Tribute pollen, instead of with Zam Kullu pollen. I considered pollinating some Zam Kullu females with Kerala and Thai pollen, but apart from the technical difficulties (having no space/time to isolate the females pollinated by many different males), ZacTribute is simply better than Kerala and Thai in all important aspects - high, flavours and speed of flowering.
 
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yoss33

yoss33

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The weekly portion...
Both big plants are growing vigorously. Unfortunately, the Kullu x Zacateca Tribute doesn't have strong branches and so doesn't seem suitable for growing big plants without support net. I accidentally broke a small lower branch while watering and almost broke (from attaching to main stem) another big branch when tried to test how strong it is... it wasn't strong at all! Let's hope the branches become stronger as the initial explosive growth slows down. Will see...

Purple Mexican x PCK
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Kullu x Zacateca Tribute
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yoss33

yoss33

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