Motherlode Gardens 2021

[Shcrews]

Greetings everyone, and happy 4/20... I am excited to be back posting another grow log! Things are already in full swing here, and I know I always say this, but it is shaping up to be our best season yet. Here's what we have planned so far:

-30 XXL plants from seed
-Outdoor breeding project
...maybe more?

We are rocking some killer genetics this year, lots of our own Motherlode Seeds gear, as well as gear from Mendo Seeds, Staefli Farms, Trichome Jungle Seeds, Bradley Danks, @intentionalmisuse and many more

Question, comments, advice, suggestions, are all encouraged! Please feel free to speak your mind here. Now stay tuned, and strap yourselves in for another journey around the sun.

 

[Shcrews]

Let's get started with some pictures from last year. We had a huge wildfire right near us , lasted from August until November 2020, hence the smoke:

 

[Shcrews]

First Round of Seed Starts (planted 2/19):

Motherlode Seeds:
-Ancient OG F5
-Ancient OG Project (Ancient OG F2 x Ancient OG F4)
-Fire Lookout (Yosemite Glue x Ancient OG F4)
-Yosemite Glue ( Gorilla Glue x Ancient OG F3)
-Lil' Wayne ( Purple Sprite x Ancient OG F4)
-Purple Sprite (Sprite x Ancient OG F4)
-Direwolf (Timberwolf x Ancient OG F4)
-Big Bang (Space Monkey x Ancient OG F4)

@intentionalmisuse
-Sky Worship (Sky Lotus X [L.A. Hindu x Old Mother 'Ghani])
-Mother's Glue (Yosemite Glue x [L.A. Hindu x Old Mother 'Ghani])

Bradley Danks Genetics
-Cloudwalker OG (Dogwalker OG x Jagerschnitzel)
-Jager Punch (Purple Punch x Jagerschnitzel)

Trichome Jungle Seeds:
-Soul Fuel (Jungle Juice x Soul Mate)
-Tropical Soul (Lillt x Soul Mate)

StaeFli Genetics:
-Cot Cake (Wedding Cake x Purple Apricot)
-Dozicot (Dozizoz x Purple Apricot)
-Sour Butter Breath (Sour Diesel x Peanut Butter Breath)

Mass Medical Strains:
-Peaceful Child (Tenzin Kush x Ancient OG x Indigo Child)

Mendo Seeds
-Jerry Kush

random:
-Happy Place x GMO Cookies x G-Wiz
-Royal Kush x Super Glue
-GMO Cookies x Super Glue
-Wedding Cake x Super Glue

 

[Shcrews]

Genetics this year were chosen based on flavor, potency, and expected yield. Not many citrus or fruit strains this year, it's almost all fuel/cookie/candy flavors. We sprout our seeds under natural light, in a heated greenhouse. directly in 4-inch plastic pots of soil.. They stay in there for 2-3 weeks, then we transplant them into 7gallon grow bags. After a few weeks in the grow bags we can sex them, and as soon as the weather is decent they go outside in the ground, usually around May 1st.


Our starter soil this year is the foundation mix from Soilscape Solutions. It's nice and fluffy and the starts love it. The seed starts get a weekly root drench with Tainio microbes and pepzyme, plus a little pacific-gro. We also had the soil in our mounds analyzed by Soilscape Solutions and they gave us a custom blend of amendments which we till into the mounds in the spring.

Our big soil mounds are at least 5 yards each. We have been building them for years, there are many different types of soil mixed together. Since they have reached a decent size, this is the first year we didn't buy more soil to add to the mounds, instead we are just amending what we already have.

We will be foliar feeding biweekly with the Phyloscape package from Soilscape Solutions, which is mostly micronutrients and calcium. Our IPM regimen also requires weekly+ spraying so we will be keeping the sprayer busy... IPM regimen this year consists of SuffOil-X, Evergreen, Venerate, and Grandevo, we will switch them up for the various stages of growth.

Our drip system is a 1.5" mainline hooked up to a Honda pump, feeding 90-100 feet of 1/2" emitter tubing per mound. The drip tubing is pressure compensating tubing from Dripworks with 1gph drippers spaced 9 inches apart. With this system we can water all the mounds at once, although I am thinking about installing a few valves so I can isolate different zones if we want to water some plants longer than others.

Any questions feel free to ask. I didn't cover everything but hopefully this gives you guys some info on what we're doing here at this point. Goodnight!

 

[Green Squall]

Some people describe large plants as "trees", but these are straight hedges! The uniform shape is amazing. Good luck this year.

 

[member 505892]

DUDE.... idk what to say, but.... DUDE....

 

[Tynehead Tom]

Schrews , dude..... it is nothing short of inspirational to see the huge plants you grow every year.
I have a similar outdoor plant count but I'm way up at 52N in canada so my "trees" are tiny compared to yours LOL
Still got the remains of the winter snow in the shady parts of my property but I'm preppin soils and getting my girls ready for June when they can finally go outside.
Are you running Ancient OG again? I bought a few packs of that after seeing your previous grow.

rock on brutha!

 

[Shcrews]

Schrews , dude..... it is nothing short of inspirational to see the huge plants you grow every year.
I have a similar outdoor plant count but I'm way up at 52N in canada so my "trees" are tiny compared to yours LOL
Still got the remains of the winter snow in the shady parts of my property but I'm preppin soils and getting my girls ready for June when they can finally go outside.
Are you running Ancient OG again? I bought a few packs of that after seeing your previous grow.

rock on brutha!

At least half our garden this year will be Ancient OG or Ancient OG crosses... They always outperform everything else we grow here. We are hoping to plant in the ground by the end of this month, weather is already nice here, it was almost 80F yesterday. cheers!

 

[gorilla ganja]

Best of luck this season.

Peace GG

 

[shithawk420]

Man I forgot all about this guy.whatever he's doing he's doing it right!

 

[KinKrit]

Awesome, good job

 

[Great outdoors]

Nice to see someone growing in the ground with lots of mulch.
I can never understand the big outdoor plants in massive pots. A lot of time and money spent when root room in the ground is cheap and limitless.
Nothing grows like a plant in the ground!

 

[HHILL]

That is a sh!t ton of work! Props for sure. I have some Ancient OG f3’s going here, didn’t really like the f4’s I made... so back with the f3’s. Smell and taste like mojito’s...

 

[Shcrews]

Nice to see someone growing in the ground with lots of mulch.
I can never understand the big outdoor plants in massive pots. A lot of time and money spent when root room in the ground is cheap and limitless.
Nothing grows like a plant in the ground!

Yes, pots are good for some situations but a lot of people use them when they shouldn't and don't need to. As BYF used to say, save the money you were going to spend on pots and put it toward buying more soil instead.

That is a sh!t ton of work! Props for sure. I have some Ancient OG f3’s going here, didn’t really like the f4’s I made... so back with the f3’s. Smell and taste like mojito’s...

Yes it is a lot of work, but it's worth it! We have had great luck with our Ancient OG work, every generation is a bit different but they are all tremendous. We crossed some F2's to a different line of F4's and call it the Ancient OG Project. I'm not sure what the technical term is for that kind of cross, but the plants are fucking beastly. insane vigor and structure, with bright red/purple stems like most of the AOG stuff we have been making.

 

[wbetsy]

That's a "backcross"

 

[thailer]

That's a "backcross"

i think it would be an incross actually. my guess anyways. backcross is the using the mother, not F2's and F4's.

 

[flylowgethigh]

My kinda thread. Thanks a ton for the tips. Ima gonna look up your genetics.

I am finding sunshine at the right time of year kicks LED ass.

 

[Shcrews]

i think it would be an incross actually. my guess anyways. backcross is the using the mother, not F2's and F4's.

thats what i was thinking. the F2 we used is a different female than the one the F4 was bred from. The vigor on that cross is insane.

 

[Shcrews]

So we planted all the mounds last week on April 30th. These are the ones that made the cut:

3x - Ancient OG Project
1x - Ancient OG F5
1x - Direwolf
1x - Yosemite Glue
2x - Fire Lookout
3x - Happy Place x Gmo G-Wiz
3x - Mother's Glue
1x - OG18 ... (DNA Genetics. This was from our second round of seed starts)
1x - Peaceful Child
1x - Cloudwalker OG
3x - Cot Cake
3x - Royal Feast
2x - Sour Butter Breath
2x - Soul Fuel
1x - Tropical Soul
1x - Royal Kush x Super Glue
1x - Ancient OG F2 x LAOMG (from @intentionalmisuse. Second round of seed starts)

When we transplant we make sure the plants go into the mounds facing the same direction that they were in the greenhouse, that way they keep tracking the sun which helps to prevent transplant shock. After we put them into the gopher baskets and fill in the hole we water with taino microbes and pepzyme to help get the soil biology going. Then we put the cages around them and attach them to t-posts so the plants wont get blown around by the wind.


Greenhouse full of seed starts:

Ancient OG Project seedling:

Seed start fan leaves:

After transplant: (the fabric is for blocking the wind)

All done!

 

[Shcrews]

...One Week Later...


All the plants seem to be taking nicely to their new environment. The weather has been warming up and they are soaking up the sun now on top of the hill. Some of them have already grown almost 6 inches. Since they were nicely rooted in the 7gal growbags before going into the mounds we have been trying to keep the rootballs from drying out by watering for a few seconds everyday right near the stalk. This seems to keep them happy in the few days that it takes for them to establish roots in the new soil.

This week we will finish shaping the mounds and laying down irrigation, then groundcloth and a layer of mulch. There's a ton of weedwacking to do as well. Hopefully by next week the garden will look pristine. First thing we have to do though is pull out all the t-posts that have been out there for years. I think they are spaced too far apart, so this year we will move them a bit closer together for the first layer of trellis. Problem is the fuckers are stuck in the ground, we can only get half of them out. If anybody knows any tricks for pulling out a stubborn t-post feel free to chime in...

We haven't been spraying the plants at all yet. We finally got all our stuff for IPM and foliar feeding so we plan to start doing that as soon as we finish with the mounds. We hit the ground running this season , definitely our earliest/best start to date, partially thanks to the global pandemic/lockdown of course. Normally we would have been on vacation until march!