Russian Rocket Fuel AF Lessons Learned (quickie)

[dev0n]

I harvested my first Russian Rocket Fuel AF grow, and am midway into another as I am watching yet another group of seeds just sprout. The below are lessons I learned through trial and error with this strain only, your mileage may vary and I will have more to say after the next several grows. I don't have a digital camera at this point, but will acquire one soon and post pics to show my work.

Setup is in a visqueen plastic-covered 5x9 room at 75-80 degrees. I germed in Jiffy peat pellets, and had sprouts under 24x7 CFLs for a week before I planted in Fox Farm Ocean Forest under 400W HPS, used Fox Farm and Botanicare nutes/additives. The description on the seed co. website was accurate: they were less than nine weeks from seed to harvest.

That having been said, I will now detail the ...

... stuff I learned so far by fucking up:

1. Get more seeds than you think you'll need. They're cheap enough for Chrissakes The m/f ratio for me hasn't been great, and has been reported same elsewhere on these forums. Get 40 or so seeds and you stand a good chance of getting maybe 15 healthy females. 80 will get you 30, etc. This is my experience with RRF AF, YMMV. EDIT: now has available for not much more than regular.
2. 20/4 photoperiod instead of 18/6. The life cycle of these babies is so short that they need to squeeze all the photosynthesis they can into that time. The extra two hours per day has given me around 15-20% more growth during vegging/flowering.
3. Tap water instead of distilled/RO from the first day of Veg. Again, short life: I realized that didn't have time to gradually ease them into tap water. I hit them with it early the second time (with first true leaves) around and they are rewarding me.
4. Don't piss them off. The RRF AFs are the touchiest cannabis plants I've ever grown. They go hermie at the slightest freaking provocation. Now during the dark period I don't disturb them, don't get even the slightest amount of light on them. EDIT: I may be assessing this wrong: see lowrdr's comments below.
5. Nute them early, and crowd the nutes at lower strength. This means I hit them with veg nutes earlier than I normally would, flowering nutes WAY earlier, and when I overlap them I just lower the overall strength. Their vegetative period is somewhere on the order of a couple weeks, and they absolutely chewed up whatever veg nutes I give them (regular strength, no kid gloves). Conversely, going easy on them with the first grow like I had been taught years ago made them deplete the soil of everything that was in there and quickly show signs of nutrient deficiencies (calcium-magnesium deficiency in my cases showed very quickly). They showed sex after just a few weeks, so flowering started almost right away. My first grow resulted in few bud sites, and those that were there were so close to the main stem as to be indistinguishable from the surrounding flowering matter. Second grow with overlapping nutes at lower strength (watch the EC!) was MUCH better and much bushier and yielded more bud.
6. Watch the pH closely. These babies respond quickly to any pH imbalance, and once they do it is difficult to repair the problems before they affect flowering yield. I got an accurate method for soil and water/nute pH testing and I do it every watering without exception.
7. Smaller containers and slightly more frequent watering. This should have been a no-brainer, but the pics I saw of outdoor-grown AFs gave me the wrong idea about expected size. First grow transplanting them into 3-gal pots was retarded. Second grow going into somewhat taller and skinner 1.5-gal pots was perfect for the entire life cycle. Watering also could then take place somewhat more frequently and allow me more often to deliver the nutes they would go through like candy.

I know many of you already know the above like gospel, and there have been discussions about this in other threads, but some of us have to learn by mistake and figure it out as we go along.

 

[dontae1000]

i would never waste my money or time on a strain with thoose male to female ratios- thx for the warning.

 

[blynx]

Thanks for sharing your experiences with us.

What is the lineage on the Russian Rocket Fuel AF?

Why don't you make a batch of seeds so you don't have to keep buying them?

 

[dev0n]

What is the lineage on the Russian Rocket Fuel AF?

According to the seller, they're white russian x NYC diesel

Why don't you make a batch of seeds so you don't have to keep buying them?

I don't have a separate area to breed, to be honest. I'm a bit nervous breeding in my grow area because any amount of pollen stuck to clothes or wandering through a ventilation system can mess up a harvest, which tends to be pretty small in my case. My colleagues that breed have a separate greenhouse about two miles from their grow house for this reason, and they are pretty strict about changes of clothes between the two places.

 

[lowrdr]

i have to disagree with you about them hermi'ing, i have abused them a substantial amount and had no problems. they take nutes well too. pretty hardy plant in my opinion!

 

[EllieGrows]

Good tips, for in general growing anyways.

 

[dev0n]

i have to disagree with you about them hermi'ing, i have abused them a substantial amount and had no problems. they take nutes well too. pretty hardy plant in my opinion!

Wow, my first batch got some LED light one night and the two on the end that got lit up freaked right the hell out (http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?p=2506740#post2506740) - but I could be wrong about cause/effect there. I just can't think of another reason why they'd have gone hermie like that ...

And yeah, I fed them nutrients at regular strength when they were at a size that would have fried a regular cannabis plant, that was some crazy shit

 

[lowrdr]

cant really help you there, but all i can say is my lights changed from 16/8 to 20/4 then back down to 18/6. also dropping to fairly cold temps when lights etc off. no signs of hermie at all. maybe just a weak batch?

 

[dev0n]

That's entirely possible. I'll let you know if it happens again, but everything has been fine since then.

 

[Gene-weaver]

Devon if you get anymore hermies let em grow there fem pollem bananas and use that pollen to fert your fems! Now obviouse your not gonna get any bud but you will get feminised seeds and plenty of them pal i would then suggest cleaning your garden before re planting but squeez as many as you can under your light s.o.g i put 82 of my own little creation under a 600w hps and got 900gr per sq meter ;D

 

[Dog5tar]

Thanks for sharing your experiences with us.

What is the lineage on the Russian Rocket Fuel AF?

Why don't you make a batch of seeds so you don't have to keep buying them?

I germed 3 RRFs 6 weeks back, 2 girls one boy and I intend to take up your suggestion. The boy is full of flowers, plenty of pollen, the girls doing great.

Question - at what age should I pollenate the females for best results? Second question, at what age should I crop them? When I've done this with regular weed, it's been about two weeks into flowering, and I've let them go until the seeds crack through, but obviously AF is a little different.

 

[Leviathan]

40 seeds for 15 females???, thanks for the advice, ill be avoiding theese shite seeds for life..cheers.

 

[jdub]

40 seeds for 15 females???, thanks for the advice, ill be avoiding theese shite seeds for life..cheers.

i dont see that anywher

 

[oldnooby]

I got some RRF seeds as free ones with another order, out of the five seeds four were girls and are growing like they are on fire. I think they are some of the bests autos I have seen, but that may just be me.