All canabinoids are beautiful [grow diary] 2024

[All Cacti Are Beautiful]

After introducing myself it's time to start a grow diary again after a lot of years. This year will be another 6 plants outdoor grow.

Last few years I have been growing strictly outdoors and from seed. I used to have a good selection of mothers and a very nice male which was used to preserve some of the genetics before moving countries. After joining the forum again I decided on a led with dimmable function to be able to build a new collection. We have recently improved our small solar system but we only have limited power, especially in winter.
Led technology has come a long way and I really look forward to seeing what it is capable of these days.

This year the weather prevented me from getting an early start but so far we have been getting less extreme summer temperatures than last few years allowing the plants to thrive. I would have liked them to be bigger by now so I am trying to make up for lost time earlier.

The 6 plants of this year are coming from 2 different feminized mixed seed packs, trying to get as much diversity for a small budget. My own seeds are getting too old and I am trying to keep as much of them until I can propagate and keep what might still sprout.

2 plants are from last year's sweet seeds feminized mixed pack. Last year I grew 6 of them and was pleasantly surprised. The 4 other plants are from a grow barato feminized mixed pack.

These are some pictures from Monday when I made the introduction post.

Next photos are from today, it's very windy again making it difficult to get a good image. It's also one of the reasons why I decided to train them close to the ground for now. For tracking purposes I decided to name them respectively SSM 1 and 2 for the sweet seeds mix and GBM 1 to 4 for the plants from the grow barato mix.

SSM 1

SSM 2

GBM 1

GBM 2

GBM 3

GBM 4

 

[Creeperpark]

Hello friend. Looks like you have a good start now. Those Sweet seeds are kick ass. Thanks for sharing your garden with us. I'm going to ride with you. Got me interested.

 

[All Cacti Are Beautiful]

Thanks, nice to see you here, it would be my pleasure to have you ride along.

I forgot I attached a not so clear picture of my laziest attempt so far at making cuttings in my last post. It's just a small pot with wet soil in a grip lock bag to keep humidity in.

Normally I take cuttings with a lot of care but after cleaning some lower growth I had first discarded a small branch, put it in water after about half an hour and forgot it until the next morning when I found it completely submerged. Decided to try and see if I could still root it in a discarded seedling pot that I already had in a bag to keep humidity up.

A few days later it still looked great against my expectations so I decided to label it and prepared 5 more to see if it would really be so easy and have a back up of what might be interesting. So far all 6 are looking really good but I could still take cuttings in my usual way if something doesn't take.

Here's 2 random bags I opened for a quick snap. The second picture is clearly the first cutting seeing some random weeds I didn't even bother to remove.

 

[Rocket Soul]

Ill follow along on this one aswell

 

[All Cacti Are Beautiful]

Good to have you on board always nice to have someone who is growing in the same country following.

 

[All Cacti Are Beautiful]

Today is watering day and the plants have been getting 20 (edit: 40) liters for 6 plants every other day. They were not yet showing any signs of being thirsty so I decided to only give them half and encourage the root system to spread out in search of water. Next watering is in 2 days and I might decide to up the amount again.

Last 2 years I grew on the same spots and have been adding organic materials to improve the soil. We have chickens and guinea pigs so that has been getting used along with lots of compost.

I have been topdressing heavily with the guinea pig and aged chicken manure together with used bedding to protect and enrich the soil, releasing nutrients while watering the plants.

There are some interesting smells starting to develop when rubbing the stem or crushing a leaf

 

[All Cacti Are Beautiful]

Cactus and cannabis flowers, 2 of the finest things in life ️

 

[All Cacti Are Beautiful]

Last night it was time for me to water the plants again. In my previous post I mistakenly said they were getting 20 liters every other day but it was already 40 liters divided over 6 plants for some time. Previous watering I reduced it to 20 and decided to add some aloë vera to my water. I have not used this before but I remembered it was being used as a rooting stimulator for cuttings and I wanted to boost the root system already.

Yesterday 60 liters was used so each got 10 liters with some milk that turned bad plus another 10 liters in total to water it down some more. After watering, more compost and used bedding were added to reduce evaporation, protect the soil from the sun and feed the plants.

Today we're getting 37 Celsius and tomorrow and the day after we might go over 40 so they deserved some extra love. They will be kept a close eye on like always but I don't expect any major issues.

Some pictures from this morning, first 2 are ssm 1 and 2 next gbm 1 to 4

 

[All Cacti Are Beautiful]

During the heatwave last days I took the time to read up some more. Being off grid with limited power I'm exploring alternatives for creating a veg room using the available sunlight and supplementing light instead of relying on the solar system solely.

Obviously I know about the 18/6 light schedule having worked this way for years however the situation is different now. The Gas Lantern Routine Technique (GLR technique) 12/1 light schedule was mentioned in a thread I was reading through which caught my attention.

There seems to be a lot of controversy around this subject with very limited information on the forum, that I was able to find. Convinced of the possibilities for my specific situation I kept on searching because it seems like you don't even need 1 hour of light in the dark, just to trick them to stay vegative.

Finally I stumbled on the website from Ed Rosenthal where he talks about maintaining vegative stage in outdoor and greenhouse grows. He is using a 2hr cycle interval during dark turning on the lights for 1 minute, stating it only takes a flash of a few seconds to get the desired effect. For this he uses some low voltage CFL bulbs but this works with almost all bulbs.

These light techniques and similar variations have been used for years in other commercial operations so there's something to it.

Instead of running a high intensity grow light for 18 hours I think I can get away with 1 minute every 2 hours of darkness adding up to a whopping total of 5 minutes of low intensity lights in the heart of winter where light hours and electricity production of the solar system are at the lowest level.

There's still a lot of other factors that need figuring out but I feel like I have to try it out. Probably with just a few duplicate clones to not lose anything important.

Any experience, interesting threads or ideas on this subject are very welcome. Here's a screenshot from the Ed Rosenthal website.

 

[VerdantGreen]

plants look great... including the cactus!

VG

 

[mr.brunch]

Lovely plants
Interesting about the veg light thing… could save on the electric but I’m wondering if it would slow growth much
If I’m vegging solely in the tent I run them on 16h light as that’s pretty much the maximum they’d get outdoors here in Midsummer
All the best

 

[All Cacti Are Beautiful]

Good question about it slowing down growth although for me the main goal is to keep mothers alive being off grid with limited power. The other option could be investing a lot more money in the solar system to feel safe, especially battery storage wise but this could always fail while the sun is just there and the brightest source of light.

Mothers would be cloned for outdoor season mainly so vegging will pick up with light hours extending naturally I would assume. Also slower vegative stage can be accounted for dialing in on the new schedule.

I have only seen a few growers try 12/1 or 12/2 with interesting findings and probably some room for improvement and experimentation. Main issue was pre flowers at 1 hour causing some to try 2hr or abandoning the schedule early on.

The method Ed is using looks, from what I understand, more effective at breaking the night cycle while using less electricity to achieve this. The 2 hour 1 minute interval leaves much less hours of total darkness compared to 12/1 or even 12/2 possibly eliminating some of the problems but I will have to try myself because I haven't seen anyone on the forum try this method yet.

Thanks and all the best to you too

 

[mr.brunch]

There’s a thread here but I haven’t delved all the way in

12/1 lighting--Any truth or banana in the tail pipe?

Do you know why ?just to go faster in flower or..?if its just to flower them faster i would like to take them easy ,i have unlimited patience.Pls keep up us updated did you start a thread?

www.icmag.com

 

[All Cacti Are Beautiful]

Yes, I read that thread and there's some more if looking for the Gas Lantern Routine but so far nothing on the short intervals every 2 hours of darkness.

 

[All Cacti Are Beautiful]

Yesterday's was day 3 after the last watering and feed, they handled the heat well but it was time for another round. The plants looked like they could take some more nutrients so they got it. I have been working the soil organically last few years and next to top dressing they get all types of compost tea's.

During vegging this will have more nitrogen but I always try and create something diverse. Basically anything organic can be used from manure, plants, mycorrhiza (from our place), trichoderma (on food), dairy for lacto bacillus, fruits and vegetables, old bread, eggs and even meat and fish. There's always something to be found that is no longer suitable for human consumption to be turned into a some good food.

This morning I took some pictures again. SSM 1 and 2 first, then GBM 1 to 4 as usual.

 

[All Cacti Are Beautiful]

A few days ago I got my old seeds out again and decided to see if I could still get some to germinate. I'm trying to build up a collection of mothers again and it would be awesome to find a male worthy to use as a father on some genetics growing.

When I grew my first plants I bought some orange bud seeds which I grew 1 plant of and one of my best friends gifted me some seeds. Everything turned out great and I was immediately in love with the crashtest 2 f2's he gave me. I kept growing them since until they were not germinating reliably last 2 years.

When I still had my mothers she was always present and I searched for a good male twin to create f3 and pollinate the rest of the mothers. I ended with 2 very similar males, phenotype of the best female I had, 1 of these had a lot more resin on the leaves deciding on the final choice.

Crashtest 2 is amnesia x bogglegum f2 and so far growing any of her offspring has been interesting. Reading through the sour bubble thread and learning more about BOG and his genetics was just another push to choose these for now.

This morning nothing was floating anymore and there was 1 small root showing, I'm already happy to see that there's still life in them despite being old and not stored in the fridge for years.

 

[All Cacti Are Beautiful]

It's been 40c for the last 3 days so the plants got some extra water and organic "tea".

SSM1 has been looking like it wanted to flower and now it's really obvious. I would have liked her to veg some more but she has a sativa vibe to her so she could still stretch a lot. SSM 2 and GBM 4 are the 2 other sativa dominate types and they look like they are starting slowly too.

SSM 1

 

[All Cacti Are Beautiful]

SSM2

 

[All Cacti Are Beautiful]

GBM 1

 

[mr.brunch]

Damn, 40° is too much… it was 32° here yesterday and that’s too much for me also incredibly humid though so hard to cool down.
Plants are looking happy