Lowryders Outdoors, Sweden 2012

[Hortic]

Hello ICMag, and greetings from northern Sweden. I thought I'd share my little outdoor guerilla project with you. This is my first grow. My goal is to have something half-decent to smoke with me and my friends come autumn.

I am growing some feminized Lowryders from a Swedish breeder. I have to use autos because of the short summers here.

I bought 70 seeds in mid May. 60 Lowryders and 10 AK47's. All of them are feminized and autoflowering and are supposed to be bred to suit the Swedish climate. Because of newbie mistakes and bad weather, the AK's didn't make it. What's left now is around 35 LR's.

Let me take you through the first few weeks of their life.

I started by planting the seeds in small pots, to be replanted later. My location is on a small south-facing mountain. So far I haven't had any problems with animals or people messing with my little garden, and I'm hoping it'll stay that way.
This picture is from May 31:

Around four weeks later it looked like this. As you can see, the growth was far from explosive, and a couple of seeds didn't sprout. But I bought a lot of seeds just for this reason. I didn't expect all of them to survive my abuse.

Me and a couple of friends replanted the surviving plants to a patch of bought quality soil. We used 400 litres (105 gallons). We also put up a net over the plants to protect against small animals.

At this point, my hopes weren't that high. I had expected a lot more growth during the first few weeks of their life. However, the ladies surprised me a lot by totally exploding over the coming weeks. Around 10 days afterwards they looked like this. Sorry for the lousy picture.

And a few days ago, a little bit over a month since being replanted, they looked like this:

I didn't think they would ever become this big, or else I would've spread them out to several patches. A couple of the plants get less sunlight than i would've liked. That aside, everything is looking good. They've finally started flowering. I would say they've been flowering for about a week when the last picture was taken. I'm going to have to harvest in the first few days of September, because of climate issues and the hunting season beginning.

This is a pretty scaled-back intro of my project, so I probably left out a whole lot of information (as well as pictures, I have tons more of all the in-between progress). If there are any questions, shoot! Comments are also very appreciated.

Best wishes from Sweden,

Hortic

 

[mendo420]

looks great!

 

[shroomyshroom]

Thankyou for sharing i am doing something simular this year

you are off to a great start... nothing but good karma my friend..

shroomy

P.s auto rule

 

[Hortic]

Thought I'd share a few more pictures taken the same day as the last picture in my first post. I forgot to mention it earlier, but i had to remove the net because they simply outgrew it.

Canopy shot:

From above:

Close-up of one of the plants:

And on this picture you can clearly see that I am having some issues with nutrient deficiencies. I have ordered some AN nutes to fix this. I haven't used any nutrients yet, so it's about time now when the nutrients in the soil are depleted. This is a sign of normal PK deficiency, right? Any help in figuring out what they're lacking is greatly appreciated.

Spots on some of the leaves:

looks great!

Thanks man.

Thankyou for sharing i am doing something simular this year : )

you are off to a great start... nothing but good karma my friend..

Oh, nice. Do you have a diary I can follow somewhere?

Thanks, and good luck with your grow!

 

[bajangreen]

That's awesome for only 2 months growth!!!!! what soil mix did you use? i want to copy that!!! also did you just put the soil on the ground or did you dig a hole and put the soil in?

 

[Hortic]

That's awesome for only 2 months growth!!!!! what soil mix did you use? i want to copy that!!! also did you just put the soil on the ground or did you dig a hole and put the soil in?

I didn't add anything to the soil. I just used a soil brand that is often recommended by Swedish growers, called Hasselfors P-soil. It seems to be a very fertile soil. If i remember correctly it has a lot of peat in it, so the soil can "breathe" and retain water. Not too sure about that, though.

I just put the soil directly on the ground. It's on a mountain so I didn't even consider digging a hole.

 

[Sky high]

not really seems autoflowering for me..... the automatic strains has 3-4 weeks veg (thats 25 days grow) and 50-55 day flowering.

120 days for a Lowryder is quite strange, I think.

greets

 

[RosettaStoned]

Whats your weather like? Damp? You may want to get in there and thin some leaves that aren't getting light for better airflow, just as a precaution against mold.

 

[Hortic]

not really seems autoflowering for me..... the automatic strains has 3-4 weeks veg (thats 25 days grow) and 50-55 day flowering.

120 days for a Lowryder is quite strange, I think.

greets

Yeah, I know, I was also a bit surprised by how slowly they flowered. I blame this on the small initial pots. AF or not, they flower a lot quicker/earlier than regular strains, which often start flowering in mid August here. I've seen this same strain flower a lot quicker under 18/6 lightning indoors.
I think that the original Lowryder is quite different from the version I have. I'm happy with what I got anyway, because I wanted them to gain some height before starting to flower. I want them to become as big as possible for the highest yield possible.

Whats your weather like? Damp? You may want to get in there and thin some leaves that aren't getting light for better airflow, just as a precaution against mold.

The weather has been quite bad this summer. Lots of rain, not that many sunny days and temperatures that are far from optimal for this plant. They seem to thrive anyway, so I'm wondering what kind of potential they have during a nice summer. Let's hope August has some nice weather in store for my ladies.

Yeah, I guess it's quite damp. I don't have a hygrometer (is that what they're called? measures humidity) so I can't measure the exact RH, but we have morning dew every day at least. I'm not too worried about that yet, but once they start producing bigger buds I'm going to have to be aware of mold forming.

I haven't thought about deleafing yet since I've read a lot of people that advice against it. But you're right, as a precaution against mold it might definately serve a purpose. It's quite a jungle in there amongst the plants at the moment. Thanks for your input.

 

[Phantomx]

The bad conditions on the start and cold weather have made the plants to expand veg time.

 

[Hortic]

The bad conditions on the start and cold weather have made the plants to expand veg time.

Do you know if this is normal for autoflowering plants?

Especially the first two weeks the temperatures were just a few degrees Celsius above freezing at night. I think I read here on ICMag that if the temperature is below 7C/45F the roots don't grow.

 

[shroomyshroom]

cold weather is an old trick used to slow the the flowering of auto flowers... i been using it for a while to try get em veg that little longer

ill be starting my diary in a few months brother just waiting for winter to finish up here in Australia

 

[Scottish Research]

Hi Hortic, great job so far! I hope that they make it for you.

Did you carry all of that dirt up there? Did you amend the soil? It looks like you have them situated on a big rock.

I like the netting. Do you have a problem with animals eating everything green up there?

Their are some other strains that might work for you up there, but we have time to figure that out.

Best Regards,

R.Fortune

 

[Hortic]

Hi Hortic, great job so far! I hope that they make it for you.

Did you carry all of that dirt up there? Did you amend the soil? It looks like you have them situated on a big rock.

I like the netting. Do you have a problem with animals eating everything green up there?

Their are some other strains that might work for you up there, but we have time to figure that out.

Best Regards,

R.Fortune

Hi Robert Fortune, and thanks for checking out my thread.

Yes, me and two friends carried it maybe half a mile uphill. It took us about 4 hours to carry the soil and the water up there, plus replanting the pots to the soil patch.

I haven't amended the soil, no.

The net was there as a precaution, but I don't know if it would've actually helped if a moose or a deer would've found my spot. It was probably unnecessary, to be honest, since I haven't had any problems with animals so far.
As you can see in some of the pictures I've used fishing line to create a small, invisible fence of sorts to ward off any animals that come to close. I've been told that moose and deer get scared and run away if they walk into something they can't see, like a fishing line. I did this instead of using barbed wired, which I consider a cruel way to keep animals away, or using non-stealth fences that would increase the risk of detection both from the ground and the air.

Indeed other strains might work here. Next year I will try a whole array of different strains to see which strains can handle the climate the best while still producing a nice amount of bud.

Let me just say I don't have any illusions of grandieur this first grow. If I get close to 10g/plant I'm happy. Although, seeing how big they've become, I have started questioning if 10g/plant isn't a bit conservative. I guess time will tell.

 

[spiralofeyes]

Looks great,bro. I've considered something like this,I'm at a similar latitude as you I think.
The only thing I'll be doing different is:
-hanging some of them from the trees because we have way too many moose around these parts to grow solely on the ground.

-Using reg. seeds. I think an open pollination the first year and then line breeding the following generations both indoors and out is essential to get a line that works well for my cold,windy and wet conditions.

I'm astounded at how well they're doing for you,especially with the crappy summer were having in most of Norway and Sweden this year.

I'll be watching,hoping for some sunny days in august so the ladies fatten up for you.

 

[Hortic]

Looks great,bro. I've considered something like this,I'm at a similar latitude as you I think.
The only thing I'll be doing different is:
-hanging some of them from the trees because we have way too many moose around these parts to grow solely on the ground.

-Using reg. seeds. I think an open pollination the first year and then line breeding the following generations both indoors and out is essential to get a line that works well for my cold,windy and wet conditions.

I'm astounded at how well they're doing for you,especially with the crappy summer were having in most of Norway and Sweden this year.

I'll be watching,hoping for some sunny days in august so the ladies fatten up for you.

Thanks, man.

Hanging plants from trees sound kick-ass. Have anyone ever tried that before? I know of a few Swedes that have grown in trees, on branches, with good results. Mind you they didn't get big harvests but animals were no problem for them and you could barely see the pots (which were made out of wood to resemble a birdhouse) from the ground. Sucks that the moose population is so dense there, hanging plants from trees is quite an extreme measure. Won't they stand out a lot, you think?

I'll probably do a seed run next year in one location, and use the same spot I'm using now for sensimilla prodution.

I'm astounded too, man. This summer has been horrible. Makes you wonder what a good summer might produce, eh?

 

[dyr]

I'll be watching too, very beautiful plants

 

[Hortic]

I'll be watching too, very beautiful plants

Thank you.

I'll be going back there in a day or two to give them their first nutrients. I'll take a few pictures of the progress too, of course.

I'm a bit worried about the pH going all crazy on me when I add the nutes, because I don't have any pH-adjusting solutions to rely upon. Does anyone know if my pH will go up or down using AN nutes? And is there something I could buy in a supermarket to correct the pH?

 

[Phantomx]

You could use lime to get the right pH, but I don't think that you will have problems even if you don't add it.

 

[Hortic]

Quick update. Nine days since the last pictures were taken.

I ordered some AN nutrients, btw, but I fucked up the order. I bought nutrients suited for veg. Watered with the veg-nutes anyway. We'll see how the plants handle it.

I also took off a bunch of dead leaves to increase air circulation and prevent mold.