Revival of the Ultimate Sativa GROW Thread

[newbgrow]

I just saw in the SSSC catalog under Skunk 1 M9 it says "Indoors experienced growers can, by using the plantlet method, harvest 400-500 grams per square meter..."

Is that the same plantlet method you mention of motaco? In the back page it shows a picture of a small pot directly planted upon a larger one.

 

[motaco]

yup. that would be the pre SOG dates.

if you look under the same catalog at Williams Wonder it was meant specifically for that.

Bear in mind skunk was much more sativa in those days. the shorter indica pheno is most dominant nowadays, along with the golder pheno.

 

[motaco]

thats odd. its not just leaning from the weight of the buds?

 

[motaco]

hmmn. thats a kicker. its its not the plant trying to get at better light or the weight of the buds I couldn't tell ya. a plant might try to move itself away from a light but mine always would grow bleaching and everything straight at it.

maybe call someone about ESP I don't know. j/k

I'm sure there is a logical explanation but I don't know what it is.

I'd try moving to to a different position and put a shorter one in its place. like you said maybe its too close to the light. or maybe that particular plant is sensitive to high light.

 

[newbgrow]

Could it have something to do with that hotspot behind the plant? Or maybe your reflector isn't that uniform...

 

[motaco]

just bumping my own thread.

another sativa tip is that lightly seeded marijuana not only gives you future crosses to play with it can also lower your flowering time. Some 16 week strains can lose a few weeks if pollenated during early flower.

 

[motaco]

what is happening to all of your fan leaves?


I usually purposely let the die off when there are two weeks left of flower. part of my flushing regime. in that last 2-3 weeks stretch when the leaves start going yellow I let them. I assume you're having more serious nute loss? P def instead of N def?

 

[motaco]

hmmn. you know it can be hard to guess what causes what when you're not there ya know.

so you say roots weren't as developed as perhaps you'd have hoped?

I've had that problem from putting smaller plants into too hot of a grow medium. which can damage roots pretty good and even after they've eaten and corrected the fert amounts it still leaves a healthy bit of damage in its wake.

But if you didn't put them into hot mix when they were too small I'd say it sounds like an aeration problem. You said you watered a week ago and they still feel heavy? what size pots are you using? but either way it sounds like you need alot more perlite in your mix. the soil I used to buy around here already contains perlite but I still add a two cups or more of perlite per gallon of soil. I usually only go 2-3 days between watering. A mix that holds alot of water will damage your roots. they get more stingy, without the bright white fuzz sticking off the roots. I find the only problem with watering alot is the pain in the ass. But the more perlite it seems the more my roots fuzz up which is a good sign of health.

it looks like they've got another 2-3 more weeks yes. Normally right now is when you intentionally start letting your plants look like that. But since it already happen by this time I don't know what to say. I've had the same problem when I started PBP. (by the way if its PBP and not PB soil forumla yeah you'll be ferting alot! practically pouring it in) since it is such a weak feed and takes a lil bit to organically break down I had plants yellowing on me and so forth.

I personally keep a chemical veg and bloom fert right on hand for that. Organics are great, except when you're watching your plant eat itself waiting for the bacteria to break down nutrients into a soluble form. You hit it with chem nutes and you can call it a day. problem over. no waiting a week. can really save yield on a critical time. its really a shame the last 3-4 weeks they really need healthy nute amounts to pack on that weight in the last few weeks.

so in the future thats what I'd reccomend. a week and a half ago or so when they started misbehaving I'd have hit them with some chem nutes. and about now let them flush for the last 2-3 weeks and eat themselves.

but at this point its up to you. you can fert and get probably a bit more yield before those leaves die, but not be the best flushed plant. Or you can accept the lower yield. and smoke some really really well flushed organic buds.


-PS don't worry about posting too much. Thats how I really learned to grow was from reading others grow logs about what happened. Every problem we expose and correct is one another grower won't have to experience.

 

[motaco]

I hear ya. I made the same mistake one time. I meant to buy soil forumula but I bought a GIANT bottle of PBP. took a minute to notice it and by the time I did I was going crazy trying to feed it enough.

 

[motaco]

thats cool I'm going to miss the hunting season this year. might try to catch some hogs after the deer hunters are gone. I bowhunt though.

you can start training at that point. it depends how you wanna grow them.


your mix sounds fine. how is that greensand working out for ya? I don't know much about it but one time someone told me it took the better part of a year for even minimal amounts of nutrient release. But I don't know if he knew what he was talking about.

For years I used to use nori. you know, sushi wraps. lol. and alfalfa foliar sprays. rednecks don't sell organic ferts out here.

I start is limed soil with EWC in it. by the time they are out of the 16 ozs I'll usually use a 2ltr (if its a crazy stretcher I'll only partially fill it) with half baby soil, half full fert soil. When I put them into the 3/4 to 1 gal pots I use full strength. and they are usually a good size to them.

 

[Highlighter]

MTwm, just my 2 cents, but I'd let that soil mix sit as long as you can, even if just a wk. Seems you know the dangers of hydrated lime, 1/2 tsp seems like nothing, but along w/ dolomite too, who knows? It seems like you've gotten away from a peat base, so why so much lime? To me it seems like you have alot of stuff there that needs time for a proper symbiosis.
I start my soil up way before I need it, giving it a stir everyday for weeks on end.
I would just let those seedlings get rootbound to the point where I need to water twice daily almost, then transplant. Give that soil some time to cook and stabilize.
I just never need to add lime. Most potting soils have added it for good PH. The batch I have cooking now has PH 6.7 I use EJ nuts, which are pretty acidic. After bubbling a EJ cocktail for 24-48 hrs, the PH after watering with, is low 6's -mid 6, good to me.
Again, just my

 

[Highlighter]

Taste be damned, I'll use chem ferts IF I need to use something in a hurry to correct a deficit.

Espoma makes some good organic /natural granular ferts that might help.
Outdoors this summer 2 of my plants' leaves were yellowing prematurely, so I topdressed w/ their Garden Iron and Urea, tablespoon of each scratched in, and they bounced right back.
Haha, I'll send you some, got 2 full bags, minus a tablespoon ea.

 

[motaco]

yes they always pissed me off with the sticks and rocks in soil.

I was given years ago one of those giant bags of fox farm pottin soil. the 30-50 dollar a bag ones. it was still full of rocks and stuff still.


yeah they are looking good. Some plants are slower veg'ers initially. two that come to mind are bubblegum and mango. they try to establish a root ball first and don't put alot of energy into top growth until they feel well rooted.

 

[Guest]

Here are some pics of my lone Durban Poison from The Seedsman. Advertised as not being a Dutch hybrid, but seeds collected from SA. Soooo....

For those familiar with Durban Poison, what does this plant look like to you?

The pictures are tonight Nov 8th. Transplanted it to a 3L square container from 1L round. The plant sprouted on Oct 6th so its like 4-5 weeks old. Got off to a slow shakey start, but looks OK now I think.

The fans on the 3rd and 4th nodes are HUGE with 11 leaflets on them, and about 16cm long. It's very green after having some Calcium issues early on.

What can anyone tell me regarding this plant? Looks like an Indica at this point, or is that what DP looks like? It is 40cm tall in the pics below. It hasn't been topped yet.

Thanks
MT

Click to enlarge

Durban Poison




Roots looked nice and white and healthy



Look at that fan leaf in the middle front in this pic.



I love the look straight down at plants at this stage. Looks healthy from here to me. I love the green color some of these plants have.



This is why those ThaiTanics gotta FINISH!!!!!!!! These want in there!!

The taller Skunk Haze#2 over on the left got it's twin necks broken this morning. It's going to be a real bush if a girl. It just was too tall and been topped twice already.



I gotta work on the lil SSH4. That one is not doing so hot. It has been a runt forever. It's got nute/pH probs. I think it needs to get out of that small cup mostly and it'll be OK. Just haven't had time.

 

[motaco]

some plants are just runts man it happens to all of us. IMHO the best thing to do is kill it and replace it with something better.

its just like if you got a bad wife don't close your eyes and pretend she's better find a new one. it'll make you miserable other wise. with something new at least you have hope.

Durban is famous as a fast finishing sativa and also as having as wide or even wider leaves than mexican sativas which can be pretty wide. That being said those leaves do look DAMN wide. I don't know anything about seedsman but I do know there are alot of indica'd up durbans out there. So I couldn't tell ya.

about the thai's and satori. depending how much longer you have left you might already be able to switch cabinets.

Some commercial growers use high wattages during the growth of flower phase but for the last week or so they put them under a lower light to finish. they don't grow as much its more of a resin ripening issue which takes alot less light than bud development.

Other growers reduce light cycles to 8 hours, some even give up to two weeks of complete darkness and let the plant die naturally like that. I've even heard of growers giving less light the last few weeks to increase smells.

All of those things are subjectional and opinon oriented but all I'm sayin is if you put your finishing plants under those fluros and those veg'ers into the flower chamber it probably wouldn't wreck your yield.

but at the same time how much do commercial growers care about resin? weight isn't developing but trichomes may be. I've never done it I was just giving food for thought ya know.

 

[TheFlyinHaWyn!]

sometimes the runts are just special.......i had a runt that i kept for a few months, never grew....i put her outside recently, she started blowing up in her little container that she's been in for those months, and now she is in the ground...i will see her tomorrow....sometimes runts are our friends....but other times, like motaco said, maybe should just pull um and start again...god knows i've done that enough times...aloha everyone!!

 

[Guest]

Yeah well looking closely at this runt I noticed something that is a fatal flaw. On each node, one branch is always bigger, much bigger than the other. And on one node one branch is missing. This one is not a keeper.

MT

 

[Guest]

Here is the way the ThaiTanics look now on day 73+ of flower. I cleaned out the hut with strong peroxide solution. All nice and clean for my haze plants and DP. The DP and one Skunk Haze are in there now in last pic. I had to make a rig for the small plants to sit on.
MT

 

[Guest]

Nice ThaiTanics!!! lookin good!

Have my last Cherry Thai mama - she is a clone from last years seed run.

She is bout 5 months old and yielded many many clones.

BUT I need room in Veg - so I sent her to the flower room Monday!

Based on the last 5 runs O' this - she should hit @ least 7 feet and yield
over 8 ounces!

She is currently 32 inches tall w/ a 24 inch canopy.

I go by Caveman @ Skunk and UTG, thus the tag on my pic.

 

[Highlighter]

Hey MTweedman, things are looking good your way! Don't you love how easy it is cleaning up the Hut?
I have a 4 X 4 Hut and am running a staggered grow like you. Just seems to me you might be 1 tier too many in the middle there. The new plants are getting an increase in lighting all of a sudden, and seem maybe too close to the light so early on, also robbing light angles to the Thaitanics. Just my 2 cents, mind you, but I would format it more like a stadium grow.
Any idea on how close the Thaitanics are?

Hey Cavegrower, welcome! The Cherry Thai looks wicked, and if she's been run that many times, she must be!