tZ's spice quest: Thai Chi

[The Zientist]

Hey everyone,

I haven't made an update on ICMAG in many years, thought I'd share with you.

The Thai Chi are the six on the back. I'll be propagating them soon and keeping these as mothers, until I sample them all.

I've been holding on these beans since 2019, to only now finding the right timing to explore them out. Besides the obvious headstash, I'd be looking for fragrant spice notes in these.

Let's see what they hold.

(In case you're wondering, the bonsai ones are Mephisto's Mango Smile seedmothers from an autoflowering project and the other seedlings are Compound Genetic's Jet Fuel crosses).

Take care,

tZ

 

[FruitTreesUK]

 

[The Zientist]

Update time.

Thai Chi mothers got a shave.

Soon enough the clones will put roots out and they'll proceed to the flowering chamber. I'm delaying their transition while I wait for the flowering area to clear.

With that in mind, they end up having a bit more time to age. Perhaps that way I can crop out a week or two from the flowering period, specially for that super equatorial looking one. (Thai Chi 6, right side bottom). In fact, all of them are looking quite wild and vigorous.

Stay put!

 

[Mars Hydro Led]

Good luck for the show

 

[The Zientist]

It's day 1 of flowering for these Thai Chi.

They are being grown from clones taken from the mothers previously shown, numbered from 1 to 6. They were transplanted, allowed to veg for a week and topped.

So far they are proving to be quite vigorous, responding well to different stress factors and having a great growth response.

Details/Specs:
-They will flower under a 200w Lumatek Attis
-In organic soil amended with rice hulls, vermiculite, guano, worm castings, dolomite lime, neem cake, kelp meal, rock dust and a few mycorrhizal sp.
-The pots are 6L
-Temperature ranges from 22-26,5ºC during the day and around 18-22ºC at night.

Take care!

tZ

View attachment 3.jpg

 

[revegeta666]

Besides the obvious headstash, I'd be looking for fragrant spice notes in these.

Let's see what they hold.

I think they hold exactly what you are looking for.

I grew only 1 Thai Chi fem last year, and it was the best tasting plant I have grown since I started 9 years ago Very original and very complex taste and smell. Sour, sweet, spicy. Tremendous. The taste is relatively close to Kali China, if you grew that one, but there is something else about the taste of this one.

She was pretty mistreated and the yield was compromised but the weed was amazing none the less. The high is great as well, energizing and a little trippy.

If I was so happy with a single plant, I bet you are going to find something great in your 6. I will be following.

 

[dubi]

so glad to hear it revegeta666 that's why Thai Chi is really one my all time favorite smokes and one of the sativa strains i more proud of, as you said terps and effects are even better than Kali China.

GreatThe Zientist you know well what you are doing. Although some Thai Chis are easily to control indoors, others can grow and stretch pretty wild like Thai does, so if you are flowering them for the first time in a small tent, better flower them from clone

 

[The Zientist]

@revegeta666 Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm mostly in for the spicy notes and upbeat/creative bliss, so your report is just in line with those goals.

I haven't grown Kali China myself, but a friend went through six back in 2017(?), when it was first released. I was pretty surprised following the small sampling I had the chance to do.

@dubi Thanks for your kind words. The original mother plants should be around a two and a half to three months old, with hopes of reducing the flowering time/stretch a bit, as I have only 1,60m of height.
For example, the middle one (Thai Chi 6) already shows pretty equatorial tendencies: long internodal spacing as well as super narrow leaves with a curl on both the leaflets and their serration. It's one to be wary about the stretches.

It's my first round with them and I'll have a extremely basic and homogenous approach, letting them express their virtues under the same environment and conditions. Outliners of any kind, and certain less favorable traits express more easily without much tweaking too.
Not sure I'll do them much justice on this run, but certainly by the next I should have their preferred growth parameters more dialed in.

As soon as preflowers start to develop, I'll post and update.

Feel free to post your experiences and pictures as well.

tZ

 

[The Zientist]

The first pre-flowers are here, very sparsely. The architecture of the tops is changing. It's day 15 of flowering.

Are they ever going to stop stretching @dubi ?

Temps have been around 23-27,5ºC for the past week, RH=60%. Fed them today for the first time with 0,5mL/L of both BAC veg and bloom.

On second picture is Thai Chi 6, the most Thai leaning of the bunch. Extremely thin leaves, super stretch and lighter green. It's also visible on the top left some type of variegation that both 3 and 4 throw consistently.

The vigor is real, let me tell you. So is internodal length.

Until the next time!

tZ

 

[The Zientist]

Anyone knows why the pictures aren't showing up and just the "view attachment" hyperlinks?

Update: I've fixed the problem through halving picture dimension.

 

[The Zientist]

Double post sorry!

 

[dubi]

Hi The Zientist thanks for the update. Glad to see they are already in flowering mode, garden looks quite uniform at this point, not sure if you are finding major differences between plants regarding stretching and other growing traits. Kali China dom phenos finish the stretching in 2-3 weeks, Thai dominant can still stretch for a couple of weeks more.
The slight lef curling upwards indicates slight overfeeding so lower down a bit NPK and ec.

 

[The Zientist]

They appear like the true F1 they are @dubi .

The canopy is pretty uniform. There's a mist of serenity in these plants. It's been a long time since I've found myself glued to contemplating plants at this stage so often. Feel's good!

There's not much difference between them at all. Besides Thai Chi 6, an outlier that leans a lot towards the Thai Chiang Mai side, all others are pretty much the same regarding morphological and growth traits.
Besides this, there are two or three others that are showing leaf variegation, which is a curiously high incidence of such trait considering the small sample size of the population. Have you (or anyone) noticed this before?

The leaf curl you noted (which is actually on the Thai Chi 6) I assumed early on that was due to lower humidity/too much air flow than optimal, as she's the finicky one of the group, and it's only present on that particular plant. It has been present since seedling stage and throughout the rest of the cycle.
I will stop giving her vegetative nutrients and we'll see how it progresses. Thanks for the tip amigo!

Took some close ups of a few traits, the particular stalks and the changing morphology from the onset of flowering.


tZ

 

[zaprjaques]

Wow, they look incredibly beautiful indeed! Mesmerizing.

 

[The Zientist]

It's day 20 since flip to 12/12.

Floral clusters are starting to form and the stretching is slowing down, although still very present.

In two weeks they've grown to almost the maximum available height. Had to raise the LED panel further. I'm still plotting on how to gain a few extra cm of head space, as they will probably reach it in less than a week.

Little light passes through the canopy, reaching the undergrowth. They did a nice job making use of all available horizontal space.

Since there was almost no light available and to facilitate maintenance, they've got most of their lower nodes trimmed.

Hope you enjoy, they are being a treat to grow with their immense vigor. I'll be back when there's a bit more action going.

tZ

 

[The Zientist]

A couple closeups of the divergent traits, in this case some type of variegation

 

[revegeta666]

T

A couple closeups of the divergent traits, in this case some type of variegation

View attachment 18713926
View attachment 18713925

I think that one might be leaning towards the Kali China, here is a pic of one I had, that had very intense variegation which disappeared mid flowering. This plant in particular turned out better than the sisters and had an amazing taste, very close to the description on the site.

 

[The Zientist]

Interesting pic @revegeta666 , thanks for sharing.

They are doing too fine here. Their growth was so wild each day that they ended up managing to hit the lights in around 23 days since the flip to 12/12. I had to do some pinching and bending yesterday, despite how much I was enjoying to observe their upright development, in order to ensure they can continue growing into maturity.

To help managing their elongation I might switch their cycle to 11/13. What do you think? @dubi

I'm adapting from my initial pretext of wanting to flower them without any height management techniques, to evaluate their natural structure, or with shorter day light cycles, as I thought I had enough space to make this happen. Apparently, flowering them from clones with less than a week of veg wasn't compatible with my tent's 1,60m limit.


In future cycles with these, I will definitely take rooted clones as short as possible and flower them without any veg time, in smaller pots at first and until they are done stretching. I went with 6L pots this time since early on, perhaps I overdid that too.

How I miss having more head space!

 

[dubi]

I'm of the opinion that better prune sativas indoors than let them overgrow your space and without correct light distribution throughout the plants.

@revegeta666 such variegation comes from my favorite Kali China mother (21-4) and the one i use to produce all the Kali China hybrids, she my favorite KC mother for effects, resins and terpenes. Purple PCK 2002 mother also does variegation quite frequently and it's still my favorite PCK parental plant to breed with.

 

[The Zientist]

Hey IC!

Pineapple. Sour. Fine woods and a spicy base note. Dayum. That is Thai Chi 4 welcoming you on day 32 of flowering.

Her aroma profile stands out from all other 5. Currently she's the one that mesmerizes me the most, as I keep coming back and rubbing her buds back and forth (you can tell from the brown stigmas, that's not pollination, same for all others). I came looking for spice but it's this very particular green pineapple funk thing that has been alluring me the most. A good reminder that one must not overlook what lies in front while chasing ideals.

Apart from this standout female, all others are quite promising and equally special as well. They are currently more or less homogenous among each other (1,2,3, and 5) in both their aroma profiles and floral development (as one could expect from a true F1). There are subtle differences here and there still, nonetheless. The number 6 is another outlier, a very Thai-leaning phenotype described on previous posts, and that is only now starting to initiate flower development so not much to say on her yet:

It's been years since I've had such refined and enticing aroma journey, with all the spices and rare profiles these are throwing at me. They display a very complex smell. It's a cocktail that has the freshness of pepper but not fully, something in-between a very bright bay leaf with a lot of fresh and sour. Not Diesel-like sour, much more the type of sour some green fruits have (e.g. unripe kiwi, passionfruit, etc).

Some miscalculations led me to having a complete and wild jungle, one that took a nice effort to manage and that is practically impossible to picture properly. It's an entangled mess to be honest. Changing a few things on future grows will prevent this from happening and will allow them to grow in upright fashion, making a proper evaluation of their natural growth habit much easier. It was all worth it either way and I'm loving it, chaos and all.

These changes will include:

• Not topping them. There's no need for it in such a tiny grow area, as they display enough lateral branching.
• Starting from smaller clones and going straight to 12/12
• Keeping the led fixture closer and running at 100% from early on

Hope you enjoy this update, it's been a lot of fun taking care of these.

tZ