Orient Express & more from the Buddhist Arc

[Satyros]

Hybrids rolled just the same.

For free stuff, you expect it to be questionable old stock, but, these germinated 100%.

But again, some of them are too weak to get going. The interesting one grew upside-down, first time I've seen a taproot sticking straight up like a stem. With minor adjustments, most have a chance, but, I guess there is a difference between a helmet head--one that is just a little bit stuck--versus a seed that only opened enough for a tip to stick out and has no real split to work with.

If I had to pick a weakling from the lot, it would probably be the mixed Afghan, 3/6 look like they may never open.

That makes a few autos starting true leaves, and a batch of hybrids coming up, so it is time for the main cast, probably the egregious amount of Manipuri next. This extra amount will either compensate a reported poor germination rate, or, it becomes an egregious amount of plants.

 

[Satyros]

I had to work on the spur of the moment, and missed a day of nurturing.

The Manipur was all small, dark seeds, and it takes this long, about five days, to show.

It is even wispier than those hybrids, barely a thread, looks more like chamomile than cannabis. The difference is, it knows which way is up. A handful of volunteers presented themselves, without me having to dig it up from growing sideways.

I would not be surprised if this is not something man-made which tries to promise us high germination; instead, it would succeed with a bushel of seeds in acreage. A good bit of it may not start, but, I would not hold that against it, just means you need to plan appropriately.

I think I broke out enough of the Afghans to get them to 5/6, and so the weakest of the samples was Blueberry. All of it germinated, but only one made a viable seedling. So far, everything makes its way into looking like normal plants, nothing strange or unexpected. Season is on!

 

[Satyros]

Overnight, the Manipur doubled, to something like 17/25 without me messing with it. Reasonable enough, although we may still get a few more. Its initial offering is not too impressive, but, day two sees them at normal height and thickness. One of them managed to unfold three cotyledons; whether that means a weird plant is coming, I don't know. Even if it doesn't go 100%, I see nothing to complain about.

 

[Satyros]

I was so whatever I was, I forgot the normal rhythm of working.

It means planting the Kumaoni.

Manipur has sent eighteen volunteers, which, from someone's generosity about the possibility of a single pack not being much good, is adequate.

In terms of both of these being from India, one would easily call them different plants from the get go, the Kumaoni seeds are all larger and mediumishly-complected. From what I recall, they are something like fifty feet of rope coiled up and held together by a quarter inch of scotch tape.

In some sense of the word, they are supposed to be pretty similar, even if they appear as distinct varieties.

 

[Satyros]

Kumaoni is starting to show, and yes, these seedlings remain noticeably larger and more solid than everything else. Manipur kept going and almost all, except maybe two out of the double pack have made it. But even with a few days headstart, they are not much more than a brand new Kumaon.

Will plant the remainder soon, work is starting again, which is supposed to be part-time but, everything is quite hosed and I may not have that degree of freedom. Good timing is important when dealing with delicate young things. It is exactly this loss of control that caused me to mess up some stuff last year. If me and other environmental hazards can be held at bay, this should go rather well.

 

[Satyros]

Today's go was Rasoli which is a charas plant. I am not sure if that is what we will do with it, but if you don't follow the directions with this stuff, it may lead to unexpected results. It came in smallish seeds of mixed colors.

For appearance's sake, you would look at everything so far and say yes, Deimos looks like three week old plants with nodes and stuff, and everything else looks like it was just planted. What this means is Kumaoni already jumps up and matches everything older. Most of those hybrids are a bit slow going. The Gnomo is limp and looks maybe overwatered; I watered it one time and it has been mostly cloudy, humid, and rainy, and the containers are not really drying out, same as the ground. But it is the only one that seems to take it adversely. If so one thing you can try is to aerate it with a skewer, or transplant it. I had to leave since I have to contend with nationally-sponsored schizophrenia.

 

[Satyros]

While waiting around for nature, I was finally experimented on by some products.

I tried wax and it seemed a bit like fryer oil.

Some pretty doggone good weed showed up though. I don't know what to call it. And so now joint rolling has reached the stage of:

grind, so you can reconstitute the kief back into it

add wax

add pure extract

It was definitely good, but, I can just tear a few chunks off the weed and it is good. I am unable to get much from those purified things, nothing like hash. Anything that deviates from this bowl is like a sin that no one should even know about. Well I guess not. But I just don't get all this stuff that's being done with cannabis as a "product".

 

[Satyros]

Starting the final round now of Bhutanese.

So far, no disasters. Some of the Afghan just went splat instead of growing. Most of that handful of random hybrids is on the sluggish side. Not much to them yet. Deimos looks like young little plants but nothing else does.

 

[Satyros]

Trying to follow a routine, I transplanted Deimos into mediumish 3 L or so containers. The plants are ok although I would say their root mass is not much. Most of the rest of the plants I tend to keep in a sort of trainer mode and root bind them slightly. The autoflowers presumably grow for just a few more weeks and then bloom, so, they get the onhand recipe of bone and kelp meal, lime, and goat pellets.

Rasoli seems like fine starts with 9/12. It certainly appears that the heavier the genetics, the slower the growth. Sativa Dream is a fairly basic 50/50, something like Nemesis or an attempt to get a sativa flower on a bushy indica body. These are not fast, but, maybe average. The more elaborate ones such as Blueberry seem to have a set of brakes, noticeably or impressively slow. Maybe they are so made for indoor, they don't quite communicate with nature the same way any more. They seem to be in decent condition, but slow.

 

[Satyros]

White Bhutanese (fem) comes in small packs, but works well, 4/4. These are tiny seeds with tiny, thready seedlings. Similar to Manipur. In both cases, in a couple of weeks when they have leaves, they take off. I cannot say this about the hybrids. In the process of hardening off, going from about an hour to around three hours of sun, Gelato wilts. One or two of them may have fried to death. It probably wouldn't have suffered if planted earlier with weaker sun, but, these kind of plants cannot by any means match step with the ones appropriate for the setting.

Manipur blew by them and is making nodes, Kumaoni is just a juggernaut, and the Rasoli looks like it perks up and trucks along like these. They all seem fine for a semi-managed "try not to kill it" outdoor run. The hybrids either need to be planted earlier, or else live in extreme nursery protection. I suppose the Deimos has enough Ruderalis that it does not suffer the same drawback. Thirteen generations of indica crossed with twenty-two other generations of indica is just not ideal for the south.

I plowed the Gnomo, its leaves stood up for maybe one day, but otherwise it never really got ahold of life. It sounds interesting, but, this time, we got 0/2 viable seedlings.

 

[Satyros]

With only minor development, it is very clear that Manipur and Kumaoni are two very different things.

Kumaoni is a beanstalk, very stemmy and stretchy, it is hard to imagine not training or bushwhacking this plant.

Manipur is shorter and with more nodes it looks like it may go into the finer, bamboo pattern.

So far these both look like good choices for this kind of growing, they are soaking up some strong sun without trouble. But if I was intentionally to be planting hybrids, it would have to be done in April or even earlier. Those do not look like month-old plants at all. They do not do well. One of the Manipur croaked, which was the three-leaf mutant; anything may have some losses, but, from the 100% germinating batch of seeds, only a few of the hybrid plants are going to make it. Deimos seems normal, but all I can say so far is average growth/average appearance.

 

[Satyros]

I found 3/8 of Deimos went male and got rid of it. Looks like a couple of females in there. These are not plants that ordinarily we would say, oh, that's about to flower. Still pretty small, maybe about five nodes. That seems pretty fast.

 

[Satyros]

At this point, it looks like five females emerging among Deimos.

No complaints so far on my first experience with autoflowering.

The Rasoli is not a very pretty plant, typical stringy floppy sativa. Some of them are kind of beat up looking, and, at best, it is average.

The difference with Kumaoni is that it is stalkier, just bends a little without really flopping, so far it is probably the most "vertical" young cannabis I have seen.

Manipur is not quite as fast, but, is fairly even and nice looking. Definitely looks like "a garden". Impressive, out of a large number of seeds, we find a pretty high ratio of well developed young plants.

Bhutanese just has the mark of perfection from the very beginning. And this too will probably start to outgrow some of those hybrids. Out of ten random hybrid seeds come only two average plants, and a few more that are just...I don't know what to call it. Maybe it is normal for them. Stunted or puny is what I would say, not very fulfilling if you like "stuff that grows".

Or, literally, the choices we ordered are satisfying, and the extra free stuff is all kind of wimpy or uninteresting so far.

 

[Satyros]

I topped most of the Manipur today. Some of it is a bit behind, but doesn't look that bad. I culled a couple Rasoli that was too flimsy and not exactly making the right leaves.

On the other hand, Deimos is starting to gush with trichomes. They have little button buds on top, and are starting to go backwards and make branch buds at some of the earlier nodes.

They are all getting hungry for sun and getting ready to move from shelter to the ravaging wilds. The Gelato and Blueberry are still notoriously slow, but, surviving.

 

[Satyros]

I have topped the Kumaoni and Sativa Dream. That one is kind of tall, but well within the "broad leafed" description.

In having done it to the Manipur, it was either the right timing, or the trigger, for "branchy". Some of the tops are even coming up as two! I can't always get it to split. But the growth pattern on these things is pretty close to what I would want.

 

[Satyros]

At least some of the topping made the nice pretty split. Can only try again for the others.

Deimos is getting some red hair and seems like it is on the back end of its "development"...it looks decent but is so small, this is like growing five middle branches from normal plants. They are a fairly dark shade, probably darkest of all this stuff.

Kumaoni is such a fast grower that, if it flowered now, I would be fine with it. They have gone to the woods for about a week and got pelted with mediumishly-heavy rain and seem fine.

Rasoli still seems a bit average, non-distinct.

Manipur at least in veg seems to nail the ideal. Grows fast enough but not too fast, and looks like it will be more branchy than any other specimens. Most of them are pretty much done with their "trainer cups", and will be headed into the bigger containers and into the wild soon. I need more time to do this or would have already started.

The surviving hybrids do eventually make normal, robust plants...just takes a heck of a long time compared to landrace-y sativas.