Rocky Melon

[kro-magnon]

Hi there, I want to share the strain I'm growing right now as there is not much info about it to be found. So we have some Rocky Melon going on, I have 7 in veg but 3 have been a bit stunted so there is not much yo show yet. Here are the 4 most beautiful RM, they are at week 4 of veg time in 4L pots of soil with organic nutrients. It is my first session with a Lumatek Zeus LED of 465w max power, the main difference being heat I have to relearn how to water because there is a lot less evaporation than with HPS.
I plan to repot the plants in 10 or 15L pots depending on their size and switch to 12/12 when they are at 5 weeks of veg time, there is more plants with them so my space should be totally filled with 5 weeks of veg.
Not much to look at for now but you'll know what they look like in veg for the one interested in buying the seeds.
I really don't know what to expect from this cross because I've never grown any of the strains who made the seeds but I like what I see for now and i hope to have some tasty buds in 2 months.
I will update the progress of this grow here so this cross will be a bit more documented as a grower I like to look at other's results with seeds I'm interested in. I'll try to make weekly update as it really shows how the plants evolve in glorious big buds.

 

[AceHaze]

Hi kro-magnon!
I had an eye on the new Melon crosses, this one sounds promising! I´ll take a seat!
Peace
Ace

 

[kro-magnon]

@AceHaze You're welcome, make yourself confortable it will last for a good 10/12 weeks depending on how long the girls need to reach maturity. I usually harvest with 5/10% amber trichomes, IMO it is where the tastes and effects are at their peak and only downgrade with more amber trichomes.
I've been a member of this forum for 15 years but it is the first time I make a grow journal online. I always take notes of my grows but usually I keep the data private but this forum need to be kept alive and this strain really lacks of info so for once I'll share my pics and thoughts.
I've choosen this Melon cross to have some new flavors, I have never grown any of the parents so it will be new territory.
With the 7 Rocky Melon (there was 7 seeds in the vial who all gave healthy plants) I have 2 Platinum Terple from In House Genetics, that's totally new genetics for me as well.

 

[kro-magnon]

The adventure continues, the plants are now 35 days since germination, they have been transplanted from 4L to 12L(3 gal) pots a few days ago and they really enjoyed the extra room for their roots. The growth has been quite fast compared to what I was used to see with HPS, the Lumatek is at 75% of his power and it's enough for now. I've just changed the timer to give 12/12 to the plants now so they are at day 1 today. Some pre-flowers are beginning to pop out on the biggest plants, there is 11 in this grow, 7 Rocky Melon, 2 Platinum Terple and 2 freebees I forgot to label. I don't take picture of all the plants now to not flood the thread with vegging plants, I'll show more of them when they are in the last weeks of flower. For now here are a few of the plants showing how good they are doing so far,I hope to keep them happiest possible. I didn't mention they were under 150w HPS for the first 17 days and were placed under the LED's for the rest of their cycle, I should have put them straight under the LED's dimmed at 25% the growth would have been much quicker. I will soon buy some LED's for my grow tent but I don't know what to choose yet.
I've included a picture of a Platinum Terple as well.

 

[DARKSIDER]

The adventure continues, the plants are now 35 days since germination, they have been transplanted from 4L to 12L(3 gal) pots a few days ago and they really enjoyed the extra room for their roots. The growth has been quite fast compared to what I was used to see with HPS, the Lumatek is at 75% of his power and it's enough for now. I've just changed the timer to give 12/12 to the plants now so they are at day 1 today. Some pre-flowers are beginning to pop out on the biggest plants, there is 11 in this grow, 7 Rocky Melon, 2 Platinum Terple and 2 freebees I forgot to label. I don't take picture of all the plants now to not flood the thread with vegging plants, I'll show more of them when they are in the last weeks of flower. For now here are a few of the plants showing how good they are doing so far,I hope to keep them happiest possible. I didn't mention they were under 150w HPS for the first 17 days and were placed under the LED's for the rest of their cycle, I should have put them straight under the LED's dimmed at 25% the growth would have been much quicker. I will soon buy some LED's for my grow tent but I don't know what to choose yet.
I've included a picture of a Platinum Terple as well.

 

[kro-magnon]

Welcome @DARKSIDER , nice to have some people at the beginning, I know veg time and the beginning of flower is not the most fun to watch but I think it's important to document how a specific cross react at different stages of the grow. this way you know if the plants will fit in to your grow space or style. I personally like to watch grow diaries of the strains I want to grow.
I'll update with pics monday, I'm really impressed with the size of the stem and petioles with LED's,I never had this kind of plants with HPS.

 

[kro-magnon]

One more week has passed, the plants are today at day 8 of 12/12, all of them have pre-flowers some had some at day 1 and the last were visible at day 5(day 40 since germination) so pretty happy with that, the plants are faster to declare under LED. The 7 Rocky Melon have a good growth speed and the stretch is not yet in full force, they should gain a lot of height in the second week of flowering, we'll see how they do in the next days. I had to take off some of the biggest leaves because they were blocking too much light, the different branches are almost on the same level on a few girls but not enough for my taste, I hope they will form a nice even canopy of 8 buds by plants. Some clones have been taken on most of the plants, finger crossed for a good success rate with those clones as I'm sure there is very nice females worth being run a few times and maybe a long term keeper. The petioles are huge as are the trunks of the plants, I've never seen that with HPS, they are so big I'm not sure the 12L pots will be enough, I will maybe use 20L pots for the biggest girls, the yield can only be better with more room for the roots. But I don't like to transplant once flowering has started so I'll just put the 12L pot in a 20L without taking the plant off, the roots can pass through the holes at the bottom to colonize the soil in the bigger pot.
Here are some pics from today, I'll show more angles newt week

 

[el mani]

Too many seeds in my fridge, I really liked tha melon and melontini. I have a slot for sweets and another for melochi this year. Let's see these of yours.
Suerte

 

[kro-magnon]

@el mani What type of smells and tastes dis you get with your Melon and Melontini ? I'm curious about your results because there is very little data about the Melon pure or in crosses. The hybrids made with the Lemon Tini are looking really good as well, I will try something from this line soon I think.

 

[kro-magnon]

So far I have to say I'm really impressed by the growth rate the plants get with the LED, they have huge trunks and petioles and certainly more root mass than plants grown under HID. The diameter of the branches make them harder to bend to give the plant the shape you want them to have. So far I've already broken 2 branches by accident when I tried to bend them to get them more flat, they don't react as I'm used to so it's up me to learn to interact with the new plant morphology, I'll need some time to adapt because all I know so far is growing with MH/HPS.
My seedlings were made in 2 trays, one had more water poured into it when I left for a week during christmas period and the seedlings got a bit stunted because of the excess water, the difference in growth is still visible to this day. It's not a huge difference for all of them but only 4 of the 7 Rocky Melon will up potted in 20/25L pots, the others should be happy in 12L, maybe I' doing a mistake we'll see when it's time to weight the harvest.

 

[el mani]

Both good strains, sweet melon somewhat earthy in tha melon, lemon gas in melontini. Good punch although I am used to more active things.
Both are grown outdoors, they have been in the fridge for a year or so

Salu2

 

[kro-magnon]

We are now at day 15 of flowering time, everything is cruising nicely except an accidental breaking of a big branche on RM#3. Shit happens, the stems are easier to break because they are so big they don't bend easily.
The pistils are juste starting to multiply so the bloom will very soon be in full force.
The plants had a little haircut, I don't know if I cut more small budsites, I want to see how they evolve during this week. Usually I cut only leaves past day 15 but it might be different with this new light and depending on the height they gain I might cut more suckers whop would not get enough light to make decent buds.
I like the shape and general aspect of this hybrids, I want to see their buds now
This is some pics of Rocky Melon 1to5.

 

[kro-magnon]

I have a big problem, it seems the RM#4 is a male, I thought the strange pre-flowers were because of the new light but now at day 15 it's really making balls. I don't understand what's happening, I have used only feminized seeds for this run so even if I confused my different seedlings there should not be a male in those plants. I'll make some pictures to show what is popping at the internodes so you can tell me if it's a male at 100% or a bad case of hermaphrodite.
Of course the clones of the RM#4 were the first to make roots but I won't be able to do anything with those, I'm a bit mad about that because I was really happy to have rooted clones in 10 days in winter.

 

[kro-magnon]

This is some pictures of the Rocky Melon #4, there is some male flowers instrad of female ones. I don't understand what happened, it should not be there. It's a good part of the harvest who just disappeared because this plant would have made around 50g. I have to be careful with the others, so far I see calyxes and pistils on the remaining 6 Rocky Melon

 

[kro-magnon]

The biggest RM are in 25L pot and they love it , the RM#1 to #3 have really an explosive growth, the stretch is at full force but the plants don't get too high. They are making a lot of bud sites who should have a good exposition to the light. I like the different stretch the plants have under LED compared to HPS, it will help them to make a better yield I think.

 

[kro-magnon]

It"s time for the weekly update, the girls are now at day 22 of 12/12 ans as you will see in the pics some are a bit late to bloom. I think the dark period temps are a bit fresh for some of them so they take a bit longer to be in full bloom mode but they will soon be full of buds and trichomes. The LED is at 100% since last week, the temps are around 22/23°c when it's on, I have a HPS dimmed at 260w I can turn on if I want to raise temps a bit but I didn't use it very much. It's during dark period that I struggle to keep the room not too cold, it droped to 16°c last week. I have now a small heater with the plants to be sure it doesn't drop under 18°c, it's on a timer to have it on only 15min every hour and I reduced the extractor to the minimum.
The plants are looking happy and should be able to produce a nice harvest, they didn't stretch as much as they would have with my HPS set-up. The secondary branches will be able to make some nice buds on the biggest plants, I love the shape they have.
The RM 1,2 and 3 are a bit faster to flower than the other girls of the run. This is a few pictures taken today, nothing really exciting happening yet but they will soon be very pretty.

 

[kro-magnon]

I have to rethink my cloning method because since one year my fail % has skyrocketed, for years I had around 90% success but recently I struggle to get 25% to root. I do as I've always done so I don't know what goes wrong but it can't be the genetics because it happened with very different strains. With the Rocky Melon I made 10 clones and so far only 4 have made roots, but sadly 2 of them were coming from an unexpected male mixed with the RM.
I know my temps can be a bit low during winter but I've already had good rates in the same conditions so I'm a bit lost. Maybe it's coming from the clonex bottle I'm using who turned bad, I will buy a new one and try with another round of clones but they will come from plants already in flowering, I have no other options.
If I can't clone the plants I have, I will try to reveg the best females of the run. Do you have some techniques to share for a successful reveg?

 

[kro-magnon]

In veg there is some hope for a few clones, I have one RM#3 in a 4L pot with a well established root system. There is also 2 RM#2/ 1 RM#5 who had some tiny roots when I checked them so they went in small pot to see if I can nurse them back to health. I don't know how many of those will be able to become healthy plants again but it won't be too long before I know which one made it. I have also 1 Terple x Platinum who might be able to make it.
I'll update in a few days to tell how many clones are alive and growing.

 

[kro-magnon]

It's time for the weekly update, the plants are today at day 29 since the switch and they have now 11,5H of light and 12,5h of darkness to boost a bit the flower process because they were a bit too slow to explode in bloom for my taste. Now it's much better they are all in full bloom mode even if most of them are looking a week behind the schedule. I'm used to see plants much more advanced in their flowering at day 29, on this run only one has visible resin but it won't be long for the others to be totally covered of trichomes. The plants look happy and healthy even if it's not very hot in the room, I've had to be pretty hard on defoliation to let the light go to the lower parts of the plants, I hope it will be useful because I'm not used to take so much leaves off but there is so much of them and they regrow so fast that's insane. I'd like to see the buds growing as fast as the leaves.
This is some pictures taken a few minutes ago to show you the evolution, the RM#1 will be the frostiest of the bunch apparently, I'll have to reveg this one because the clones didn't make any roots.

 

[DARKSIDER]

It's time for the weekly update, the plants are today at day 29 since the switch and they have now 11,5H of light and 12,5h of darkness to boost a bit the flower process because they were a bit too slow to explode in bloom for my taste. Now it's much better they are all in full bloom mode even if most of them are looking a week behind the schedule. I'm used to see plants much more advanced in their flowering at day 29, on this run only one has visible resin but it won't be long for the others to be totally covered of trichomes. The plants look happy and healthy even if it's not very hot in the room, I've had to be pretty hard on defoliation to let the light go to the lower parts of the plants, I hope it will be useful because I'm not used to take so much leaves off but there is so much of them and they regrow so fast that's insane. I'd like to see the buds growing as fast as the leaves.
This is some pictures taken a few minutes ago to show you the evolution, the RM#1 will be the frostiest of the bunch apparently, I'll have to reveg this one because the clones didn't make any roots.

Looking Good they will love the Defoliation .