Setting the bar high with the first grow - 2x Zamaldelica, 1x Malawi

[CoCoSativas]

Scout's honor, BG As I said in my first post in this journal, this is a retry of my very first attempt that I had back in October. I started a grow journal then also, in the Grow Diaries section (I remember you stopping by there), but I had to kill them after just 2 weeks because I moved to a different city and keeping them was not an option. So I do have one experience (lol) with seedlings popping up, but that's just about it.

It just goes to show that even complete beginners can grow decent plants with enough preparation, dedication AND robust genetics. However, I still have to wait until mid September or so to call it a win. Fingers crossed!

Cheers!

Research ahead of time helps.

Also helps you are on a forum. Smart guy... I started rowing in 2009, never hit a forum until 2013...

 

[chronosync]

Looking good I'm really glad I found this thread, zamaldelica is huge on my *next list. I'm really looking forward to trying it in coco as well. Everything looks amazing and can't wait to see how it turns out! Good going man

 

[mjlifestyle]

Howdy, all! It's been about 3 weeks since last time, so I figure an update is due (long post warning).

The girls are doing fine and are developing visibly now, although at somewhat different paces. It's been exactly 6 weeks since the flip and they started to drop a couple of bottom leafs, which also show signs of P def, so I figure it's time for some PK 13/14. As I said previously, I'm using the Hesi Coco line, and they recommend adding PK 13/14 at around half the flowering stage, starting low and increasing the dose weekly.

Also, 3 days ago I started giving them a treat, namely the Boost formula from Hesi and it might be my untrained eye, but I think the results are already starting to show, especially on one of the Zamaldelicas, because her flowers just grew way more in these last 3 days compared to any 3 days stretch before that.

I'm roughly at the half of the flowering period, maybe even a bit behind, considering it took about 10 days for the first flowers to really develop. So I figure there's still 6 weeks to go, at least, but I'm slowly getting there (15 weeks total so far).

Anyways, here they are in some solo shots and a couple of words about each. Sorry for the flash pics, but that's the best way to make the flower development visible in the pics I take with my crappy phone camera.

This is the Malawi and she's the smallest one, in terms of overall growth. Although she's the tallest, as you can guess by the bloody mess at the top - I was forced to supercrop late 3 of her colas, as they just wouldn't stop growing. Even now, 6 weeks after the flip, they are still pushing up a bit. The mainlining job was not the best on this one (to say the least), as the stems developed unevenly, with a couple of really retarded stems, 3 medium ones and 3 that just won't behave. I'll have to wait until harvest to try and understand what went wrong (I do have a couple of ideas about it).

Now onto the Zamaldelicas:

The one is these 2 pics is ZD#2. She's about as tall as my Malawi, but without the need to supercrop late and with way better lateral growth. She does seem a bit lanky, but not excessive, and the flowers are clearly better developed compared to the Malawi.

And this last one is ZD#1 and she's the best looking one, by far. I'm not sure how much justice the pics are doing, but she is cleary ahead of the other Zamaldelica, although she is about 10 inches shorter. The flowers have really started to bunch together and fatten up and it seems like all colas are fighting to be the chubbiest. I had to tie up most of the stems, because they bend dangerously low if I just let them loose.

That's about it for now. I'll update later on as things change. Any tips about the late flowering phase are more than welcome.

Happy growing!

 

[Tangwena]

Wow nice job mate, they are going to produce, all those bud sites that will fill out, this will be worth watching. Awesome.
Tangwena

 

[Holeshot]

Great job

Great job

Wow nice job mate, they are going to produce, all those bud sites that will fill out, this will be worth watching. Awesome.
Tangwena

Great plants mate, big and lush . Just the way I like to see them.

 

[Bobbo4200]

I'm in in this thread! Zaldemica is on my next go to! They look good to me!

 

[mjlifestyle]

Four more weeks down and only a few more to go! They're all into their 11th week from flip (almost 20 weeks total). You can see them below, along with a couple of words for each.

One thing I wanna say is that one of my Zamaldelicas spit a nanner. I've inspected the plant thoroughly since and didn't find any others, but that one already spread a bit of pollen and I found a couple of seeds fully formed on the same plant. It's been about a week since I found and removed the nanner and didn't find any other seeds fully formed on the others, although some sites might have a couple of seeds here and there, not sure yet.

I don't mind at all if I'll end up with a few seeds. What I'd hate is for all plants to start spitting seeds like crazy in their last couple of weeks, but I guess there's not much I can do about it. I'll keep watching for nanners, but it's pretty difficult to find them as I don't have full access around the plants.

And now the girls:

This is the Malawi and, as you can see, she's some sort of a mutant, because she grew very weirdly. It had the most flowering stretch of them all and the colas grew uneven and lanky, I'm filing this one under "learning experience with mainlining". Trichomes started to look milky, so she'll be the first one to go.

This is ZD#2 (sorry for awful pic). She gained a lot of weight in the past month and the buds are starting to tighten up together. I imagine another few weeks will suit her good, as the trichs are all clear still.

And lastly ZD#1. She's the one that fingered herself. I counted 4 seeds fully formed in total, all around the same area where that nanner popped out. She seems to be a bit ahead of the other Z, as some trichs are milky, but no amber so far.

This will probably be my last update with pics before harvest. I have to get them out of the tent for any meaningful photos and this last time I managed to snap about 5 stems in the process, as the colas weight enough now to bend the stems over badly and tying them down is not as easy as it may seem. I've spent over 2 hours in the tent trying to tie and arrange them all nicely for their last few weeks, not gonna do that again.

Will update again as they are about ready for harvest. Any tips about that are appreciated.

Cheers!

 

[Tangwena]

looking good mate but a way to go yet, your counting from flip they need another 3 or 4 weeks I reckon.
Tangwena

 

[Baron Greenback]

Outstanding work indeed, they are truly beautiful pants. A really good example of what can be done with pure sativas indoors.
I fully agree that mainlining them is the way to go, takes time but you will be rewarded with a wonderful smoke.
You might finds friends just "popping round" a little more regularly after harvest

 

[chronosync]

Ya man! I'm impressed. I can't wait to get some ZD going. Thanks for posting those nice pictures. The fem seeds are no slouches I see! I'm still debating fem or reg. Great job and beautiful plants

 

[timmur]

Fantastic plants!

 

[Bobbo4200]

What is this "Mainlining" technique you speak of?
Thanks.

 

[mjlifestyle]

Thanks for the nice words, everyone!

Bobbo, mainlining (or manifolding) is just a way of training the plant with successive toppings (and LST) in order to end up with 4/8/16 "top colas". First topping splits the main stem into two, the second one splits each of those two into two new ones (so four in total), the third topping session splits those and now you have 8 "top colas" and so on. I did it until I got to 8 "main stems" for each plant, for a veg time of 9 weeks. Takes some time, but theoretically it increases yield by a lot.

I don't have any prior experience so I can't give any numbers, but look around, there's plenty of info. I followed the tutorial on mainlining from growweedeasy.com, mostly. And in about 3-4 weeks I'll hopefully reap the benefits

Cheers!

 

[Bobbo4200]

Sweet, that's basically what I try to do. I top and top until she gets big enough where I think she'll get too tall for flower.

Ima' check the site out, thanks!

 

[dubi]

Hi mjlifestyle,

Thank you very much for taking the time to take out the plants from the cabinet
and share the pics with us, much appreciated.

You have done a really good job with them, congrats!
It's a pleasure to see sativas so well developed indoors, the yield is gonna be huge!

The excessive stretching and weird flowering structure on the Malawi is probably due excessive Nitrogen (especially in the first weeks of flowering). I would recommend you to lower down N next time in flowering, consider also to lower down the photoperiod in this last weeks to 11/13 or even 10/14, this would help the plants to mature in a more uniform manner, avoiding reflowerings.

Best wishes for the rest of the flowering!