Azad, kashmir

[therevverend]

i was reading about Kashmir it seems it rains alot 1000mm to 18oo mm a year in the Azad area. the Pakie part at least. Seems they should be mold resistant.

I thought I posted my Kashmir mold pictures from last year in this thread but it must have been in the Hashplants thread. I mentioned this earlier in the thread but last year was a mold nightmare. The rains came in early September and didn't let up until early October. The Kashmiri plants put up a good fight for the most part, got hit hard but I still got a decent harvest. Out of my garden as a whole they were in the middle, did much better then the straight up Afghan hashplants and some of the hybrids but not as good as the stuff with strong genetic resistance. My takeaway is that they can handle a good dousing or three but there'll be problems if the cool wet weather sticks around for more then 4 or 5 days. There is a big exception to this.

The exception is stem rot. I live a few miles from the sea and I've found this affects quite a few cannabis strains. The weather can be clear and beautiful, temperatures in the 70s F, 21-25 degree C without any fog or patchy morning clouds and the stem rot develops anyway. The catalyst can be a cloudy day or two with temperatures around 70 degrees F, 20 degrees C. It's strange because it appears almost as a dry rot, the stem isn't wet or slimy and the boytritis appears almost white. It will rapidly girdle a branch or if you're unlucky the main stem and kill it. It hit my small bushy Kashmiri last year hard.

It started when the weather was still warm and dry for the most part, once the rain kicked in it spread. Girdled the main stem completely, slowly strangling the top 2/3 of the plant. She fought the good fight, the top wilted but didn't die, the leaves turned yellow and the top finished faster then the bottom branches below her 'whalebone corset'. It was tantalizing seeing how frosty and beautiful the ungirdled flowers turned out compared to the quickly finished top. Once the rain started the serious boytritis kicked in along with causing the branch rot to run rampant, destroying entire branches and greatly reducing my harvest.

Here's some pictures of the damage. This is what it looked like on September 8th last year, quite early for as nasty as it looks. There had been a short rainstorm but not the full month of dampness on end that started a week later.

Two wet days later it progressed to this point.

You can see I'd been treating it with alcohol and antibiotic ointment. The drop that looks like water is actually Neosporin. The black and woody parts are actually treated, when you kill the mold it turns black. Even though I was fighting it along with the plant's immune system you can see it spreading outward from the scar.

Here's another branch further up the plant that girdled over night. Amazing how fast this stuff spreads.

Here's flower ready for harvest a month later. I didn't panic and hack, kept treating her and still managed a harvest of very fine mature flowers. I waited until we had a few sunny days to finish her up after nearly a month of shitty weather before I pulled her.

You can tell there must be some rain in her native climate because her immune system kicked in and fought the mold menace. However growing her in a rain forest is a risk. Stem rot is on my mind because I've been fighting it in my garden all summer. Got a foothold during our wet early summer and keeps flaring up here and there. So far the Kashmiris are clean and healthy although I'm going to be watching closely. I'm seeing it spread around the garden lately despite our sunny beautiful weather, the trick is finding and treating it early.

 

[therevverend]

As soon as I mentioned the stalk rot last year I knew what I'd find in my garden. Went out that afternoon, did a close inspection, and the exact same phenotype, short and bushy, showed the exact same boytritis. Here's a pic, the black color is dead mold.

Out of focus but you get the idea. The tall upright phenotype showed much better mold resistance last year, didn't develop the early stalk rot. The weather has been warm and dry, 75-85 degrees F (24-30 degrees C) for highs. At night the humidity gets high, in the 80s, along with a weak maritime influence. It's not the only plant showing the damage, several other ganja plants along with quite a few tomatoes are showing the same type of damage. It's only a couple branches and I think I nipped it in the bud. I'll be watching close the rest of the way. I'll add that a lot of people would not have noticed the damage, it's not easy to spot.

 

[Eudaemon]

Just started a grow

Just started a grow

I've been watching this thread closely for a while now. I just moved back to a legal state and wanted to get back into growing again, this time with a focus on heirloom and landrace strains.

I just germinated a dozen of these I and got a 100% germination rate. I'm in about two weeks into veg, maybe three. I've been aggressively topping and pruning to maximize space and slow my plants down a bit to let a friend catch up whos doing an identical concurrent grow (we split the seeds). I am going to be doing an open pollination, but will also be including a few Bodhi 3 Headed Dragon Females in my room to experiment with a Kashmir x 3 Headed Dragon cross.

 

[Eudaemon]

I thought I'd include a couple pictures. I am at about week three. Growth hasn't been notably vigorous or slow. I've topped and pruned very aggressively so far, which slowed their growth considerably, but otherwise they are in week three approximately.

All the plants with orange tags are Bodhi Three Headed Dragon crosses that I'm keeping the females of to try and cross with a Kashmiri male.

This is is a multispectrum test grow. I am growing some of the plants under a T5, some under an MH/HPS, and some under an LED. It isn't a scientific experiment by any means; I am just want to see if I start noticing patterns between the nature of the high between light sources after numerous grows. Nothing rigorous, just curiosity and fun. Right now, I have them under a T5 and LED. I am saving the MH for when they get a bit bigger, to save on energy costs.

 

[highsteppa]

I grew these out indoor winter 2019, There were tall, intermediate, and stout plants. Indoors the tall males and females were earlier to flower under 12/12, everything else fell in line equally under that light cycle. They were covered in trichomes, not just the buds but petioles and onto leaves. Very impressive hash plant.

I kept my 2 favs for this seasons outdoor. The best was an intermediate and 2nd best was a stout. We took some nights of hard frost that damaged some bud tops, leading to Botrytis in the tops of some plants. The stout Kashmir had it leaves fried, looked terrible, but took no damage and kept bulking up. She ended up leafless with no mold and heavy harvest of dense buds. The even mix of leaf/calyx makes fore some heavy flowers that trim up super easy w/good bag appeal.

The intermediate keeper did not want to trigger, and even was well later than a typical indoor-type that usually won’t flower until aug 1, so they got huge. She did not get damaged from the frost and is still out bulking up. I didn’t think she would finish but it looks like she will get there. If not they will get fresh frozen for hash. Like blackbart mentioned, they are bulletproof.

I couldn’t be more impressed with this line. It
has a divine smell and an effect for the indica lover. Great work by Barefrog in preserving this gem.

 

[highsteppa]

Indoor intermediate keeper

 

[Eudaemon]

I grew these out indoor winter 2019, There were tall, intermediate, and stout plants. Indoors the tall males and females were earlier to flower under 12/12, everything else fell in line equally under that light cycle. They were covered in trichomes, not just the buds but petioles and onto leaves. Very impressive hash plant.

I kept my 2 favs for this seasons outdoor. The best was an intermediate and 2nd best was a stout. We took some nights of hard frost that damaged some bud tops, leading to Botrytis in the tops of some plants. The stout Kashmir had it leaves fried, looked terrible, but took no damage and kept bulking up. She ended up leafless with no mold and heavy harvest of dense buds. The even mix of leaf/calyx makes fore some heavy flowers that trim up super easy w/good bag appeal.

The intermediate keeper did not want to trigger, and even was well later than a typical indoor-type that usually won’t flower until aug 1, so they got huge. She did not get damaged from the frost and is still out bulking up. I didn’t think she would finish but it looks like she will get there. If not they will get fresh frozen for hash. Like blackbart mentioned, they are bulletproof.

I couldn’t be more impressed with this line. It
has a divine smell and an effect for the indica lover. Great work by Barefrog in preserving this gem.

I couldn't be happier to hear that. They're coming along beautifully!

When did yours start to show pre-flowers and signs of sex?

 

[therevverend]

Almost all of my Azad Kashmiri has matured and been chopped, only a few seed limbs remain. I'm praying the seeds mature, it's been close to 4 weeks since pollination and the seeds are swelling but still look green. The majority have been lost to mold, either bud rot or stem rot. The boytritis attacks the maturing seeds clusters first, for some reason they're much more vulnerable to mold. I'll be lucky to get a dozen mature seeds. I'll be heartbroken if I lose this strain it's become one of my favorites. Probably the best unhybridized landrace I've ever cultivated.

Having grown it through two years I've gotten a good grasp of it's traits, phenotypes, effects, and needs. The two main phenotypes are the tall lanky and the short and bushy. The tall lanky grows much faster. The short and bushy has a wonderful floral ganja smell that's instantly recognizable. I know the smell from other strains, I wish I could describe it but I can't think of something to compare it to. It's clean and cutting in the Kashmiri, along with lesser sweet hashy aromas. The plant tends to get 1.5-2.5 meters tall. (5-7.5 feet) The biggest drawback of the short bushy pheno is that it has very poor mold resistance. The stalk and branches consistently begin molding in early September, followed by the main flower clusters in mid to late September. By harvest time in early October both years it was a mess with very few harvestable flowers. It shows some molding even during warm dry weather but once the temperature and humidity hit optimum conditions for boytritis (18.3-23.9 degrees C or 65-75 degrees F and over 80% humidity) the situation quickly deteriorates. I think the maritime influence is especially hard on it, even during the warm dry weather in early September there is humid ocean air at night. It would do much better at altitude in inland regions.

What is strange is that the tall lanky phenotype has excellent mold resistance. This is what other posters are referring to when they call the strain bulletproof. I might not go that far but it showed exceptional resistance during the worst boytritis outbreak I've ever seen. It's hard to believe that two phenotypes of the same strain could be so opposite. The plant never showed stalk or branch rot and has a strong branch and root structure. It withstood strong winds and pounding rain quite well, only showing bending and leaning in the worst weather and none of the branches actually broke. This is in contrast to the short bushy pheno which fell over multiple times despite it's smaller size. As the plant neared senescence and the flower clusters became extremely dense it began showing boytritis but I was able to harvest many large colas and most of the smaller colas were unaffected. At full maturity the mold began to spread and I had to harvest it maybe 2 or 3 days before I'd prefer. If I hadn't immediately harvested it I would have lost most of the large flowers. There weren't many other plants in my garden that showed the same degree of resistance and I was elated that I was able to let it reach full maturity. Even in the worst conditions for boytritis I've seen through a lifetime of growing in the mold capital of the world I managed to harvest around 90% of the plant.

The strength and vigor of the plant appear to be the cause of the mold resistance. The smaller pheno is much less vigorous and doesn't have the same strong upright branching structure. It's a shame because the small pheno is an absolute delight to smoke, the wonderful aromatic smell and euphoric uplifting mood effects are a wonder. The tall has similar effects but nowhere near as strong smelling, it's smell is actually quite subtle. The smell is creamy, reminds me a bit of coconut milk, along with fine incense and clean hashish aromas. The smells don't manifest strongly until the very end of flowering, most of the time it produced very little smell. I'd recommend this phenotype if odor is a problem although the short pheno doesn't reek like a skunk. The height is 2.4-3.6 meters (8-12 feet), maybe taller depending on the growing conditions. The flowers are long and dense. The smoke is very smooth, mellow and tasty.

The third phenotype I saw was only one plant, it appeared to be a feral-type throwback. It grew less then a meter, maybe 3.5 feet tall. Very sparse flowers. Smell and taste similar to the squat bushy but much harsher and leafy. It was similar to Ruderalis autoflowers but it was a long season plant, grown from April to November. It was later flowering then the other two phenotypes. I'd recommend culling unless the grower is interested in preserving the strain in it's entirety, in which case this strain could contain valuable genes that might shed light on it's ancestry.

Full maturity for both plants was around October 7th, the tall taking maybe a couple days longer. Here's pictures of the small bushy at harvest. It was hard to find a decent size flower to photograph that wasn't ruined by boytritis.

and the tall phenotype close to harvest. Remarkable that such dense long colas molded so little.

While there are more potent and commercially productive strains the Azad Kashmiri gets credit for it's 'intangibles'. There is something about this plant, from the growth pattern to the shape of the leaves to the smell when you rub the stem, that is pleasing to the senses. It's a spiritual life form that somehow personifies what is special about the cannabis plant. Simply staring at it sends your thoughts into a spiral of meditative introspection. I don't necessarily like talking about this stuff because it creates unreasonable expectations and hype that's not justified. Others shouldn't expect to feel what I feel. Even so it was part of my experience cultivating the plant, I wasn't the only one who felt that way and it might be worth mentioning.

 

[highsteppa]

Kashmir finishing up. 2 clones of the intermediate plant that had a significantly later trigger and thus got huge.

 

[Slim Pickens]

^^Egads highsteppa!I'd like to get a greenhouse,but if I put one up,I won't have any yard left. I might even get a small one (or hack something together) for protection of my remaining longer flowering plants.

I'll try the Kumaoni next year then,in the meantime maybe the Real Seed Co thread would be the place to gather information and ask questions on other possibilities.

 

[FellaAndrene]

While there are more potent and commercially productive strains the Azad Kashmiri gets credit for it's 'intangibles'. There is something about this plant, from the growth pattern to the shape of the leaves to the smell when you rub the stem, that is pleasing to the senses. It's a spiritual life form that somehow personifies what is special about the cannabis plant. Simply staring at it sends your thoughts into a spiral of meditative introspection. I don't necessarily like talking about this stuff because it creates unreasonable expectations and hype that's not justified. Others shouldn't expect to feel what I feel. Even so it was part of my experience cultivating the plant, I wasn't the only one who felt that way and it might be worth mentioning.

Beautifully put. I feel the same way about Mandala Seeds' Ganesh (landrace from Uttarakhand crossed to an 90's Afghan). Sometimes when I'm tending the plants and looking at them, I notice myself tearing up, because the plants seem so sentient and I feel a symbiotic relationship between us; as I care for them, they care for me.

 

[Diggy_Soze]

Almost all of my Azad Kashmiri has matured and been chopped, only a few seed limbs remain. I'm praying the seeds mature, it's been close to 4 weeks since pollination and the seeds are swelling but still look green. The majority have been lost to mold, either bud rot or stem rot. The boytritis attacks the maturing seeds clusters first, for some reason they're much more vulnerable to mold. I'll be lucky to get a dozen mature seeds. I'll be heartbroken if I lose this strain it's become one of my favorites. Probably the best unhybridized landrace I've ever cultivated.

Having grown it through two years I've gotten a good grasp of it's traits, phenotypes, effects, and needs. The two main phenotypes are the tall lanky and the short and bushy. The tall lanky grows much faster. The short and bushy has a wonderful floral ganja smell that's instantly recognizable. I know the smell from other strains, I wish I could describe it but I can't think of something to compare it to. It's clean and cutting in the Kashmiri, along with lesser sweet hashy aromas. The plant tends to get 1.5-2.5 meters tall. (5-7.5 feet) The biggest drawback of the short bushy pheno is that it has very poor mold resistance. The stalk and branches consistently begin molding in early September, followed by the main flower clusters in mid to late September. By harvest time in early October both years it was a mess with very few harvestable flowers. It shows some molding even during warm dry weather but once the temperature and humidity hit optimum conditions for boytritis (18.3-23.9 degrees C or 65-75 degrees F and over 80% humidity) the situation quickly deteriorates. I think the maritime influence is especially hard on it, even during the warm dry weather in early September there is humid ocean air at night. It would do much better at altitude in inland regions.

What is strange is that the tall lanky phenotype has excellent mold resistance. This is what other posters are referring to when they call the strain bulletproof. I might not go that far but it showed exceptional resistance during the worst boytritis outbreak I've ever seen. It's hard to believe that two phenotypes of the same strain could be so opposite. The plant never showed stalk or branch rot and has a strong branch and root structure. It withstood strong winds and pounding rain quite well, only showing bending and leaning in the worst weather and none of the branches actually broke. This is in contrast to the short bushy pheno which fell over multiple times despite it's smaller size. As the plant neared senescence and the flower clusters became extremely dense it began showing boytritis but I was able to harvest many large colas and most of the smaller colas were unaffected. At full maturity the mold began to spread and I had to harvest it maybe 2 or 3 days before I'd prefer. If I hadn't immediately harvested it I would have lost most of the large flowers. There weren't many other plants in my garden that showed the same degree of resistance and I was elated that I was able to let it reach full maturity. Even in the worst conditions for boytritis I've seen through a lifetime of growing in the mold capital of the world I managed to harvest around 90% of the plant.

The strength and vigor of the plant appear to be the cause of the mold resistance. The smaller pheno is much less vigorous and doesn't have the same strong upright branching structure. It's a shame because the small pheno is an absolute delight to smoke, the wonderful aromatic smell and euphoric uplifting mood effects are a wonder. The tall has similar effects but nowhere near as strong smelling, it's smell is actually quite subtle. The smell is creamy, reminds me a bit of coconut milk, along with fine incense and clean hashish aromas. The smells don't manifest strongly until the very end of flowering, most of the time it produced very little smell. I'd recommend this phenotype if odor is a problem although the short pheno doesn't reek like a skunk. The height is 2.4-3.6 meters (8-12 feet), maybe taller depending on the growing conditions. The flowers are long and dense. The smoke is very smooth, mellow and tasty.

The third phenotype I saw was only one plant, it appeared to be a feral-type throwback. It grew less then a meter, maybe 3.5 feet tall. Very sparse flowers. Smell and taste similar to the squat bushy but much harsher and leafy. It was similar to Ruderalis autoflowers but it was a long season plant, grown from April to November. It was later flowering then the other two phenotypes. I'd recommend culling unless the grower is interested in preserving the strain in it's entirety, in which case this strain could contain valuable genes that might shed light on it's ancestry.

Full maturity for both plants was around October 7th, the tall taking maybe a couple days longer. Here's pictures of the small bushy at harvest. It was hard to find a decent size flower to photograph that wasn't ruined by boytritis.

and the tall phenotype close to harvest. Remarkable that such dense long colas molded so little.

While there are more potent and commercially productive strains the Azad Kashmiri gets credit for it's 'intangibles'. There is something about this plant, from the growth pattern to the shape of the leaves to the smell when you rub the stem, that is pleasing to the senses. It's a spiritual life form that somehow personifies what is special about the cannabis plant. Simply staring at it sends your thoughts into a spiral of meditative introspection. I don't necessarily like talking about this stuff because it creates unreasonable expectations and hype that's not justified. Others shouldn't expect to feel what I feel. Even so it was part of my experience cultivating the plant, I wasn't the only one who felt that way and it might be worth mentioning.

Those first pics remind me so much of my buddys’ last year outdoor Kashmir. Including a pic of the same mom indoor

 

[therevverend]

I've been creating hybrid lines of the Azad Kashmir the last couple years. I'm really liking what I'm seeing, the positive traits seem to shine through with increased yield and size. My best one last year was 'short Kashmir x P1 Brother'. P1 Brother is an interesting one my buddy came up with a couple years back. I gave him a mish mash of several OGs, Polar Bear and #18 and the white among others I got from Greenpoint some years back. It was killer smoke but a weak spindly little plant. He crossed it with a huge vigorous volunteer. For whatever reason it finished early (September 20th) and was covered in frost. Extremely potent. He called it 'P1' and he gave me pollen from a male he labeled 'p1 brother'.

I loaded a short stout super aromatic Azad Kashmir with the pollen. Last year it was one of my best plants. Large vigorous plants with fat long candelabra colas. Had a distinct aroma with a blueberry edge. I crossed it up with a Bodhi freebie, Legend OG x Snow Lotus. My female was the biggest plant I've ever grown, the plants are gigantic. So now I have (short Azad Kashmir x P1 Brother) X (Legend OG x Snow Lotus). Things are getting complicated. I have one with a red stalk, I stuck it in the ground and I'm giving it love and care. Here's a look at another one I'm getting attached to.


View media item 18701646
It's early and unsexed but I think it's a keeper.

 

[PaperClip]

I've been creating hybrid lines of the Azad Kashmir the last couple years. I'm really liking what I'm seeing, the positive traits seem to shine through with increased yield and size. My best one last year was 'short Kashmir x P1 Brother'. P1 Brother is an interesting one my buddy came up with a couple years back. I gave him a mish mash of several OGs, Polar Bear and #18 and the white among others I got from Greenpoint some years back. It was killer smoke but a weak spindly little plant. He crossed it with a huge vigorous volunteer. For whatever reason it finished early (September 20th) and was covered in frost. Extremely potent. He called it 'P1' and he gave me pollen from a male he labeled 'p1 brother'.

I loaded a short stout super aromatic Azad Kashmir with the pollen. Last year it was one of my best plants. Large vigorous plants with fat long candelabra colas. Had a distinct aroma with a blueberry edge. I crossed it up with a Bodhi freebie, Legend OG x Snow Lotus. My female was the biggest plant I've ever grown, the plants are gigantic. So now I have (short Azad Kashmir x P1 Brother) X (Legend OG x Snow Lotus). Things are getting complicated. I have one with a red stalk, I stuck it in the ground and I'm giving it love and care. Here's a look at another one I'm getting attached to.


View media item 18701646
It's early and unsexed but I think it's a keeper.

Still running any of these Kashmir outcrosses?

 

[therevverend]

Still running any of these Kashmir outcrosses?

The ones I grew out this year all turned out to be male. There was one that was exceptional, the seedling in the picture above, that I used for breeding. He had lots of vigor and a wonderful smell for a male. Very aromatic. It's likely I'll be starting another round next spring.

 

[IndicaFarmer]

This year I've got two types, one tall plant that smells like exotic lemon hash incense, one squat short bushy with fat leaves and less smell. Can't wait to see how they turn out.

Here's the tall one.

It's growing so fast it outgrew the picture. Around 4 inches a day. Here's the short squat one.

Disappointing I don't have a male but I'll take two lovely females.

this plant is stunning! I love the robust wide, waxy looking leaves. I also like the bright, intense, limey green type coloring in the sunshine. Looked awesome, keep up the good work in the future!

 

[Tony Tokes]

Wow I am glad to see this thread. I grabbed some Azad, Kashmir maybe last year from TLT. I popped two seeds (to run alongside some purple skunk). I have the lemon incense pheno cut which was #1 & #2 was very very Sativa structured. Super thin leaves like shoelaces & had no smell until the last two weeks of flower and it was a slight grapey fuel. Very faint. Long story short, I force-Hermed #1 so I could try to look through the line more. I wound up crossing #2x#1 and got a few beans. Running them now along with 5 of the “s1”s which look very promising. I also managed to get some of that pollen onto one of my purple skunk phenos and found 1 bean and she’s sprouted. The purple skunk is Mendo P x skunk 1 and she was very terpy so I’m excited to see how the Kashmir x PSK will be & extra curious to look through the rest of the Kashmirs (I am also running 1 of the original Kashmir seeds I have left #3 & keeping #4&#5 for a rainy day) sorry I’m a bit all over the place I’m new here & excited to see the Kash. One Love.

 

[Diggy_Soze]

Last years’ Kashmirs.

cheers

 

[Tony Tokes]

View attachment 18884378
Last years’ Kashmirs.
View attachment 18884385
View attachment 18884386
cheers

That is a beautiful pheno. What does she smell like? The pheno I had kept for a bit reeked like terpinolene

 

[Diggy_Soze]

That is a beautiful pheno. What does she smell like? The pheno I had kept for a bit reeked like terpinolene

Oh, I don’t even remember. I had a dozen of em, and a couple friends each had a bunch. I couldn’t tell from a picture which one was which smoke. Lol