Footsteps In Becoming an Expert Grower

[Biosystem]

Well, soil testing has indicated that P and K values are good in my veg soil, and pH is okay. It's like 6.0-6.5 range. Closer to 6.5 though. Nitrogen is also low. Mostly it appears these vegging plants just need more nitrogen. To the fish filters!!!

 

[Biosystem]

WEEK 11.5 OF FLOWER

Weird. I got too busy and forgot to post Tuesday. Anyway, it didn't matter too much. I checked on them today, and 2/3 of the plants had senesced all the way to the end - reflowering, uptaking zero nitrogen and likely anything else, just dying. So I pulled 'em! Now there's only one plant left going in there. I hung one of the plants as a whole plant, but it was so bushy, it just didn't change shape from how it was sitting when right side up haha. I looked at 'em and thought not separating them was a great way to get bud rot while drying, so I chopped them up and hung them in many smaller branchings. Now, my tent is just covered with Cannabis, and there's still one left to get chopped! have a bunch of photos to drop, so I'm not going to go through and label them all. If anyone has any questions at all, just let me know and I'll tell you what's what.

It's been bittersweet chopping them today. You get used to them, you know? And this is the final gorgeous moment when you harvest them. You work for this day. But it's still a little sad when you get there. It's strange, but maybe that's just me. I'm actually really pleased with how these flowers look after being grown from such rough background and with all organic, ludicrously cheap soil amendments. This is a big reason why I'm posting this. I want people to see what can happen if you utilize only natural inputs. Don't get me wrong, I have little against synthetics, and I will certainly do hydroponics one day, but CAN cannabis be grown on free-to-gather fertilizers, composts and inputs? I'm finding out one frustrating set back and lifelong lesson at a time. But we're here! It's the big harvest day! And it was awesome!

I do just want to say thank you, by the way, to anyone who helped answer questions while growing these ladies. I have learned so much from this run. I look forward to what my increased experience and knowledge can bring for the next cycle! Enjoy the photos, and feel free to ask questions!

 

[Biosystem]

Yet more photatoes.

 

[Mars Hydro Led]

Congratulations on finishing it! Well done, dude.

 

[Biosystem]

Congratulations on finishing it! Well done, dude.

Thanks, man! I'm so stoked for the flower testing!

 

[Biosystem]

WEEK 13 OF FLOWER
The last plant gets chopped. She was just pitching a fit and reflowering and throwing bananas. Honestly, I think something about these just kept them going and there was no clear "she's done" point. But hey, the buds from this crop were the largest I'd ever seen with my own eyes. Second successful harvest down and drying. It's nice. I planted in some more. I also seeded for cover crop! Root exudates incoming!
BBFV #4 pheno x 3
Mystery Seedling cut x 2
Seeds Mafia Wedding Cake x 3
Seed Mafia Big Gun x 3


What a fascinating plant this is . . .

 

[Biosystem]

As a bonus, it looks like the soil is alive with white millipedes and soil mites (not spider mites). I will be added more worms soon too. Between them and the covercrops soon to germinate, this raised bed is going to be teeming with life. This flowering cycle is going to look VERY different from the first two.

 

[Biosystem]

ABSOLUTE NOOB ALERT
Well, y'all it's time to fess up. Most of us would like to think we've got all this figured out. But it seems there are more lessons to learn for me. I transplanted about two days ago and watered them into their new home. But I forgot they would probably appreciate MORE water the day afterwards. . . So now they're all brown and crispy and might be dead forever. They might bounce back though, I have high hopes for 3 of the older ones and all the seedlings, but one of the older ones looks like they got critted.

I water the hell out of them today. We'll see how they perform once they have a day or two to respond to the water. I think a lot of it was a humidity drop of about 10% since I didn't disturb their roots at all when transplanting the older plants, and they had been watered very well the day before transplanting. Their roots should have been just fine. Oh well. Live and learn, man. Just keepin' you guys posted.
So sad, but I learn the best from the hard lessons.

 

[Bona Fortuna]

Most of us have been there. That’s really unfortunate.
Hey, the one on the far left of your pic looks like it still has a fighting chance.
Strawberries shoots are looking nice!

 

[Biosystem]

Yeah, that one is a different variety than the others. Hasn't been flowered yet so it's kind of a mystery. I think most of the adult plants will survive. Hopefully I caught them in time. And worst case scenario, the seedlings are coming up fine so far.
The covercrops seeds are about to erupt. I see so many seedlings shoots when watering today. This tub is about to become a sheet of green.

 

[Biosystem]

By the way, @Bona Fortuna, I did a ton more research into cover crops. Like, 15+ hours of video and a bunch of reading. This stuff is beyond fascinating, and I believe it is the key to ensuring success when growing in soil. Based on information from agriculture experts like Ray Archuleta, Gabe Brown and Ademir Calegari, the real ability of soil to feed plants and regulate pH is through the microbiology in the soil which can only be fully manifested if shielded and fed by living plants on the soil surface - preferably plants that can fixate nitrogen, but with others as well. Furthermore, it is FAR preferable to seed for polycultures as opposed to monocultures becaaaause the microbes depends on different plant root exudates for their own diverse diet and to provide nutrition for more types of microbes. The metaphor of a buffet is wonderful - if you walk into a buffet, do you want to see one or two items, or would you want to see three hundred items (food waste aside)? Which one would be likely to leave you with better nutrition? With THAT in mind, it is clear to me that despite the fact that strawberries are not nitrogen fixers as we had discussed, they are an excellent addition to my cover crop mix as they provide excellent soil penetration, aeration, water infiltration, water retention, etc in addition to making tasty fruit - all the while ensuring that once the grow season starts outdoors, I'll have all the strawberry plants I want to place outside for YET MORE BERRIES.

If anyone wants, I can send educational video links from time to time as I discover them. Just hit me up. I want to know as much as possible, so I'm always sifting through info online.

 

[Bona Fortuna]

Absolutely brilliant!
Diversity is the key to an effective soil food web.
Balancing Carbon:Nitrogen ratios effect microbial life drastically.
‘Weeds’ will tell you where your deficiencies are, as certain plants are general indicators of soil health.

Dr. Elaine Ingham is another excellent resource in the YouTube University. She has some fantastic educational videos out. Although she mostly deals with large scale agriculture.

Just thinking out loud here, would it be worth it to invest in more soil capacity? I’m wondering if a deeper planter would help with moisture and benefit your growing style a bit better.

Anyways, loving the updates!

 

[Biosystem]

Oh, hell yes, it would be worth it. If budget were no constraint, I'd have that bed be 3.5' deep and have it be a 5x5. It would be awesome. But as it is, I'm doin' the best I can with what I can cobble together.

Elaine Ingham is awesome. Her stuff is mostly about large scale ag like those other guys I mentioned, but those principles are still directly plug and play with our setups. . . I forget, Bona, are you even growing anything these days? Got a link to your grow?

 

[Bona Fortuna]

Haha fair fair! That would be a killer setup.
Unfortunately, I’m not growing right now... Just replenishing my seedstock while I’m hunting for new property. Growing just hasn’t been worth it between the wildfires, new neighbors that have already been unwelcome guests on the property and other security issues. I did try to pop some seeds a few months ago, but mostly gave up on them due to work and lack of time.
One day, hopefully soon, I’ll have some stuff worth showing.

 

[Biosystem]

I gotcha. Hopefully sooner rather than later! What's on the docket for your strain selection?

 

[Bona Fortuna]

There’s quite a bit on the lineup. I’m always on the hunt for NLD varieties or other electric varieties.
Mine: A hashplant from California that’s been around since the ‘80s. Been working on this one for about a little over a decade now.
Ace: older zamaldelica, newer Panama, Guawi, Nepal jam, Honduras breeze
Canabiogen: old destroyer
Hammerhead: P53
Doc D: Wat Pho, Midnight buzzsaw, dragon hammer haze, black magic haze, Chemd/gsc x X18/affie
Jaws: Hawaiian bud, rootdawg f4
Nirvana: raspberry cough
Rare dankness: dark shadow haze, 501og
Urban legends: maestro, Malawi terror beast
Kingdom organic seeds (kos): Black Forrest, Black Sea, Congo Bhai Bhai
Equilibrium genetics: Maui Cherry bomb x TomHillHaze
Bros Grimm: c99
TONS of freebie packs, mislabeled personal seeds, bag seed and a few that are staying in the vault for a bit longer.

 

[Mars Hydro Led]

Haha fair fair! That would be a killer setup.
Unfortunately, I’m not growing right now... Just replenishing my seedstock while I’m hunting for new property. Growing just hasn’t been worth it between the wildfires, new neighbors that have already been unwelcome guests on the property and other security issues. I did try to pop some seeds a few months ago, but mostly gave up on them due to work and lack of time.
One day, hopefully soon, I’ll have some stuff worth showing.

That must be worth looking forward to!

 

[Biosystem]

Boy, that's a full bushel of seeds right there, I tell you what. You'd better get poppin' or you're never gonna grow 'em all! Hell, most of those are strains I've never even heard of. I still find myself flabbergasted by the sheer number of strains and struggle to imagine how they're all unique and not just rebrandings of almost the same things. Still, a good plant is a good plant, so by whatever name or packaging it comes with, I'm keen to see it, or better yet, try it myself.

Did you say the Cali hashplant was one YOU have been breeding and selecting from since the 80s? Depending on your source material and how carefully you manipulated the genetic pool, you might have something very powerful and very rare - especially if it wasn't ever outcrossed to the blue billion other strains that came from the combined amalgamations of landraces like Asian/central-south American equatorial sativas and west Asian/Middle Eastern mountain indicas. Seems to me that most of this stuff out today is just the same handful of geographical areas of genetics thrown into a meat grinder until something sticks to the wall. And that works! It's given us a boat load of high-potency, easily cultivated plants! But I think we've lost a lot of the "pure" parent materials that the growers had the pleasure of experiencing in the mid to late 20th century. And I think that's a shame. Variety is the spice of life, and I think the effects from those strains that were largely if not entirely untouched by outside genetics for such long periods of time are important to that variety.

Not to say that even back then that there wasn't genetic manipulation going on by the growers there, but getting seeds from some dude on a camel from two towns over every few years is very different from what we have now where you've got the ability to make whackadoo crosses like eternally-flowering Thai satties with, say, a Russian ruderalis with only like 4-5 months from the moment you have the idea til you're holding a solo-cup'd F1 seedling in your hand.

 

[Bona Fortuna]

Too many seeds, too little time… it’s a real good problem to have haha. I wholly agree, variety being the spice of life. Sadly, lots of bottlenecked and hyper selected ‘hype’ strains are common. Some good, some bad. There are still breeders carrying stellar uncommon, ‘old-school’ genetics thankfully.

In regards to the hashplant, I’ve been around it my entire life, but only started working with it off and on since the late 2000’s. Before that, my growing mentor sourced the original seedlines through the 80’s, grew it, bred it and held it. It’s certainly not a ‘pure’ lineage, as it was likely a product of a landrace amalgamation originally. There has also been a couple choice additions since, a few selections/open pollinations every so often and few separately maintained outcrosses.

 

[Biosystem]

Oh, I see. Still, the history of a variety like that is very romantic to me. Not in an intimate way, but there is a strong charm to working with a genetic line for long periods of your life, fine tuning it to be exactly what you desire and what works best with your growing parameters whether that be a short-season, colder area like in far North America or a hot, humid, long season place like the Republic of Congo. Or just whatever your particular indoor parameters usually are (drier, wetter, warmer, colder on average). I like that stuff. I have plans for my own works in that regard. Still changing them though as my understanding grows. Do you think you found your holy grail yet? It's subjective, so no wrong answers. If you got washed ashore on a deserted island with only one bag of seeds in your pocket, what strain name would make you say "thank God" when you saw the name on the bag?