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Killer A5 Haze

StickyBandit

Well-known member
I want to try a strain with African genetics. I'm considering this strain (Killer A5 Haze) and also Super Malawi Haze. I'm hoping to find a fairly low-odor plant that is definitely not a 'stinker.' Between the two strains, does either stand out as being a better prospect for a low-odor plant? Thanks for any advice.
I can't speak for the SMH but indoors the KA5H has an odor I wouldn't call low. If you brush against it there is a rush of lemon/pine and a honey like substance will transfer :p
 

a58

Member
I want to try a strain with African genetics. I'm considering this strain (Killer A5 Haze) and also Super Malawi Haze. I'm hoping to find a fairly low-odor plant that is definitely not a 'stinker.' Between the two strains, does either stand out as being a better prospect for a low-odor plant? Thanks for any advice.
Killer A5 is by far the lowest odor plant I've ever grown. Could get a away without a carbon filter. Buy a big pack, flower them and just kill the smelly ones and keep the others. Tropical sativas are much much safer than modern hybrids in terms of smell. IMO, 10x less smelly than a diesel or kush.
 

RottyRzr

Active member
I want to try a strain with African genetics. I'm considering this strain (Killer A5 Haze) and also Super Malawi Haze. I'm hoping to find a fairly low-odor plant that is definitely not a 'stinker.' Between the two strains, does either stand out as being a better prospect for a low-odor plant? Thanks for any advice.

Killer A5 is by far the lowest odor plant I've ever grown. Could get a away without a carbon filter. Buy a big pack, flower them and just kill the smelly ones and keep the others. Tropical sativas are much much safer than modern hybrids in terms of smell. IMO, 10x less smelly than a diesel or kush.
The KA5H that I grew had very little odor. I agree with what a58 said as it was THE lowest odor plant I've grown. Now if I disturbed it like rubbed the stems on purpose there was an odor on my hands but not in the house. I didnt run the carbon filter at all during the whole grow and no one noticed.
 

a58

Member
I'd like to share my grow tips for low odor growing. Low odor growing is a number one priority for me, something I'll sacrifice other things for, like yield and grams per watt. Here are my tips for my grow style.

1. Go micro, less actual plant material - less smell. You can also be less efficient and it costs less haha.

2. Choose your strains wisley. I would choose something of tropical sativa in nature and check with the breeder via email. Choose a breeder who's product descriptions are detailed and consistent. If you have prior experience and know the plants match the data sheets then even better.

3. With a micro SOG (1L pots) - maybe even smaller if you know what you are doing - you can pheno hunt a lot of plants and select for low odor. Also, if you do get some smelly ones, theres less plant material to begin with, so you don't have to worry about coming home and finding that rapid onset terpene production has made your place a dangerzone.

Yes we have plant numbers to worry about, but plants can be hidden. Strong smells, can't.

4. Personally, I'd do my sativas into 1L pots and straight to 11/13 or even 10/14. Yeah, you could veg them for 15 days etc, but the whole point is to dwarf them and with many little plants, flipping is another thing to remember/judge. In addition, slower growth = time to react to terpene levels. Once they are chugging along, take clones, keep the quiet ones and chuck the rude-girls (and your clones of them).

I had a spectacular oily, squat, broad leaf malawi that smelled of nothing in veg, but was just a tiny bit too loud with the sweet mango and carrot in flower. I harvested very early and let her go, which is something you just have to learn to do. I'd totally hunt malawi again though, even the smelliest plant was a low-medium smell level.

Malawi x Panama has worked out well for me, I have one crazy jungle pheno which smells too strongly of sour lemon and mango - I will let this one go. The keeper pheno has tight buds and smells softly of vanilla, petals and very faint lemon. This pheno smells about as strongly as a normal plant flower, weaker than a lavender for example, more similar to a lilly.

5. WARNING: Make sure you have experience micro growing before doing something like this, tiny pots are fully doable but they come with different variables you have to learn. Maybe even practice with chillies in small pots before attempting.

**No doing multi strain safaris on your first run. Mixing different levels of nutes in small quantities is really annoying.**

*** If you grow something and it turns out not smelly due to rootzone stress or heat stress because you don't know how to grow in small pots, you're gonna get fucked if you grow the clone again and dial it in. Been there and done that, with a diesel that wafted dank fuel through walls. ***
 
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johnnylawrence

Active member
I'd like to share my grow tips for low odor growing. Low odor growing is a number one priority for me, something I'll sacrifice other things for, like yield and grams per watt. Here are my tips for my grow style.

1. Go micro, less actual plant material - less smell. You can also be less efficient and it costs less haha.

2. Choose your strains wisley. I would choose something of tropical sativa in nature and check with the breeder via email. Choose a breeder who's product descriptions are detailed and consistent. If you have prior experience and know the plants match the data sheets then even better.

3. With a micro SOG (1L pots) - maybe even smaller if you know what you are doing - you can pheno hunt a lot of plants and select for low odor. Also, if you do get some smelly ones, theres less plant material to begin with, so you don't have to worry about coming home and finding that rapid onset terpene production has made your place a dangerzone.

Yes we have plant numbers to worry about, but plants can be hidden. Strong smells, can't.

4. Personally, I'd do my sativas into 1L pots and straight to 11/13 or even 10/14. Yeah, you could veg them for 15 days etc, but the whole point is to dwarf them and with many little plants, flipping is another thing to remember/judge. In addition, slower growth = time to react to terpene levels. Once they are chugging along, take clones, keep the quiet ones and chuck the rude-girls (and your clones of them).

I had a spectacular oily, squat, broad leaf malawi that smelled of nothing in veg, but was just a tiny bit too loud with the sweet mango and carrot in flower. I harvested very early and let her go, which is something you just have to learn to do. I'd totally hunt malawi again though, even the smelliest plant was a low-medium smell level.

Malawi x Panama has worked out well for me, I have one crazy jungle pheno which smells too strongly of sour lemon and mango - I will let this one go. The keeper pheno has tight buds and smells softly of vanilla, petals and very faint lemon. This pheno smells about as strongly as a normal plant flower, weaker than a lavender for example, more similar to a lilly.

5. WARNING: Make sure you have experience micro growing before doing something like this, tiny pots are fully doable but they come with different variables you have to learn. Maybe even practice with chillies in small pots before attempting.

**No doing multi strain safaris on your first run. Mixing different levels of nutes in small quantities is really annoying.**

*** If you grow something and it turns out not smelly due to rootzone stress or heat stress because you don't know how to grow in small pots, you're gonna get fucked if you grow the clone again and dial it in. Been there and done that, with a diesel that wafted dank fuel through walls. ***
I would add just a couple of things....

Be ruthless in killing any plants that smell too much for your liking. The smell is only going to get stronger until about 3/4 of the way through flower, and then it may diminish a bit.

I have almost always started plants (seeds and rooted clones) in 32 oz./1 liter containers, as you suggest. However, I recently found myself bogged down with too many plants for my mini/micro setup. In my quest to find a sativa-leaning, low odor male in some seeds I have plenty of, I decided to disregard the usual advice and go ahead and start several seeds in a one-gallon pot. You can see my pictures. I have a sensitive sense of smell and nimble enough fingers to be able to rub stems of seedlings and judge odors. Granted, I am already familiar with this cross, which makes things easier (I know there will be some low odor individuals). Initially, I went from 7 sprouted seedlings down to 5 after eliminating the 2 indica-leaning phenos. The one I kept was the obvious choice after a few more days. The gender remains to be determined. My point is that it may not be ideal, but it is certainly possible to start several seedlings in one container without anything "bad" happening. When culling some of them, hold the soil down at the base with one hand and pull the plant out with the other. Otherwise, you may pull out a mass of soil and possibly damage the other seedlings.

It's important to have proper air circulation, otherwise odor will build up inside your cabinet or tent.

The last attached pic is my current mini grow, Ace Honduras x Panama on the left and Mango Haze on the right - both low odor. I started two Hon x Pan female seeds and one smelled too much to keep. Mango Haze has some smelly individuals and maybe a third or so that don't smell much. One had an unusual orange/metallic smell and grew like a tall vine compared to the others I started. I have no idea about the current state of Mango Haze seed offerings; I bought F2 seeds from Canada around 2010, and this plant is an S1 of that selected female (and almost identical). I started two Ace Panamas; one smelled too much and had to be culled immediately as a seedling. I haven't had a chance to flower the other one yet, but I don't think it will smell that much based on its odor now as a mature plant in veg.

Finding/selecting low odor individuals is a numbers game, and there is also a fair bit of luck (random chance) involved. In my experience, usually the smelly plants will begin to smell when very small.

I believe most of us should have a small ozone generator stashed away somewhere for "emergencies." If I find that things are getting out of control despite my best efforts, I will run the ozone generator five minutes at a time using a digital timer, no more than a few times a day. I should emphasize that I am talking about a SMALL ozone generator (about $100 at the time, intended for applications like controlling the odor of a cat box - definitely not for industrial uses). Running it once is often enough to get everything back under control, and then it will get put away for a few months or so.

Air conditioning helps to keep humidity down and reduce odors. I use an Odor Control-type filter containing activated carbon. I also like to air out the house at least once a day to completely change out the air.
 

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a58

Member
Very interesting approach, I like your, outside the box thinking. Prohibtion can lead to some bizzare creativity. I too have an emergency mini ozone generator. The multiple plants in one pot is a great solution, small pots dry out so fast. Is that a standard household air purifier carbon filter you mean?
Agree on the luck factor. I will say however, that I seem to be getting quite lucky with anything crossed to Malawi - with Killer A5 being the quietest. With the exception of Malawi x PCK that was a terp bomb.
 
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johnnylawrence

Active member
Very interesting approach, I like your, outside the box thinking. Prohibtion can lead to some bizzare creativity. I too have an emergency mini ozone generator. The multiple plants in one pot is a great solution, small pots dry out so fast. Is that a standard household air purifier carbon filter you mean?
Agree on the luck factor. I will say however, that I seem to be getting quite lucky with anything crossed to Malawi - with Killer A5 being the quietest. With the exception of Malawi x PCK that was a terp bomb.
I do run a small ~$50 desktop air purifier with a carbon pre-filter that I change every few weeks or as needed. I start with a larger carbon pre-filter that I cut into many pieces of the correct size, so it's not something I have to buy very frequently. The air purifier also has a built-in ionizer, which seems to help a little. In the previous post, I was referring to the filter that goes in the central air conditioning/heat (HVAC) unit. They come in different varieties - Allergen, Advanced Allergen, Odor Reduction, etc. I typically change the AC filter about every 60 days. Search online for 'odor reduction air conditioner filter' and you should be able to find what I'm talking about - square/rectangular, less than an inch thick, probably less than $20 or so. Filtrete is the brand at my store.

I have read Malawi has an oily quality that I'm looking to check out, and the low odor aspect is another reason to go ahead and do so. Panama seems to be hit-or-miss as far as low odor, which is fine; the one plant I had to cull was super-smelly, but the second one has barely any odor. My HonxPan has an odor similar to what you described - floral with some woody notes. It reminds me of both gardenias and roses while growing. I really like strains that leave an incense smell in the room after smoking. The Mango Haze and HonxPan both have that quality (at least the particular plants/phenos that I have). From what I have read from Dubi and others, that comes from Colombian ancestry.
 
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johnnylawrence

Active member
By the way, I have seen mixed results when people start seeds at 12/12. Some plants seem to wildly stretch and look mutated, especially under HPS lighting. I just top and prune if necessary.
 

Old Fogey

Well-known member
I want to try a strain with African genetics. I'm considering this strain (Killer A5 Haze) and also Super Malawi Haze. I'm hoping to find a fairly low-odor plant that is definitely not a 'stinker.' Between the two strains, does either stand out as being a better prospect for a low-odor plant? Thanks for any advice.
I have grown out Malawi (50% parent of KA5) as regular beans. The only plant I would describe as having been loud (it was very loud, in fact) was a fruity pheno that when touched gave off a powerful scent of garden flowers, like you have walked into a florist's store full of freshly cut posies. I never worried about that plant drawing attention to the grow because it didn't have anything like a classical cannabis odor.

I would describe the other 5 female Malawi as having had a low level, relatively benign odor that was very easy to manage.

Peace
 
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StickyBandit

Well-known member
@JustGrowing420 I just worked it out and mine was only 64 days. Maybe it's temps? Maybe I should have waited but I needed the space and last time it seemed to lose terps waiting too long. The room is getting from low to mid 20's into the 30's now and humid with it. Maybe yours will be the better smoke :)
 

Old Fogey

Well-known member
@JustGrowing420 I just worked it out and mine was only 64 days. Maybe it's temps? Maybe I should have waited but I needed the space and last time it seemed to lose terps waiting too long. The room is getting from low to mid 20's into the 30's now and humid with it. Maybe yours will be the better smoke :)
A couple of times now I have grown Indie clones from 56-60 day plants that have finished in under 42 days when flowered at around 20-22C or 68-72F. Small buds, low yields but smoked alright.
 

JustGrowing420

Well-known member
@JustGrowing420 I just worked it out and mine was only 64 days. Maybe it's temps? Maybe I should have waited but I needed the space and last time it seemed to lose terps waiting too long. The room is getting from low to mid 20's into the 30's now and humid with it. Maybe yours will be the better smoke :)
It could just be phenotype, but yeah 64 days is fast and looked almost ready anyway!
Mine are all within a week or two between them approximately.
Next one is coming down in a few days at 100+ and last one seems to go 110.
Temps for 90% of the grow were 20-26c and only last few days got colder.
 
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