Footsteps In Becoming an Expert Grower

[Boo]

It sounds like you’ve got the next year or two of your life all planned out. I hope everything goes as well as you have it anticipated. I prefer to grow much more simple and do everything by hand. I haven’t done much different in the last 24 years of my growing habits And I’m fine with that. I’ll keep an eye out on your grow and follow up on what you’re

 

[Biosystem]

It sounds like you’ve got the next year or two of your life all planned out. I hope everything goes as well as you have it anticipated. I prefer to grow much more simple and do everything by hand. I haven’t done much different in the last 24 years of my growing habits And I’m fine with that. I’ll keep an eye out on your grow and follow up on what you’re

Thanks, man. I'm just hoping the hiccups and errors along the way aren't too egregious. Nothing goes perfectly, so we just have to shoot for excellent.

 

[Biosystem]

Micro clover is really nice for a cover crop but the seeds are a little pricey. I got mine from outsidepride dot com.

I did a couple soil growers with big totes but settled on pots, bags 5 gallon or smaller. I can't grow a tropical sativa in the same container as an indica dominant poly hybrid and keep both of them happy. Plus individual pots make much easier to keep from over watering using the pot weight method.

Seedlings and damp off: I never had a problem using this method. Start with Solo cups with drainage holes, use a seedling mix, moisten well with PH adjusted water, plant your seed and cover with a plastic sandwich bag. Put the Solo cups in a 5 gallon bucket. Get a clamp light with a reflector from home depot. The 5 gallon bucket narrow enough to keep the reflector from sitting on top of the cups. The light warms the top of the soil and plastic bag keep the soil moist enough until they break ground. Check daily and remove the plastic bags as they emerge.

Simple easy cloning: Warming mat, bowl of water larger than a paper plate, styrofoam plate, Aquarium air stone and air pump. Put a bowl of PH adjusted water on the warming mat, drop the air stone in the water, make holes in the plate for the cuttings, get at least 1/2" of the cutting through the bottom of the plate. Float the plate on the bubbling bowl of water. No humidity dome , no nutes or rooting hormones needed. keep the air temps above 70.

That has been the seedling method I've used with best luck so far. I want to get some practice with this method a bit because I will be doing breeding projects later on that will be using many many seedlings, so being able to sprout and manage them in easily moveable, preppable, transplantable pucks like this seemed very useful. I may end up going back to the old methods but if I can nail down this one it'll be easier and better in the long run (for my purposes and growing style/space).

The clone method is interesting, and I'll have to see about running some tests with that. The cloner I have seems to run well, but to your point, I think temperatures are staring to impact it, so a heat mat is a good idea, and I am probably letting too much of the stem stick out from the bottom (2-3" stickout as opposed to 1-1.5").

 

[Biosystem]

WEEK 4 OF FLOWER
Zamaldelica by ACE Seeds

Things are going pretty well. The females are coming along nicely and reacting to the LST with great vigor.

The males are doing okay. The light is proving to be a bit much for them so I moved it up AGAIN.

More fertilizer to be added to the soil soon. Things are going good, y'all. Just checkin' in.

 

[Biosystem]

Odds and ends with cloning Zammies and sprouting Event Horizon. Those totes have a bunch of scraps and such buried at the bottom. Worms have been added, and cover crop seed has been spread to begin fostering more microbial life.

 

[gedLang]

Looking good! A lot of beautiful green. That top plant in the first picture has some crazy clawing going on.

It looks like you are cloning from plants in flower - is that any more difficult than from veg? I have not tried doing that.

 

[Biosystem]

Looking good! A lot of beautiful green. That top plant in the first picture has some crazy clawing going on.

It looks like you are cloning from plants in flower - is that any more difficult than from veg? I have not tried doing that.

Yes, indeedy. Those are the sts reversed plants in a separate tent. I suspect the light is agitating them greatly in there, or perhaps it is the STS. I don't know, I have never selfed a plant before this, nor have I used this tent.

As to flowering clones, I just take them and root them when I prune the suckers that sprout during the flip to flower. I seem to have the same success rate with them as I do in veg. Personally I like veg clones more because you can control the number of branches you have WAY more easily, and the plant doesn't waste a ton of energy throwing bract material on the site where it was flowering before (even if it's in the damn shade).

 

[Biosystem]

Some updates:

My seedlings are running great! Strains will be listed once I know who will make it and who won't.

The Zamaldelica reversed plants seem to have stopped producing male flowers for some reason, and they are also molding. I expect the plants will need to be scrapped entirely and restarted (possibly). Very frustrating but not the end of the world. Live and learn. I can't get away with this small tent without a fan in it. It's just too small and prone to humidity issues. Oh whale!

 

[Biosystem]

WEEK 5 OF FLOWER
Zamaldelica by ACE Seeds

They seem to be doing quite well still. The reversed males seemed to fail their reversal due to mold and possible misapplication of STS. Unsure of why it is such a problem with them, but I will need to revisit this process.

Anyone with solid experience in making S1 seeds, please DM me if you want to share your knowledge and improve the world.

The clones and seedlings are doing rather well. Some troubles with getting some very old seeds to make it all the way, but the rates aren't bad given how old they are! Just plugging along over here, waiting on plants to grow! This species is so awesome!

 

[Biosystem]

WEEK 6 OF FLOWER
Zamaldelica by ACE Seeds

They're doing great! Looks like the nitrogen sensitivity has kicked in starting this week, but it isn't severe yet. Not fertilizing with nitrogen, and I haven't since the early part of last bloom at the soonest.

They smell so good already. I'm still excited to see how the flowering time compares what with this one starting at 11/13 light cycle right out of the gate as opposed to last bloom which was only flipped to 11/13 at week 10 or so.

I seem to have some kind of big-chomper pest, like a caterpillar or something. Photos in the subsequent post. I'll need to figure out some kind of trap for it because I can't find the bastard.

 

[Biosystem]

The bitten leaves are from the bloom tent. The other photos are of the clones and seedlings in the veg tent.

Y'all, I say this all the time, but I love this species so much. This is the most fascinating and rewarding hobby of my life. Just growing it is a pleasure. Getting to eat it or smoke it at the end is just an amazing bonus.

 

[aCBD]

Nice jungle, hard to spot the plants in there.

From the pictures i guess you have a grasshopper hiding somewhere.
Maybe a trap with molasses?

 

[Biosystem]

Nice jungle, hard to spot the plants in there.

From the pictures i guess you have a grasshopper hiding somewhere.
Maybe a trap with molasses?

Thanks, man! Can you believe every Monday I crush all of the cover crop foliage in big wads above their roots to hamper their growth and prevent them from competing with the stars of the show? They just won't stop - but that's a good thing. I want them there to help keep the system as biologically active as possible. I do think I will switch to clover only, or at least short plants only, after I finish this bag of cover crop seed. That will take a few years though I reckon.

I will definitely try a molasses trap of some kind. And the best part? After use, I can just dump the whole thing on the soil, and it's just more microbe food. This bug doesn't know what's coming, man. Hahaha

 

[Biosystem]

WEEK 7 OF FLOWER
Zamaldelica by ACE Seeds

Still running 11/13. The calcium fert I made seems to be too much for the crappy plants on the side, but that's okay. They obviously weren't going to do much of anything anyway, and now I know to revisit and dilute that mix.

Things are going well!

 

[Biosystem]

Some pics of what's going on in the veg tent.
The dead/dying plants in flower are the ones that got burned in the flower tent. It is what it is.

 

[Biosystem]

WEEK 8 OF FLOWER (Somehow)
Zamaldelica by ACE Seeds

Well, damn. I leave town for a week and come back to this. It looks like they're only a couple weeks out from finishing if I had to wager. That would put them at 10 weeks flowering time compared to their previous 16+ weeks, though how much of that is from the 11/13 cycle vs from the clone vigor who is to say? Only further testing would provide that information and I don't believe I will be running this strain again for a good while. I still have many clones that I could use but I must move on to fresh genes to try.

I'm also realizing that I need way more time for flower prep in my operation. My seedlings only have 8 weeks until they were scheduled to be put into flower and they are still too small to take cuttings from, AND the current crop looks like it will finish early. And to top it off, the rapid flower on these plants has shown that the yield from such plants is much much lower than other harvests, suggesting that more veg time will be needed before flowering.

In any case, they look great so far! Just great! The discoloration of fan leaves is a little concerning. Natural strain senesence or lack of phosphorus? Hmmm.

 

[Biosystem]

Extras. Whiteflies here? What do?

 

[aCBD]

The calyxes are so swollen that i had to check for seeds.
Didn't see any.

I use Neem as foliar spray and for watering, paired with blue and yellow fly traps.

 

[Biosystem]

I'll post up some sticky strips and see if I can knock 'em down a bit without foliar spraying this late in flower. They don't seem to be disturbing these plants much, but I'll need to clean up really well before the next crop goes into the tent just in case.

I always clean between crops, but I'll do a deeper clean this run. I need to mulch in a lot of the decaying cover crop material as well once this crop is done too. I very much dislike the vining plants used in this cover crop mix (beans, maybe?) They're very good at being a vigorous cover, but they just get in the way of the main plants too much for my liking - not in a photosynthetically meaningful way, but in a "I don't like pulling this shit off every week" sort of way.

 

[Bona Fortuna]

Things are looking pretty damn nice in there!
I’m putting money on senescence, it’s about the right time for the fade to start kicking in.

Those little seedlings are doing alright, too.
Glad they mostly grew out of their old age funkiness.