My first notill, trying to decide on an initial mulch

[heady blunts]

i know grafting can effect the growth rate and habit of the scion based on the characteristics of the root stock, but i've never seen any evidence of genetic hybridization occurring from grafting. if that were the case fuji apples would be fucked! afaik the secondary metabolites in the fruits and flowers stay identical pre and post grafting of the scion stock.

tissue culture is definitely an exciting frontier for cannabis preservation! i've been following some folks on IG that are developing the technique and canna specific culture mediums. seems like the hardest part is getting a cutting from a tissue culture to root. soon to come, i'm sure!

as for the bonsai moms, i started with oldtimer's tech, but i've since moved away from his procedure.

i am able to keep fresh green growth by careful and intentional pruning. i can dictate the shape and direction of new growth by selectively pruning. i follow the common tree pruning advice and try never to remove more than 1/3 of the plant at a time.

this way i am able to entirely refresh the plant every few months. thats how i manage woody growth.

to avoid root pruning, i follow the general advice that a happy plant has as much above the soil as below. once the vegetation starts to grow larger than the container, i immediately notice fussiness---leaf drop, wilting, deficiencies, lockouts, etc. when the plant is at 110% the size of the container, i prune it back to about 75%.

finally, i prune off anything that's not gonna end up being good cutting material. for example, any branches that start to grow down. i hate cuts with curved stems. i shape the bonsai moms so that all my fresh growth is coming from the top of a branch, and will grow straight up to the light. kinda like a grape vine is prepped in the spring.



MM---

beautiful resins! i'd happily wash or press any of your trimmings

 

[Aphotic]

I assure you its a real phenomena, the studies I read used florecent markers in a few key genes to see the exchange, while mixing past the graft site is rare, it does occur. I've seen several apple trees with grafts, where parts of the tree are red, parts a green, and a branch or two will be mixture of the two. This is why I want to take cuttings from the graft site where mixing is sure to occur. I've cultured mushrooms on plates and grew them, from tissue samples. Part of it is having the right equipment and knowledge.

 

[Aphotic]

Heady, could give me more detail on how you bonsai your moms, what made youshy away from oldtimers method? My two goals are saving space and keeping the moms alive for as long as possible, cuttings taking longer to root is fine by me. If there is an easier or more effective method I'm down to try it. I could even do e few different methods at once, at least for a little while till I settle on one.

 

[Aphotic]

Most people do not grok our method of harvest/curing. We cut the whole plant and hang in a dark ventilated room. (At the time of full farming a harvest filled a 60 x 12 trailer) It would hang like this for a minimum 3 weeks but up to 3 months. This acted like a giant curing container.

Then the sun leaves are pulled off by hand easily and plants are chopped into manageable sections. We found that most bract leaves which we begrudgingly removed also snapped off by running fingers over the floral clusters. The effect of this is usually to snap off these potent little appendages close to the stem, rather than cutting them with scissors as is normal practice which leaves half the bract leaf and the entire 'stem' attaching them to the main stem.

We then completed the cure in gallon jars and large coffee cans.

Now, I did say begrudgingly. This is because we were providing the product to a medicinal dispensary that insisted on the trim. I tried in vain to point out the logic that general knowledge states that the medicinal and psychotropic effects of cannabis are 'caused' almost entirely by glandular trichomes and that one can observe that most floral bract leaves are entirely covered by these trichomes. What sense does it make to cut them off?

They countered that their clients had become accustomed to seeing them trimmed and felt they were getting an inferior product if the bracts were not trimmed off. And so it goes and so it is. We just turned the trim into extract, which of course they loved.

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I'm really interested in this method, I'm going to give it a go with a few plants next harvest. Awesome pictures BTW. I trim pretty close, and I have some fine pointed shears I use to remove the bract leaves at the stem, it takes longer but snobs bitch about the crows feet as they call them. Its just the way I was taught to trim.

I think like most things the current manicureing is just a trend, and trends change, eventually I feel we will be back to leaving the buds alone as much as possible. My neighbor cringes when she helps us trim, she's in her late 60's and grew up until a few years ago, she never took those leaves off, she says its sacralige. I agree but people really do think your product is inferior if you leave them on, I think in their minds they're getting ripped off, as if leaving them on accounts for half the weight of the bag.

 

[Aphotic]

Most people do not grok our method of harvest/curing. We cut the whole plant and hang in a dark ventilated room. (At the time of full farming a harvest filled a 60 x 12 trailer) It would hang like this for a minimum 3 weeks but up to 3 months. This acted like a giant curing container.

Then the sun leaves are pulled off by hand easily and plants are chopped into manageable sections. We found that most bract leaves which we begrudgingly removed also snapped off by running fingers over the floral clusters. The effect of this is usually to snap off these potent little appendages close to the stem, rather than cutting them with scissors as is normal practice which leaves half the bract leaf and the entire 'stem' attaching them to the main stem.

We then completed the cure in gallon jars and large coffee cans.

Now, I did say begrudgingly. This is because we were providing the product to a medicinal dispensary that insisted on the trim. I tried in vain to point out the logic that general knowledge states that the medicinal and psychotropic effects of cannabis are 'caused' almost entirely by glandular trichomes and that one can observe that most floral bract leaves are entirely covered by these trichomes. What sense does it make to cut them off?

They countered that their clients had become accustomed to seeing them trimmed and felt they were getting an inferior product if the bracts were not trimmed off. And so it goes and so it is. We just turned the trim into extract, which of course they loved.

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MM,

Did you use a macro lense for those pictures? If so digital or film? I sold my macro lens when times got lean. I'd like to get a better 40-60x attachment for my phone, I have a cheap 60x attachment now, but it clips on and its junk. They are starting to make some pretty nice attachable lenses for phones now though.

 

[Microbeman]

Stereo/dissecting microscope and Sony HD camcorder via firewire direct feed/capture to hardrive with Corel (Ulead) Video Studio software

 

[h.h.]

Personally I like pine bark nuggets.
They last along time.
I often see roots attaching themselves to the pine bark.
I like to put down a top dressing before applying the nuggets.
Then I'll sprinkle some high N ,like blood meal on top of the nuggets.
The beasties go wild!
Ratz

I don't use bark chips or blood meal, but I operate on the same principle. Top dress, mulch, high N on top to aid the decomposing.

Oatmeal will help with aggregation and allow you to build a thicker layer of mulch without smothering your soil. DE or pebbles are used around the base of the plant, about 2" wide, then mulch on the outer section.
If the soil in the pot is too high, a collar can be added using cardboard or the top half of a second pot. I don't leave my soil low in the pot due to other reasons. Water retention, more room for roots,...

I also feed the mulch using ground beans or really any seed.

 

[Aphotic]

Stereo/dissecting microscope and Sony HD camcorder via firewire direct feed/capture to hardrive with Corel (Ulead) Video Studio software

Well that would do it

 

[Aphotic]

Trimming is finally done, yay! My drying room got a little dry, I left for work in the morning and forgot to turn the environmental controller back on. So everything trimmed on the first day was ready to start curring ahead of schedule, which meant I had to process it all to go into curing jars after I got home from work the night before last, I worked until 5am after pulling a full shift at work, and did the same last night. Better that than things getting too dry and being unable to cure. Here's a couple pics of jack herer being jarred.

And here are some tricomb pics i took with my phone and a $2.99 60x clip on lens. I didn't have time to post them earlier, these were before harvest.

 

[Aphotic]

MM,

I believe I might have a candidate for the strain that is causing all the trouble in my mom room, making my mom room start to flower and stretch. The strain I call Monsanto, it was our most potent strain, well see how she stacks up against the newcomers. Anyways last cycle Monsanto had a rough go of things, I failed to pH some water before watering and she got some really acidic water, all of her leaves looked like a mosaic, and she never bounced back, her leaves didn't anyways. She looked like crap all the way until the end. She was new to us that cycle, and even though she had a hard time, she was the second biggest producer, and one good hit of her hit you like a bus. Which was surprising because she went hermie hard, she made hundreds of male flowers, I thought I had caught the few I saw, but once she dried on the line a bunch more opened up, every time you touched a bud a cloud of pollen would be released. She was the only one that did this.

This go around, with the new notill beds, everyone was happy the whole way through, I didn't see any evidence of male flowers, on any of the plants, and a was constantly checking Monsanto's colas. But when we started trimming the buds below the canopy, she had made several, once dried, many more opened up, what's even stranger is the one other strain in the bed with her made a couple male flowers too, but only where the two strains branches intermingled. And every cola on that dividing line of the other strain made a seed or two. None of the other strains buds on the far side of the bed made seeds, or and male flowers. Just in the middle of the bed where the two strains touched each other. I'm thinking that perhaps one plant can signal the another to go hermaphriditic? In any event I'm going to leave Monsanto out next round, and see if my mother room repeats the start of flower, and goes through stretch. If it is Monsanto causing this weirdness, it would be pretty incredible, I would think it would be worth studying further.

 

[Microbeman]

Really interesting. I have forced some self-pollinators with 'crappy' lighting but I've not seen nor heard of what you are hypothesizing.

 

[Aphotic]

I'd like to brush up on my genetics knowledge, I took several genetics courses in college. So I'll be breaking out the textbooks, and my copy of marijuana botany. Can anyone reccomend a good breeding thread on IC? Is there a trusted authority, or several, on the subject in our community?

 

[h.h.]

I'd say most likely the sections that hermied were due to stress. Something happened in that one section of your garden.

Stress, that highly increases the risk of hermaphroditism, may have several causes, such as:

Changes in the photoperiod, specially interruptions of the dark period during flowering
Too much heat (>27°C aproximately), wrong environmental conditions
Harvesting too late, when the grower misses the deadline for harvesting his/her plants
Mechanical stress: broken branches, damaged roots, pruning during flowering,…
Irrigation issues (lack or excess)
Over-fertilisation
Insects, mites, diseases…
Thermal stress (irrigating plants with cold water…)
Use of phytotoxic products (pesticides, fungicides…)

A few seeds won't really hurt the quality and I've actually found them quite useful. Naturally feminized seed.

 

[Aphotic]

Its possible, though my gardens are climate controlled, and ive spent many hours tweeking everything, so that temps, breeze, humidity, etc are as equal as possible. I'm not sure if you've read the previous posts in this thread discussing the larger issue, and a detailed explanation to what I'm experiencing. This is the second incident with this strain, and with the mom room. The fist incident was involved a different medium, different placement, different environment, etc. Yet both incidents followed the same timeline and the same results.

If quality suffered from producing the male flowers, I can't imagine how good it would be if it didn't. Yes, I'm super excited about the seeds I'm planning on sprouting therm soon if they are viable.

This next cycle I'm going to leave Monsanto out, if the issues go away then I think its likely that Monsanto caused the issue, at which point I'll run it again and see if the issue returns, if it does, I think its worth looking into further. I'll have to figure out how to have it tested. I have a friend that runs as lab in town, and a few friends at the university, hopefully I can find someone willing to take things to the next level.

 

[Aphotic]

Im starting a new journal and slowly phasing this one out, please join me at my new thread
https://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?p=7564744#post7564744

 

[wasgedn]

aha...i always knew..its possible to hang aircooled reflector on a lightrail....
thats great...sputnik reflectors developer says its not possible...but its possible ...great ...

 

[Aphotic]

aha...i always knew..its possible to hang aircooled reflector on a lightrail....
thats great...sputnik reflectors developer says its not possible...but its possible ...great ...

Yes, it took some trial and error, and you can't buy cheap foil ducting, as it flakes apart from the movement, there's an even better way to run air cooled hoods with a light rail but it wouldn't work with my room setup, if you ever decide to go that route, I can tell you the other method.

 

[wasgedn]

thx mate got no votes anymore for today....
yea when i make lightrail , i need only for 1,20 meters in the box(1,44m²)..so it will only moving 40 cm or so...not much but i kno its worth it..
dont kno if your method is working on so less space..
i got only few cm space from box to ceiling and i will put the box up on an woodframe or pallette , fix top of the box to ceiling....when i did this i could fix rail on ceiling in the box....but this is future-music or proper English -dreams of the future

 

[Aphotic]

OK, so here's the wrap up. My first notill experience was excellent, as I've said before, this has been by far the easiest grow I've ever had, literally the most difficult part was processing the harvest, other than that, I just sat back, watered, and watched things grow!

Here's the take! I don't really have any huge production strains, 9lb Hammer is said to be a decent producer, but every pheno I've seen of it looks so radically different. It wasn't even close to my largest producer this round. Overall I'm pretty happy with my take!

 

[Team Microbe]

Congratulations!!!

Looks like a nice pull...