Hashplants

[p59teitel]

TRSC Chitrali almost done. Topped out just over 6 feet. Plant was somewhat susceptible to septoria leaf spot thus the whittled appearance in the pics - but she flowered very early and kept leaves on long enough to have the energy to throw reasonably thick and very solid colas with hard clusters - much firmer than any other landrace I’ve grown.

Every single female plant this year has purple flowers, and this is no exception. Maybe half the trichomes are milky but I’d like to let her go a little longer if possible, assuming the Septoria doesn’t penetrate further into the
flowers. I have a rainy night coming up - and after an August and early September drought I did have recent two heavy rainstorms - but so far I haven’t seen any botrytis

I will likely cut the cola ends within a few days and let the rest flesh out some more.

The smell keeps transforming, initially it was more mandarin and gasoline, it still retains some of that but has gotten a bit floral as well -

 

[p59teitel]

The two Landrace Genetics Karakoram females are doing well too. Decent resistance to Septoria. They actually gave me a bit of an education about how it spreads - after some branches partially broke off from the main stem and sat in standing rainwater during a heavy storm last month, they quickly became spotted. And I’ve also noticed that in general the Septoria spotting starts on the lowest branches then works its way up the plant.

I’ve had rainy weather before but the last two seasons the leaf spot has been challenging. One thing I have not done the past couple winters that I did previously is burn brush on the garden. I’m wondering if the prior burning cauterized the soil and killed the Septoria so it could not overwinter and get a head start on infecting the plants. I’ll put that theory to test this winter and next year as I have plenty of brush to burn.

Anyway, the taller of the two plants ended up just about 12 feet, the other one had gotten crunched on by some critter and so grew multiple tops and is around 8 1/2 high. The taller one has a gassy lemon scent, the other one a little more fuel and rose-like. Thinking maybe a couple more weeks and they will be just right to harvest, if they can avoid botrytis -

 

[Wolverine97]

If you want to see a super Septoria susceptible plant, feast your eyes on this;

 

[Wolverine97]

There's a tree in our backyard, but just across the property line (so I can't cut it down) that has Septoria fungus. The last two years here, outdoor has been a rough go. Only the very most resistant strains make it. This is my test patch anyway, so not a huge deal, but still super annoying. The Jamaicans come through with flying colors, but any modern hybrid stuff has just been awful. One exception is a cross I made with Queen's Sangria as the mom, and the Jamaican dad. Those are killer plants, and doing well.

The above is Grape Lime Skunk, from Mean Gene. That's a 45 gallon smart pot, for some sense of scale.

 

[Wolverine97]

I have to do a daily clean up, picking up any fallen leaves from the infected plants, and burn them. PITA

 

[p59teitel]

Last are Baaba Qo’s Tashqurghan. Four out of five of these plants got smoked with Septoria, which definitely impacted production on the scrawny one on the right in this pic of the two females. The one on the right also had a heavy botrytis infection on the stem; I wound up scraping the infected area clean with a pair of scissors and have hit it with rubbing alcohol since. Those measures seem to have stopped the infection, which you can see as the light brown area a couple feet up from the ground -

The healthy plant is almost 8 feet and the scrawny one about a foot taller. The strain flowered very late as compared to the Chitrali and the Karakoram. I don’t expect much from the scrawny plant, but I would like to be able to push the healthy one to the end of October if possible. I will say that I have never seen landrace flowers this immature with the amount of resin the chunky one has thrown so far. I like how the flower sites are close together like they are on the Chitrali. The brachts are pretty large too -

It’s also kind of neat the way the leaves are turning purple -

 

[p59teitel]

I have trees, grape vines and all sorts of things that can host Septoria pretty close to the garden, so I can’t escape it entirely. But it wasn’t much of a problem previously, as it would only really show up right before harvest on leaves that had already turned yellow and were ready to fall off the plants, which I attributed to normal senescence leading to decomposition.

Starting last year it aggressively attacked the TRSC Panjshir that I grew beginning in June, although it ignored the Himalayas from Rasol and Dakshinkali. It’s already like trying to drive a square peg to round hole here with the rainy and foggy Fall climate as it is, and so I’m gonna burn baby burn this winter to see if that reduces this plague down to background levels.

 

[Wolverine97]

Yeah here the past two years it has started from early veg stage. It's really bad. Going to have to take some drastic measures next year, I think. I really don't want to have to treat all the soil with copper...

Anyhow, I like the look of that Chitrali above. Pretty classic PCK look to it.

 

[kro-magnon]

The two Landrace Genetics Karakoram females are doing well too. Decent resistance to Septoria. They actually gave me a bit of an education about how it spreads - after some branches partially broke off from the main stem and sat in standing rainwater during a heavy storm last month, they quickly became spotted. And I’ve also noticed that in general the Septoria spotting starts on the lowest branches then works its way up the plant.

I’ve had rainy weather before but the last two seasons the leaf spot has been challenging. One thing I have not done the past couple winters that I did previously is burn brush on the garden. I’m wondering if the prior burning cauterized the soil and killed the Septoria so it could not overwinter and get a head start on infecting the plants. I’ll put that theory to test this winter and next year as I have plenty of brush to burn.

Anyway, the taller of the two plants ended up just about 12 feet, the other one had gotten crunched on by some critter and so grew multiple tops and is around 8 1/2 high. The taller one has a gassy lemon scent, the other one a little more fuel and rose-like. Thinking maybe a couple more weeks and they will be just right to harvest, if they can avoid botrytis - View attachment 19073522 View attachment 19073523 View attachment 19073526 View attachment 19073525 View attachment 19073524 View attachment 19073521

Burning plants on a field at the end of the season is an old farming technique used to fertilize the soil with the ashes maybe it also take care of the pathogens in the ground in the same time;

 

[CannaZen]

I'm quite pleased your posting again @therevverend i hope you enjoy your canna. Edit oh I see I was reading 2018 thread pages.

 

[p59teitel]

Ended up taking down the Chitrali on Friday. Zero botrytis found. I will jar some for flower and the rest will be hung up to make hash some cold night this winter. Already found a few random bagseeds, some are very small and are very dark so likely from the male Chitrali next to her that flowered very early (assume the larger ones are from the nearby Karakoram males). I left two selectively pollinated branches on the main stem and hope to get some good seeds from those.

Aside from moderate susceptibility to Septoria, the plants were easy keepers and I would definitely grow this strain again -

 

[dogzter]

 

[moose/MI]

I taught myself to do bubble last year.
All sungrown organic, single origin.

Each plant about a pound- pound and a quarter. I kept and trimmed 5-6 ounces of "A" buds from each strain for flower.
The 11 ounces or 308 grams left just happens to be a full load in my 5gal washer.
This worked out really well for me last season and I plan to repeat it this year.

I'll get some plant pictures tomorrow from this year.

 

[therevverend]

This has been a down year for me. My house and garden were sold in May. The new owner was sympathetic, allowed me to have one last crop here. I went low key, started late and didn't grow as many plants as I normally do because I didn't want to take advantage of his kindness. I also had a garden in eastern Washington, the dry side of the state, where I don't have to worry about mold.

Hopefully by spring I'll have a new property on the east side and my botrytis days will be over. It will be a big change, the latitude will be similar but the soil, pests, temperature, and water will all be very different. It may take me a few years to get dialed in. I'm going to miss my sandy soil here in western Washington, I've grown the best cannabis I've ever smoked.

Some of my earliest memories are of watching my grandpa till the soil to absolute fluff with his rototiller. Helping him grow potatoes and rhubarb with my little red wheelbarrow that was a kid's version of his big red wheelbarrow. My grandma would cook the potatoes with Johnny salt and butter, delicious. Even better was the rhubarb pies whe'd make.

This garden is a special sacred place and leaving it is heartbreaking. There are volunteer tomatillos, mustard, cannabis, arugula, and chard sprouting up. The new owner has bulldozed it away along with my little fern grove, covered it in gravel to park his cars. No more getting baked and seeing faeries out of the corners of my eyes. It seems a waste of space but it's not my land anymore. Everything has a beginning and an end, I'm excited about my new beginning but I'll always remember my lifetime spent on this land.

This is getting off topic, what we're interested in is hashplants. The last landrace hashplant I've grown here is a purple Hopar Valley Gilgit strain from @Landrace Warden . Last year one of my most successful plants was a green pheno of Hopar Valley. It was one of the finest hashplants I've grown. Wide leaves, decent vigor, amazing mold resistance, and lots of golden resin that had a wonderful flavor and pleasant effect. I wouldn't be surprised if it's the best strange out of the Hopar Valley, it seemed very refined, but I was excited to grow the purple and find out it's secrets.

Because of the distractions this wasn't my best year. The owner disconnected the hose so watering was difficult during the hottest period of the summer. The purple Hopar would have done much better if it had received better care. It didn't sex early either because I had started my seeds later than I usually do. By the time she was sexed and planted in the ground it was the end of July.

The outstanding Hopar purple plants I grew were the males. They were quite vigorous and outgrew most of my other plants despite being rootbound and water starved in containers. I collected a lot of pollen and some escaped to create open pollinated seeds. I had one other male that flowered a little earlier, that likely created more seeds, but it's going to be a nice mix of 3 males that showed excellent traits. The male flowers turned purple, had a strong gassy smell. I expect good things from the progeny.

I'm happy with how the female turned out although I wish I'd cared for her better. She got a little over 5 feet tall. A trait of this strain seems to be open airy flowers. This is a good trait for hashmaking but it doesn't produce the rock hard dense clusters that commercial growers want. They weren't ridiculously airy, like some tropical sativas, had fully developed calyxes and lots of resin that I imagine is powerful. I believe selective hybridization could easily remedy this, if it's thought of as a deficiency. I don't mind myself, as long as I have other plants with big colas. I'd like to see this strain hybridized and I'd like to work an inbred line to improve what is there.

The flowers turned a wonderful purple color. The smell was similar to other mountain varieties, especially the hand rubbed Himalayan cultivars from the Malana Valley I've grown. There was a bit of gas but an strong aromatic spicy reek dominates that are typical of the older varieties that populated the region before the modern wide leaf hashplants took over. Similar smells to the mountain varieties in Afghanistan as well. They're closer to 'Indica kafiristanica' as opposed to 'Indica Afghanica'. Although it seems like selective breeding goes into the strain, I wouldn't classify it as a feral or wild type. Here's a look.

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One thing I have not done the past couple winters that I did previously is burn brush on the garden. I’m wondering if the prior burning cauterized the soil and killed the Septoria so it could not overwinter and get a head start on infecting the plants. I’ll put that theory to test this winter and next year as I have plenty of brush to burn.

Septoria, also known as yellow leaf spot, is ubiquitous. It frequents fiber and drug crops. There's two species of septoria that cause yellow leaf spot on cannabis. Septoria cannabis and Septoria neocannabina. These are different species then the types that attack other plants. For instance tomatoes are hit by Septoria lycopersici. This is true of many cannabis diseases where the disease affecting other plants in the garden cannot harm the cannabis.

You were on the right track, burning the plant matter after harvest. Sanitation and careful pruning are 'the cornerstone of control' according to Hemp Diseases and Pests: Management and Biological Control by J.M McPartland, R.C. Clarke, and D.P. Watson. Also deep ploughing, genetic resistance, crop rotation, avoiding overhead irrigation, avoiding excess nitrogen while adding phosphorous and potassium, will help you avoid outbreaks of septoria.

Rainy weather is especially bad for spreading septoria. You'll want to avoid moving around the garden during rainy days during an outbreak because it's spread easily by contact. Disease resistant varieties have been bred. There have also been inbred varieties that lose their resistance. No biocontrol is available. However the disease can be slowed by Bourdeaux mixture.

Personally I've seen the disease present in the garden many years. I've never had a destructive outbreak of it. I've noticed it transferring between my hops plant and my ganja plants, one of the types that attacks cannabis must also thrive on hops which is a close relative. Unless it's another similar disease like brown leaf spot.