First time growing Pakistan landraces - need some hand holding!

[Dirt Gardener]

First time posting here. I just posted an intro on the main page with a photo of last year's grow for reference. This is my 6th season growing outdoor cannabis and I decided to try growing some landraces this year from Full Power Selections. Photo below. I germinated 3 cultivars: Chitral Black, Hopar#1, Hopar#2. Things looked pretty good until I repotted them for the first time last week and made the blunder of introducing some nutrients. Yeah.......you guessed it. Fortunately, I flushed everything quickly enough and they all recovered. Whew. I'm being super careful from now on. Which brings me to my next concern when they go outside in another month. My garden consists of 30 years worth of compost. Everything I plant out there grows like something from a nuclear waste site. My broad leaf cannabis plants consistently hit 13+ feet tall at harvest. Are these landraces, which appear to grow in pretty poor looking soil where they evolved, going to be able to handle that? What do these plants do???? My goal is to save 3 males and (hopefully) propagate some seeds for myself in addition to growing some nice flower. Any advice is much appreciated and if there are some good books/resources about growing landraces just point me in the right direction and I'll dive in.

 

[Old Piney]

IMO this whole thing with certain landraces needing very poor soil is a bunch of bunk So far I've grown Himalayan- Kumaoni , Rasoli (TRSC) and Moroccan Beldia (Khalifa Genetics) . All these strains supposedly need poor soil .However I've done quite well growing them all in siol rich in compost and worm castings because that's what I've got. I do only give them one shot of week chicken manure tea and that's it. So don't sweat it man just grow . The only problem I've encountered is they grow so big they are hard to support .So cut them back if you need give support and next year start later. I've also grown Cider kush (x18) a pure Pakistani heirloom. The Pakistani are pretty strong

 

[Dirt Gardener]

Thanks so much - I feel a lot better already. I don't do much once they are in the ground, except water and top mulch around the edges of the root zone once a week. I expect them to be huge.

 

[p59teitel]

Agree with @Old Piney. I’m too far north to start seeds in the ground, so they go in keg cups on the windowsill from April 1 until the ground is warm enough, usually mid to late May. The cups have roughly half and half garden soil and peat moss, with a tablespoon of worm castings thrown in. I don’t feed any more while they are in the cups.

When I transplant them into the ground they go into holes that are three feet in diameter and a foot deep. I add a couple of shovels of peat moss and a shovel of aged cow manure each year before planting. During the season I top dress with a thin layer of worm castings every couple of weeks during veg, and might scratch in a little more cow manure if the plants look like they could use it. I also throw in TPS brand Cal-Mag during veg and their Signal terpene enhancer when watering.

My garden soil is sandy loam that provides decent drainage, and I think keeping it that way by not overloading with nutrients is necessary when growing in what has become an increasingly rainy climate in recent summers. I think the biggest concern is mostly over using chemical fertilizers with these landraces, not organics.

 

[Dirt Gardener]

Thanks so much for your input. I pretty much grow the same way - lots of composted oak leaves, horse manure, all of the ash from burning wood for heat all winter, biochar, and I always have a big pile of composted wood chips for top dressing. Haven't bought any fertilizer/nutrients in over 30 years. It's what I call "self leveling" soil, since it always seems to stay in balance. The garden is terraced on 2 levels, so great drainage. The plants I started 30 days ago won't go out for another 3 weeks. I just checked the soil (still cold!) and the earth worms are busy turning horse manure into worm castings, so I think the plants will be OK. Can't wait to get them out there in the sun!