[Landrace] Malawi, Durban (CBG), Ethiopian and Honduras
- Thread starter ikinokori
- Start date
ikinokori
Active member
sorry for the multipost, i finally have the info on my soil ph : it is written 5.8 on the package (biocanna bio terra plus) it seems low, but its the default ph of many soil mix for cannabis i can find in my grow shop ?
btw, i forgot to say which ph i water my plants. i water with ph 6.2 as recommended by one of my bottled products manufacturer. i see people recommending 6.5 in soil, some 6.3, even some 6.8 so i don't really know what is the correct value.
Maybe dubi could shed some light on this ? it would be really appreciated because i always wondered about ph and everything i see something about that it contradicts other info
btw, i forgot to say which ph i water my plants. i water with ph 6.2 as recommended by one of my bottled products manufacturer. i see people recommending 6.5 in soil, some 6.3, even some 6.8 so i don't really know what is the correct value.
Maybe dubi could shed some light on this ? it would be really appreciated because i always wondered about ph and everything i see something about that it contradicts other info
brickweeder
Well-known member
Yeah, the day night difference s fairly narrow, and you were vegging outside but close to the flowering range, and once you started adjusting the daylight downward, you hit the toggle point pretty quickly. Im going to have to give Ethiopia a spin one day...problem is too many seeds, not enough time plus too low plant counts...thank God for places like this to live vicariously through others efforts.
ikinokori
Active member
haha yes i feel you, this is one of the reasons i decided i will only focus on landrace from now on because they are much lesser known yet fascinating plants
For my ph comment, i asked for dubi because he is a vendor and my seeds were made by him and his team, so i figured he would be the best suuted to answer my question. this was not meant to discredit anyone else here and i know there are great growers, i just thought when writing my message that the maker of my seed would be the one who could give the most appropriate answer for my situation . i think i should rather send an email to know as it is probably hard for him and his team to check regularly answers here
SolarLogos
Well-known member
Soil pH
Soil pH
I see you had a question regarding pH. I know Dubi is pretty busy, but here is a copy of part of a PM Dubi sent me regarding pH, I hope that helps answer your question:
If you are growing in pure coco fiber then the ph must be lower, but if you are growing with a soil mix mainly composed of peat, with a bit of guano, worm casting and coco then the correct ph is 6.5-6.8. This is the mix i've been using for 20 years to grow my plants organically in soil, both indoors and outdoors.
Hope it helps. Let me know if you have any other doubt. Best regards, dubi - ACE Seeds -
I went back and re-read your posts, but I don't remember reading what kind of soil you're growing in. There is a lot of information on pH for soil-less mediums. I run my indoors in coco at 5.7-6.3 pH, with 6.3pH working fine for most of what I grow. Otherwise, in soil, your good at 6.5-6.8 pH.
Hope it helps,
Peace, God bless
Soil pH
Greetings ikinokori,
I see you had a question regarding pH. I know Dubi is pretty busy, but here is a copy of part of a PM Dubi sent me regarding pH, I hope that helps answer your question:
If you are growing in pure coco fiber then the ph must be lower, but if you are growing with a soil mix mainly composed of peat, with a bit of guano, worm casting and coco then the correct ph is 6.5-6.8. This is the mix i've been using for 20 years to grow my plants organically in soil, both indoors and outdoors.
Hope it helps. Let me know if you have any other doubt. Best regards, dubi - ACE Seeds -
I went back and re-read your posts, but I don't remember reading what kind of soil you're growing in. There is a lot of information on pH for soil-less mediums. I run my indoors in coco at 5.7-6.3 pH, with 6.3pH working fine for most of what I grow. Otherwise, in soil, your good at 6.5-6.8 pH.
Hope it helps,
Peace, God bless
ikinokori
Active member
thank you very much for these informations they are very much welcome. i use the biocanna bio terra plus soil, using biocanna nutes. i will up the ph then from now on and go at 6.5. i would love to go full soil amendment because to me, that is how it works in nature and making your own soil sounds so much fun as opposed of mxing liquid bottled stuff, but since i'm growing sativa landraces, indoors i have to use very small containers and i have been told it is impossible to do a grow like that with like 1 gallon or 2 gallon pot as they will end up deficient at one point. i don't know how true that is but thats why i decided to keep on working with liquid ferts for the moment unfortunately.
do you think those values still apply for those using liquid ferts ? Biocanna for example is organic, but apparently there are still salts in them and when i have overfed some plants, you could still see the classic white salt deposit on the bottom of the pots like when i was using full mineral nutes. i saw somewhere that in reality it is more a "mix of fully organic nutes and "organic" salt based nutes", which is why you could possibly still burn plants with it, but it was not an official declaration of canna, just someone saying that
do you think those values still apply for those using liquid ferts ? Biocanna for example is organic, but apparently there are still salts in them and when i have overfed some plants, you could still see the classic white salt deposit on the bottom of the pots like when i was using full mineral nutes. i saw somewhere that in reality it is more a "mix of fully organic nutes and "organic" salt based nutes", which is why you could possibly still burn plants with it, but it was not an official declaration of canna, just someone saying that
ikinokori
Active member
also, one thing that makes me wonder a lot. Almost all of the soil mix for cannabis i can find like the canna, cellmax, gold label and so on have a ph of around 5.8, 6.0 tops. why is that since we are supposed to water at 6.5 ? i have never seen anyone recommend watering at 5.8, so there must be another reason than it being the "correct" ph for cannabis, at least watering wise. maybe the soil and the water just need to be at a different ph ? sorry, i am just wondering
SolarLogos
Well-known member
Some say that growing in organic soil buffers the soil, so pH is not necessary. I don't know the answer to that, because I pH everything. I've grown pure Indica's in the ground and never pH'ed a thing and did great, but Sativa is something I wasn't familiar with growing at the time. Since I've been growing pure Sativa, I pH everything and the only time I get into trouble is when I don't pH, so I never neglect it. To me, pH is probably more important than soil amendments, type of nutes, etc. Without proper pH, too many essential nutrients and minerals get locked out.
I'm not familiar with the soil brands you mentioned. I did look up the canna medium you are using and it appears to be peat and coco mixed. As Dubi stated, and I can attest to, peat should be 6.5-6.8 pH. However, coco you can go lower, 5.7-6.3 pH or somewhere in there, everyone has a preference. I'm not sure with your mix, but you may have to play with it a bit. I think 6.5 pH would be a good start if it were me, treating it as if it is mostly a peat/soil mix, rather than a soil-less mix like coco only.
I meant to mention, your plants do look good. The one plant looks like a cal/mag deficiency I had once from low pH lockout, so try 6.5 pH (soil, water and nutes). I always pH nutes, even my organic liquid nutes.
Good luck on the Honduran, they do like to stretch but they will fill out those long arms to make it worth it. If they get too tall, try to bend the tops over. Bend them before they get too close to the lights because the small branches will want to take over and grow upward as well and that may be a problem if it is in too early of flower as they too will get too close to the lights. You should get a better yield doing that as well, if you have room to do so.
Hope you like the high of Honduran, my favorite. Perfect morning smoke, get you going while letting you stay in control and feeling focused, very sharp focus. No noids or anxiousness, just all introverted and feel good
Thanks for keeping this updated, I like your grow a lot. Are you planning to cross any of the above, particularly with the Honduran?
Peace, God bless
ikinokori
Active member
thank you very much for the kind words it makes me very happy, i am very glad you are following my journey with me and enjoy being here ^^
The honduras are very beautiful and definutely match what you say as they are starting to fill a lot horizontally, i cannot wait to see how beautiful she is in flowering. for crossing plants, i am mainly discovering the different species right now and think i will do that for a while (i have so many landraces to discover) as i want to populate my mental database on each main historical strain and lesser known historical strains to get more robust opinions on what is what. But since i have other beans saved in the fridge of every strains i make an initial run, i clearly thought of the honduras as a great parent to inject vigor and strength for a low vigor or slower strain that i would need a boost for survival. I don't know anything about breeding yet though, i have read some articles and a book on that and it looks extremely complicated, from stabilization of phenotypes, latent traits, hybridation and so on, specially after f1 or f2 and it looks like you need years of work just to make a very good stable and reliable strain, that is why i have a lot of respect for serious breeders like ace because it looks very hard. my "cannabis "life goal" would be maybe to make a single strain of my own, focusing on it and working it a lot, but first i would need a lot of strain knowledge to know what i would really want to make (even though i feel it may be a jamaican cross of some sort... or maybe a very asiatic one... maybe both haha) , plus more growing experience, and then breeding experience which i don't have as of right now unfortunately. i may go in a very amateurish way at first though and just cross a few plants i like just to discover the art of breeding and wet my feet ^^
but it is clear, from the limited knowledge i have right now, that the honduras looks like a great strain to revive older less vigorous strain, it just withstands everything i threw at them like champions, i am very impressed. i am much less aware of its smoke properties due to the rarity of smoke reports so i need to smoke it first too. actually, i don't think i saw a real smoke report on this strain apart from the official description so your report is very interesting to hear so thank you. if you have more to share on her i am all ears i love hearing people experience on strains.
to get back on the ph thing, you are right i will try to start secure as you said and play with ph in order to find the right values. i found that organic is forgiving even in the case of liquid organic fertilizer, but i think with phing it makes a big difference as i have done both too (ph'ed and unph'ed). in any case, i only ph with organic ph up and down, and it is specifically said on the bottle it doesn't harm the microlife of the substrate so i guess it wont be a major issue as i could still rely on my soil to do it for me if im not phing at the perfect value, unless what is buffering is only the lime agent and in this case i hope the citric acid in my ph down don't affect its buffering abilities. also, i saw too that the ph needs change as the grow advances, with higher ph needed in mid-flo, so i guess i have a lot of experimenting to do
The honduras are very beautiful and definutely match what you say as they are starting to fill a lot horizontally, i cannot wait to see how beautiful she is in flowering. for crossing plants, i am mainly discovering the different species right now and think i will do that for a while (i have so many landraces to discover) as i want to populate my mental database on each main historical strain and lesser known historical strains to get more robust opinions on what is what. But since i have other beans saved in the fridge of every strains i make an initial run, i clearly thought of the honduras as a great parent to inject vigor and strength for a low vigor or slower strain that i would need a boost for survival. I don't know anything about breeding yet though, i have read some articles and a book on that and it looks extremely complicated, from stabilization of phenotypes, latent traits, hybridation and so on, specially after f1 or f2 and it looks like you need years of work just to make a very good stable and reliable strain, that is why i have a lot of respect for serious breeders like ace because it looks very hard. my "cannabis "life goal" would be maybe to make a single strain of my own, focusing on it and working it a lot, but first i would need a lot of strain knowledge to know what i would really want to make (even though i feel it may be a jamaican cross of some sort... or maybe a very asiatic one... maybe both haha) , plus more growing experience, and then breeding experience which i don't have as of right now unfortunately. i may go in a very amateurish way at first though and just cross a few plants i like just to discover the art of breeding and wet my feet ^^
but it is clear, from the limited knowledge i have right now, that the honduras looks like a great strain to revive older less vigorous strain, it just withstands everything i threw at them like champions, i am very impressed. i am much less aware of its smoke properties due to the rarity of smoke reports so i need to smoke it first too. actually, i don't think i saw a real smoke report on this strain apart from the official description so your report is very interesting to hear so thank you. if you have more to share on her i am all ears i love hearing people experience on strains.
to get back on the ph thing, you are right i will try to start secure as you said and play with ph in order to find the right values. i found that organic is forgiving even in the case of liquid organic fertilizer, but i think with phing it makes a big difference as i have done both too (ph'ed and unph'ed). in any case, i only ph with organic ph up and down, and it is specifically said on the bottle it doesn't harm the microlife of the substrate so i guess it wont be a major issue as i could still rely on my soil to do it for me if im not phing at the perfect value, unless what is buffering is only the lime agent and in this case i hope the citric acid in my ph down don't affect its buffering abilities. also, i saw too that the ph needs change as the grow advances, with higher ph needed in mid-flo, so i guess i have a lot of experimenting to do
SolarLogos
Well-known member
Thank you for the kind words my friend.
Here is a link to the smoke report I did on the Honduran thread:
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=317900&page=33
I've not heard of raising the pH in flower and I never have. Others with more knowledge on that can chime in, but I keep mine the same.
A lot of us like to pollen chuck and we are not pros. Of course you are right, to breed it's best to have a lot of space, ability to grow larger numbers to select from and a lot of time. I'm like you, but just playing around. It's interesting to see which strains dominate in the crosses, experience your favorite smoke, changed up a little, etc. An excellent way to satisfy my curiosity. But you're also right, focus on mastering growing first, which I haven't done
but hopefully getting there.
Looking forward to your harvest, hope you find your sacred smoke.
Peace, God bless
ikinokori
Active member
yes you are right ! the only thing is that i would be scared to accidently pollinate my whole room... how do you do to recolt pollen safely and then impregnate the ladies without impregnating the whole room ? i saw somewhere you had to wait for the first sacks to open, then shake the male on something and recolt pollen, and then use that pollen on the lower branches but i would fear of being clumsy and accidently pollinate everything haha
ikinokori
Active member
also, great smoke report ! i see a lot of comments about the "old school mexican" during my researches, it sounds very cool and like a great smoke, too bad no matter how hard i searched i did not find any beans of those they seem to be just a great all around high. seems like the honduras will be able to give me a little glimpse of what they felt like
SolarLogos
Well-known member
I separate my males into a separate room and keep them together. Usually not more than 3 at a time, so a small closet space will work. When one is ready, I put him in an empty upstairs bedroom on a large mirror. It doesn't seem to matter at that point how many hours there are in a day, they will open and finish.
Here is a great thread on reversing a female, but there is an excellent section on storing pollen. Douglas.Curtis gets credit for this excellent piece of work:
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?t=357407
When it's time to pollinate a female, I take her to a separate room (again, can be another closet or cabinet converted) and use a paint brush to paint the pollen on each flower, then label the branches. After 3 days, I mist spray the buds and put them back in the flower room.
Thank you my friend. If your curious about old school Mexican and other Central American Sativa's we had back in the day, check out some hazes and other central American strains like Panama, Honduran x Panama, etc. offered up by Ace, especially if you like the Honduran.
Peace, God bless
ikinokori
Active member
mmh thats what i figured. I don't have another room available for the pollination will be hard to avoid accidents. i will certainly plan my futur appartment for that next time i move haha
funnily enough, i have the panama in my fridge, i bought it before i realizing it was a hybrid. i thought it was more colombianish than mexican though ? I will probably run it one day anyway, as of right now i would be more interested to run the mexican in a purer "original" landrace as i am doing this more for preservation purpose, I do have the landrace colombian punto rojo and Mangobiche though, i don't know how it compares ?
I hope the mexican strains will make a comeback one day, but apparently it seems it has been a long time since seeds of them have not been available. I'll keep looking anyway, it woukd be sad for this strain to be lost in time when it is maybe one of the strain (oaxacan) i see the most referenced by old growers who seem to be very fond of it.
funnily enough, i have the panama in my fridge, i bought it before i realizing it was a hybrid. i thought it was more colombianish than mexican though ? I will probably run it one day anyway, as of right now i would be more interested to run the mexican in a purer "original" landrace as i am doing this more for preservation purpose, I do have the landrace colombian punto rojo and Mangobiche though, i don't know how it compares ?
I hope the mexican strains will make a comeback one day, but apparently it seems it has been a long time since seeds of them have not been available. I'll keep looking anyway, it woukd be sad for this strain to be lost in time when it is maybe one of the strain (oaxacan) i see the most referenced by old growers who seem to be very fond of it.
SolarLogos
Well-known member
You're almost to 50 posts my friend. When you get to 50, I will shoot you a PM and we can have a discussion about this topic if you'd like.
Peace, God bless
ikinokori
Active member
Update : 8 days since the 11/13 switch
The plants are all doing very well. except maybe Ethiopian #2, because i will cull it soon since he is a male so i am doing tests on him like how much feeding is too much, how little watering is enough...i feel a little bit guilty but i don't go overboard either. Let's say it is for the science and for the well being of the other ones.
I have moved them from the grow box to the flowering box. it was getting way too cramped and the ethiopian were being completely shadowed by the malawi and Honduras. The durban made an impressive stretch though, they were as small as the ethiopian and now they are the tallest behing the honduras. None of them have showed sex except the ethiopian #2 male. I hope this wont mean i have all females because then.... i am pretty doomed haha. in all seriousness i did not expect any of them to show sex until a few weeks, so maybe the ethiopian #2 is just very very early
Veg box (in vertical order : Honduras, Ethiopian, Malawi, Durban) :
flower box (in vertical order : Durban, Ethiopian, Honduras, Malawi )
Also, I did not top them. I don't intend to. This is a personal decision and not a criticism, topping is a very efficient growing technique that always did me good before. However, i found it tend to induce stress sometimes and make the plant look not as pretty, a little bit weird. almost everytime i did that, they ended up not being able to stand properly in the end as the weight is pulled on both sides and occasionaly a lot of colas ended up drooping so much i had to tutor them in order for them not to break. I really do not like that, i want them to be as happy as possible. I do not know if leaving them in their natural state will fix this issue, because i have seen cannabis plant growing naturally and still drooping due to their heavy weight, but i feel if they frow naturally in a certain way, it is because that what fits them the best. As this grow is all about discovering, i guess i will find out soon enough.
Also, I have heard many times that a lot of landraces, specially sativa, hate being topped and don't respond well to it. I do not know how true it is, but this helped my decision of not doing it. I expect to have a lower harvest but this is ok for me, as i always have too much for my needs in the end. Still, I hope i wont regret it later though stretch wise. They are growing taller and taller, which is kind of scary considering how small the pot i used is (1 gallon). I will definitely not uppot them until i see stretch stopping because they are really stretching, all of them except ethiopian. I found my cmh really helps them not stretching too much, and i have arcadia uvb/a tubes (4 of them) and i found it also makes a noticeable impact on stretching. I really like the uvb lamp, i found it brought a lot of colors to my previous run (dj short blueberry, they were all purplish and two were almost completely black, the most colored parts were always the most exposed to the uv) and since they are full sativa, i think they expect a good amount of it. i also found litterature stating blue and ultraviolet indicates to the plants to reduce stretching, while red and infrared does the opposite because according to it, plants in shadow receive more red and it would indicate to them to stretch in order to get the full unshadowed sun, which looks more blue/white. As i have limited knowledge, everything i am saying is mostly assumptions on my part, so anyone who has experience, feel free to say if they look like it made an impact or not.
I did find the uvb reduced the quantity though on that grow, but i used to run it full time with lights on, while in nature i discovered it seems the uv are only strong for a few hours and there is almost none of it in the morning and evening. So for this grow i try to follow the natural curve of uv
Next update will focus onneach strain and plant.
The plants are all doing very well. except maybe Ethiopian #2, because i will cull it soon since he is a male so i am doing tests on him like how much feeding is too much, how little watering is enough...i feel a little bit guilty but i don't go overboard either. Let's say it is for the science and for the well being of the other ones.
I have moved them from the grow box to the flowering box. it was getting way too cramped and the ethiopian were being completely shadowed by the malawi and Honduras. The durban made an impressive stretch though, they were as small as the ethiopian and now they are the tallest behing the honduras. None of them have showed sex except the ethiopian #2 male. I hope this wont mean i have all females because then.... i am pretty doomed haha. in all seriousness i did not expect any of them to show sex until a few weeks, so maybe the ethiopian #2 is just very very early
Veg box (in vertical order : Honduras, Ethiopian, Malawi, Durban) :
flower box (in vertical order : Durban, Ethiopian, Honduras, Malawi )
Also, I did not top them. I don't intend to. This is a personal decision and not a criticism, topping is a very efficient growing technique that always did me good before. However, i found it tend to induce stress sometimes and make the plant look not as pretty, a little bit weird. almost everytime i did that, they ended up not being able to stand properly in the end as the weight is pulled on both sides and occasionaly a lot of colas ended up drooping so much i had to tutor them in order for them not to break. I really do not like that, i want them to be as happy as possible. I do not know if leaving them in their natural state will fix this issue, because i have seen cannabis plant growing naturally and still drooping due to their heavy weight, but i feel if they frow naturally in a certain way, it is because that what fits them the best. As this grow is all about discovering, i guess i will find out soon enough.
Also, I have heard many times that a lot of landraces, specially sativa, hate being topped and don't respond well to it. I do not know how true it is, but this helped my decision of not doing it. I expect to have a lower harvest but this is ok for me, as i always have too much for my needs in the end. Still, I hope i wont regret it later though stretch wise. They are growing taller and taller, which is kind of scary considering how small the pot i used is (1 gallon). I will definitely not uppot them until i see stretch stopping because they are really stretching, all of them except ethiopian. I found my cmh really helps them not stretching too much, and i have arcadia uvb/a tubes (4 of them) and i found it also makes a noticeable impact on stretching. I really like the uvb lamp, i found it brought a lot of colors to my previous run (dj short blueberry, they were all purplish and two were almost completely black, the most colored parts were always the most exposed to the uv) and since they are full sativa, i think they expect a good amount of it. i also found litterature stating blue and ultraviolet indicates to the plants to reduce stretching, while red and infrared does the opposite because according to it, plants in shadow receive more red and it would indicate to them to stretch in order to get the full unshadowed sun, which looks more blue/white. As i have limited knowledge, everything i am saying is mostly assumptions on my part, so anyone who has experience, feel free to say if they look like it made an impact or not.
I did find the uvb reduced the quantity though on that grow, but i used to run it full time with lights on, while in nature i discovered it seems the uv are only strong for a few hours and there is almost none of it in the morning and evening. So for this grow i try to follow the natural curve of uv
Next update will focus onneach strain and plant.
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My knowledge is extremely limited too, as I have never grown indoors. It's true that blue light reduces stretching, and red light makes the plant stretch more. I'm not sure about the reason, but from what I've read that is the case (but now that you said that, and looking at the absorptance table, it makes sense).
What I can tell you is that plants absorb and use red/blue light the most. A shadowed plant, in nature, receives more green light.
Imagine this; a little plant growing in the woods, surrounded by big trees. The leafs of these trees would abosrb the majority of blue and red light, leaving very little for the plants growing underneath them. Leafs are green, and that means that they reflect/let trough green light. So, a plant that receives a lot of green light in comparison to blue/red, would think that it's being shadowed by bigger ones, making the leafs bigger to allow the plant to absorb as much energy as possible, but hindering the flower production and dry weight.
Regarding UV light, just be carefull. It can be very beneficial for trichome production, but It causes the plant a lot of stress if not used properly. From what I've read, I would recomend you to introduce this light little by little to the plants; start with 30-40 mins at the start of the flowering stage, and increase the exposure time each week until you reach around 5 hours of UV, more or less. If you see signs of stress (like curled leafs), just reduce the exposure time. Of course, the amount of exposure time also depends on how much UV light you are using. If you search a little about this topic, you will find quite a bit of info. But don't trust me too much, I'm telling you this out of the top of my head.
I leave you with a couple of images that might be usefull to you. In them you can see the importance of red light. I also uploaded a study regarding the effects of UV-B light, in case you want to read it.
Link to the study: https://mega.nz/#!4O5UhAbK!zZlXx465dSVi4TeCjeCkOVv7v4f-dsuY4h1n24fNmpw
Just tell me if you can't download the PDF. It's the first time I use MEGA to upload something.
But anyways, what I wanted to say is that your plants are looking good haha. That room will become a jungle in no time
Peace and have a good one.
Pd: Sorry if it's kind of difficult to understand what I'm trying to say. I'm not the best at writing in english.
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