Tropical Sativas Indoors

[Hempy McNoodle]

Greetings All,

I plan on doing some seed reproduction crops and also sensi crops in the future. I will probably start with Snowhigh's Double Accapulco Gold. I recently read that the best way to grow tropical sativas indoors is to grow out a plant for about 2 months and then take cuttings and flower those under 12/12 once they've rooted. The idea being that the cuttings will be more mature than if you started the seed under 12/12 right from sprouting. The idea is also to save space.

The main question I have is: How tall would the cloned specimen get and also what size container should I use? I prefere smart pots. I am trying to strategize and figure out how many plants I can fit. I have ten seeds and my closet is just over 2ft×4ft and about 8-9ft tall. I am wondering if each flowering cutting could be in something as small as a 2 gallon smart pot. I imagine flowering will take maybe 18 weeks or so. I really appreciate any thought that you good folks may be willing to share.

Thanks and cheers!

 

[TychoMonolyth]

Do you already have pollen?

 

[Hempy McNoodle]

Do you already have pollen?

No. I just have seeds.

 

[CannaZen]

why not, I'd recommend 3 gallon pots. If they're flowered as soon as they're successively been repotted Could stretch quite a lot but after all you'll get seed. May get close to the light so may have to use sts or something training the plant to grow around instead. airpots should help prune the roots to help, It could be done.



SoA pondo was a very contemporary mellow ancient sativa juicyfruit tree. wild plants./

 

[Jammal]

8/16 from seed...1 gallon pots

Don't overthink it, your doing horticulture now.

 

[Hempy McNoodle]

Thanks for the insight so far you guys! I guess the idea is that if tropical sativas are not allowed to grow structually in veg, thwn the flowers will not develop to their fullest potential.

The idea is that I would grow the 10 seeds for a couple months and then take cuttings and keep one from each male and two from each female and leve one female of each plant unpolenated and have one pollenated. And get rid of the males after pollenation. I would give away the mother plants because of lack of space. So, then I'd be able to have lots of seeds and some seeds bud plus some sensi bud. Any idea if this would be practical?

 

[Jammal]

Thanks for the insight so far you guys! I guess the idea is that if tropical sativas are not allowed to grow structually in veg, thwn the flowers will not develop to their fullest potential.

The idea is that I would grow the 10 seeds for a couple months and then take cuttings and keep one from each male and two from each female and leve one female of each plant unpolenated and have one pollenated. And get rid of the males after pollenation. I would give away the mother plants because of lack of space. So, then I'd be able to have lots of seeds and some seeds bud plus some sensi bud. Any idea if this would be practical?

Not practical at all....

8/16 from seed in 1 gallon pots...stop overthinking it.....re vedge your keepers,,,its a different process

 

[Hempy McNoodle]

The other goal here with this method would be to include as many plants as possible to maintain the maximum genetic diversity in these seeds as I can. So, mostly need to know that container size and plant height of the finished clones.

 

[TychoMonolyth]

If they're regular, you're going to have to find a male and clone the female.

What I do is grow a bunch, move the earliest male out, collect his pollen, and cull the other males. Genetic diversity only comes into play if you're doing several generations.

If you grow a lot of plants in the wild, say 20-50 for example, you'll notice males will flower at different times, some early, some late. That's to ensure every possible flower (pistil), early and late, gets a shot. So the early males bloom, and die off only to be replaced by the next guy. This continues well after the last females have bloomed. But that's overall. Chances are pretty good that if you plant at the same time, your male will be ready for showtime ahead of your girls and will probably drop pollen well ahead of a full female bloom with white hairs, and before they hairs start drying. That's when you want to pollinate to maximize your seed production.

SO...
1. Grow a few.
2. Find a male and collect pollen.
3. Take a few cuttings
4. Pollinate momma
5. Pollinate the clones when ready. Which will be a few to several weeks AFTER momma is ready for game time.

With Autoflowers, they "remember" where they were in their life cycle. So if you take a cutting, it'll flower at the same time as the mother. It's why people say "you can't clone an autoflower". You can, but there's no advantage and short of tissue culturing, you'll never have a mother.

In your case, it's Photoperiod so flowering is dependent on the hours of darkness (12/12), so it probably won't speed up flowering at all if you take clones. You could clone and flip to flower right away, but why do all that extra work?

I'd keep a few cuttings in case the plant turns out to be spectacular, then you can keep it going. Take care of your girl with proper bloom feedings and lots of light to max out her flowers. Finally, keep a small oscillating fan blowing on her to make sure immobile nutrients are being moved around and used up (Leaf movement moves it around).

 

[Hempy McNoodle]

If they're regular, you're going to have to find a male and clone the female.

What I do is grow a bunch, move the earliest male out, collect his pollen, and cull the other males. Genetic diversity only comes into play if you're doing several generations.

If you grow a lot of plants in the wild, say 20-50 for example, you'll notice males will flower at different times, some early, some late. That's to ensure every possible flower (pistil), early and late, gets a shot. So the early males bloom, and die off only to be replaced by the next guy. This continues well after the last females have bloomed. But that's overall. Chances are pretty good that if you plant at the same time, your male will be ready for showtime ahead of your girls and will probably drop pollen well ahead of a full female bloom with white hairs, and before they hairs start drying. That's when you want to pollinate to maximize your seed production.

SO...
1. Grow a few.
2. Find a male and collect pollen.
3. Take a few cuttings
4. Pollinate momma
5. Pollinate the clones when ready. Which will be a few to several weeks AFTER momma is ready for game time.

With Autoflowers, they "remember" where they were in their life cycle. So if you take a cutting, it'll flower at the same time as the mother. It's why people say "you can't clone an autoflower". You can, but there's no advantage and short of tissue culturing, you'll never have a mother.

In your case, it's Photoperiod so flowering is dependent on the hours of darkness (12/12), so it probably won't speed up flowering at all if you take clones. You could clone and flip to flower right away, but why do all that extra work?

I'd keep a few cuttings in case the plant turns out to be spectacular, then you can keep it going. Take care of your girl with proper bloom feedings and lots of light to max out her flowers. Finally, keep a small oscillating fan blowing on her to make sure immobile nutrients are being moved around and used up (Leaf movement moves it around).

Thanks Tyco, the thing is, I don't have a seperate veg area. I only have one space, my closet. I also want to do minimal selection on these. I wouldn't want to find out that the best male was the latest to flower. As you probably know, true old school accapulco gold is hard to come by. So, I really want to do the best I can to preserve the genetic diversity of my modest batch of seeds that I purchased. I can do more selection in the future if I want. Thanks again for advising!

 

[Roms]

Salut HMN,

I understand your simple perspective bro, i think you can use just 1 gallon pot because the size of plants is relatively proportional of the logic size of the medium. And even if you have space in height it's better to make it reasonable in term of development and climatic cool flow and extand the space between the plants. So if you just wanna make a seed run reproduction the 1 gallon is far enough imo but of course you will not be able to complete well the full flowering time.

It's the simplest way but not for smoke production, only seeds. ^^

Then important to start your 10 seeds direct in the definitive pot, 12/12 and after one month flip to 11/13 for faster sexing as you know and then 10/14 when sexes are declared, it will limit the stretch and fertilization need.

Good repro man!

 

[Hempy McNoodle]

Thanks Roms!

 

[Hempy McNoodle]

And thanks again cannazen, tyco and Jammal!

 

[Rembetis]

Hello Hempy. I just found this thread and it looks like Tycho and others got it covered. I do it slightly different so I'll leave you with a few thoughts.

I dont see anything wrong with your proposed method other than it will prolong the grow. As far as the maturity of cuttings I dont understand what you are gaining. The light cycle in the tropics will be somewhere between 12 to 13.5 hours at germination with flowering beginning not long after.

I always make seed, especially with the rarer Landrace stuff and like you I believe it is important to maintain the diversity even if it is with only a 10 pack of seeds. As far as males go I let each of them make pollen for 3 days them pull them. The pollen will live for 30 days in a tent or closet so you will get plenty of seeds and have more room about the time your females start needing it. The great thing about the tropicals is that with successive flowerings you will have the early flowers seeded and the later flowerings will be seedless once you get past the lifespan of the pollen.

As far as keeping them small. I grow in a shorty tent. I have found that limiting them to a 2 gallon pot works well. Also a trick I learned that people may not be aware of is that if you bend the top down below the side branches it will have the same effect as topping and stop the stretch. I have been able to keep Malawis and Mozambique Landrace to 3 ft.

Going back to the original point about clones. Just reading through the forum I see people all the time making the same mistake of trying to apply Afghani techniques to tropicals and then they get frustrated by super long grow times. If it is tropical or sub tropical you cant go wrong with 12/12 from day one and if you need to keep them smaller you can cut back to 10/14 after they leave the seedling stage. You should see flowers two or three weeks in. If not you can also do a well timed transplant to help them along. I usually go to the 2 gallon pots about that time.

A 16 week Sativa doesnt really take any longer than any Kush or hybrids that have a 60 day veg followed by 70 days of flower if you think about it.

Hope it helps or at least gives you guys some things to think about

 

[Hempy McNoodle]

Definitely, thanks Rembitis! I am currently working on a Colombian Gold 1972 reproduction. I have many seeds forming and am about to remove the one lone male in the next day or so. Then I will mist everything down with water to hopefully destroy any lingering pollen. My male ended up having some female flowers as well. Do you think the hermie male will lead to a seed batch with a high hermie rate?

 

[Jammal]

More light, minimal 100w per square ft.

 

[Rembetis]

Hempy, that is a complicated question. Hard to say until you plant the seeds next go round. Have others had problems with the line? It could be genetics but often times it is self inflicted. There is an art to growing Sativas and the best cure is experience.
I would look at your set up first and see if there is anything environmental that may have caused a problem. Light intensity and temp are obvious things to look at but dont forget to look at soil temp as well. I had friends that were having problems that didnt make sense. Turned out they had their pots directly on concrete in the winter so soil temps were too cool. Also, water with warm water not cold. Maybe there was stress during a transplant. Maybe too much ferts at the wrong time. Light cycle could have contributed. The good thing about messing with Sativas is that they will force you to get dialed in with your set up.

I don't know anything about your lines other than I smoked lots of Columbian back in the 70's. If it is extremely rare or hard to get ahold of I would plant it and see what happens.

I was involved in the breeding and conservation of rare and endangered livestock species so my own strategy is to enlarge the gene pool first then make selections down the road. It really pains me when I see people first thing start culling and eliminating genetic diversity. That work can all be done later to adapt the plant to grow outside of its native environment. Hermies are a fact in that particular situation and will have to be tolerated so what I want to say to everyone that is buying rare genetics and wants to help conserve is please slow down on the culling and be more critical of why there may be a problem. Seed companies do things differently in order to keep customers happy but I am in this strictly for conservation of the lines

 

[Hempy McNoodle]

I will just run with it and see how it goes. I'll let you all know in the future. I am thinking that hermies aren't always the boogieman that they are made out to be. The females are not hermies. So, I wouldn't mind having females that can lightly self pollinate themselves. I doubt that Colombian growers in the seventies or earlier would give a hoot about culling a male with a few female flowers. I am thinking that we just haven't been appreciating what hermie genetics can offer. And, are being a bit hermiephobic.

I sure do appreciate all of your insight! We sure do have some awesome folks on these icmag threads, especially the land-racers.

 

[Benny106]

Lol you do you boo

 

[Rembetis]

I think you are good to go. Let us know how it works out. Your comment about Columbian growers brings up another point about the genetics, did they have hermies in their native habitat? I've always assumed not with most Landraces but never had the pleasure to talk with anyone like that.
Perhaps a topic for a future discussion