early_hominid grows Ace

[early_hominid]

Hello friends,

I have been meaning to start a thread here and share some of my plants. I've learned a lot from others posting on this board and I would like to give back. The first few posts will be catching up on my 2022 grows, and then we'll get to the current tent. I grow with a very small local community and I want to reach out to others on this site to learn all I can.

So please pull up a chair, I'll be asking questions of you and I invite all discussion, advice, and kind criticisms.

 

[early_hominid]

2022 started with two indoor 5-gallon bucket DWC grows under LEDs. I ran Glue Sniffer and T-Dub from the breeder Twenty20Mendocino, which was their take on the GG#4 and Trainwreck. The couple years prior to this grow I was mostly running white label Dutch varieties, so this was a big step up in resin and terpene production.

The Glue Sniffer was easy to grow, I think around 6 weeks of veg and 10.5 weeks flower. She was unlike a lot of the other GG#4s I have grown or bought- the aroma was funky like an old gym sock with meat and onions. Not acidic, solventy, or gassy like I expected.

The high is just crushing. Lots of confusion and disorientation, heavy lethargic body stone, dry eyes, and munchies. Whatever you were planning to do is immediately purged from your mind after you smoke this variety. Great for when you just want to enjoy sitting on your ass.

 

[early_hominid]

I don't have many photos of the T-Dub but she finished flower in 9 weeks. Aroma was mint forward with pine and baked sweets in the background. High is super long lasting with a joint having me soaring for 2 hours, still longer than anything else I have grown since. Really heady and motivating, this is a great all-day smoke for me, but too much and I'm staring at the wall thinking deeply. You'll see me grow this variety and its daughters (not my seeds) outdoors this year to find a similar high again.

 

[early_hominid]

Now I can write about some Ace varieties

2022 was my first full outdoor season. While I was buying some dutch varieties I found Mandala seeds and then their shop, which opened me up to Ace. I was sold on the preservationist perspective and clear testing data so I picked up a lot of seeds from Ace (and Mandala) and started a ton of varieties. My strategy was start a lot of reg seeds and select based on stem rubs/structure to stick some in the ground. I also started some fem seed, a couple autos, and grew clones of the two plants posted above. I went a little wild finally being able to ditch the tent and put things under the sun.

Memory is hazy, I started:

5Panama regs
5Bangi Haze regs
2 Malawi x NL Auto fems
3 Nepal Jam fems
5 Mandala #1 & 5 Kalichakra regs, and 3 Purple Paro Valley fem from Mandala
5 Mexican Sativa regs from Sensi Seeds

mix of regs and fems, I had another bin somewhere.

Kept the fems together. Here's the PPV, nep jam, and 2 Malawi x NL autos. I flowered the autos in these pots and the photos were outside about a week after this pic.

Can't find any photos of the reg seed selection process, wasn't thinking about anonymous online documentation at this point. I went purely by size/structure and intersting stem rub. I went for vigor over variety, which I'm not sure I'd do again. Also, last thing I want is @dubi to see me not keeping any bangi haze! Thankfully I have some panam x bangi seeds to stick in the ground this year.

reg seed finalists below, minus the runt in the front right. Ended up with:
2 Panama
1 Mexican Sativa
2 Mandala #1

They were just beginning to show preflowers, so I wasn't totally certain of sex on all of them, but I had to travel for a big family wedding so I stuck them in the ground.

In their home alongside some cukes, beans, and marigolds.

 

[goingrey]

Yo, you've got Trump in your tent.

 

[early_hominid]

Yo, you've got Trump in your tent.

I left it in there for years until it stopped making me laugh, which I guess was sometime this past summer. Pic is from the 2017 eclipse.

A bit about more about where I'm growing these:

The bed the reg seeds went into was prepped about a month before I planted them. The natural soil is clayey with a low 5.5 pH, and has a clear layer of compaction/hardpan about 18 inches down. Just generally poor for growing plants. Along with some help from friends, I spent about 40 hours busting up the compacted clay layers down 24" using manual tools and placing lime, later mixing in compost. It was a ton of work, but there is a creek a few hundred yards away at a flat slope so I wanted to ease a taproot driving deep and finding some moisture.

I was very concerned with the soil, when I should have been looking at site location, too. Mainly, the surrounding old growth pine and oak. My bed is close to 70'+ trees, which is not too much of a problem during the summer's high sun, but I'm flowering almost entirely in shade. And finally, I am maybe 60 yards from a 500-acre conventional farm, so I experience intense pest pressure being nested in the forest along such an operation. Despite all this, I'm super proud of everything I learned this outdoor grow, and I'll take my lessons learned into this season.

Now, back to some pics:

May 31 Middle is Mexican Sativa, two left are Mandala #1's, two right are Ace Panama

Best group shot, also on May 31. Cannabis in the 10gal pots is the fem seeds. I kept 1 Nepal jam, 1 PPV, 1 plant that lost its tag that I think was also a Nepal jam, and cuts Glue Sniffer and T-Dub from the DWC grows. Pic is from 11:30am

 

[early_hominid]

Well, I put a male in the ground. Surprised it was only one, but one of the Mandala #1's wasn't going to see the fall. I let him go for a while longer for the compost pile.

June 10 - Male is back left. Wish I had photos of individual plants throughout the season, but I don't. 2 left are Mandala #1, middle back is Panama, front right is Mexican Sativa, back right is Panama

Jun 13- Front and left-center is Glue Sniffer clone, Nepal Jam just visible to the right.

Mostly stopped taking pictures here since life got busy. These are not at my house so I was coming by at odd hours to quickly care for them. The PPV, Glue Sniffer, and T-Dub trucked along, but the Nepal Jam and lost-tag plant didn't do well. Lost-tag flowered in early July during a heatwave and couldn't deal with some PM. Nepal Jam had some PM issues as well and I felt like I was neglecting it. I ended up bringing it to my house where it was neglected there instead.

July 13- Mandala's Purple Paro Valley

July 14 - Lost-tag

 

[early_hominid]

Enough of veg, they grew tall and slender. I didn't do any training, I wanted to see what their natural shape was. Also didn't think they would get 10 foot. Dealt with leaf spot, caterpillars, and powdery mildew mainly. This edge of forest is home to many birds feeding on insects every morning so I think I'm getting a lot of help. Moving forward I'll try to keep plants at a height I can look for caterpillars without a ladder.

Here's the bed, apologies for the photos. We're almost to some flowers. I don't have any more photos of the plants in 10 gallon pots, we'll see their flowers later.

Aug 16 Panama #1 foreground, #2 directly behind

Panama #2 foreground, #1 directly behind.

Mexican Sativa, Mandala #1 behind

Mandala #1 right, Panama #2 left front, Panama #1 behind, Mexican Sativa middle back

 

[early_hominid]

Flowering went without issue, weather was good up until Oct 21 when the Panamas came down.

I'll start with Mandala #1. Chopped on Sept 28. Really loved the flower colors on this plant and the aroma is incredible to me. Very musky sour fruit - either apple or peach - with some spice and flowers in the background. High is very gentle and kind, but also motivating and energetic. This is weed I can smoke at any time and know it will improve my mental state. Perfect for decompressing after work day with a quick vape and higher doses have helped me confront tough emotions and feel through the loss and grief I have experienced in my life this year. I plan on doing some crosses with it this year.

Sept. 21

Sept 28 Harvest

 

[dubi]

How did i miss this thread ? Sorry for that @early_hominid Glad to finally chime in to have the chance to learn about your 22 outdoor endeavours Happy to hear you knew about us through our friends from Mandala thank you very much for supporting our work and for including some of our genetics into your last season garden.

How did the Nepal Jam and Panama finish ?

 

[early_hominid]

Thanks dubi, I needed your message to get through last year's grow and post the ACE runs I did over the winter. Unfortunately I gave Nep Jam to my mom and she did not finish flowering.

I posted my Panama a couple months ago in the sticky thread here. It has been in the jars for 6 months and has aged beautifully. The lemon has softened and allowed the cream and incense to come forward, while I feel the high has mellowed and I reach for it late in the evenings really often.

I posted too much narrative up there I don't have photos of, so I'm just going to post the Mexican Sativa and move on. She was lovely to grow, smelled like tangerine/fruit, soft wood, and some spicy/hazy notes. I thought the high was really flat and thin so I washed most of it into hash with some Malawi x PCK which really improved it. Now its been in the jar for a while I think it has a really nice quality.

Last year I grew along with my buddy Malawi x PCK, here's the post and a bunch more photos.

 

[dubi]

Thanks for posting more pics of your Malawi x PCK @early_hominid astonishing purple flowers with huge trichomes!

 

[early_hominid]

I grew an Orient Express, along with a Kali China and Morocco. Grew them in small pots with coco/perlite which isn't working great for me, so I feel like I just limped this tent along. I'm a serial underwaterer and I will go back to hydro in all my tents and do my selecting outside for now. Some light leaks got me early in flower, too, which made me lose the Morocco.

OE fared the best, here's what I wrote in the sticky:

I grew a beautiful OE and put her into jars about a week ago, chopped at 9.5 weeks, a little early but my tomatillo hybrid project took priority. The aroma is floral forward with honeysuckle and geranium/spring flowers, and is balanced with some sort of a musky tire sitting in the sun. Can't really describe it but it's a really unique smell for me and she stunk louder than anything else I was growing so I've been blown away by this plant.

Needs cure time for the high, but to me it feels THC dom with a really clear, focused high. Taste on smoking reminds me of humid summer nights in the Southern US, really reminiscent for me. It's a lovely morning in the garden after a joint of OE. The plant size got away from me and I didn't have room to up-pot so she had a lot more yield to give I think, but I'm still really pleased with her. Thanks again to ACE for another win, smoke report in few months.

 

[early_hominid]

Kali China was vigorous through stretch and had a beautiful fade, turning red and purple. Aroma is citrus pith and thai basil stir fry, really nice. She threw couple nanners with the light leaks but I picked them without problem.

The Morocco was the most vigorous plant I grew, branched really well, and initiated flower quick. The light leaks made her grow some balls that I picked at first, but couldn't keep up so I had to cull her. Looks like I got maybe 30 seeds on the other plants since they were just starting to show pistils, which is an opportunity more than a problem.

 

[farmerlion]

Very nice grow report full of beautiful plants. Thank you for sharing.
Peace farmerlion