Zamaldelica, organic indoor vertical

[SmokinErb22]

What's up guys? This'll be my first thread over here in the ACE Subforum, grown a couple of offerings from ACE in the past and was always impressed.

Been smoking a lot of indicas and more indica dominate hybrids lately and its got me in something of a funk. Looking for something a little more upbeat and energetic.... so here we are.

Veg under T5 and 400w MH. Will have to do some research to determine what height I need to be flipping these at. Would like them to finish around 5ft tall.

Flower in either a 3000w vertical stadium, or maybe a 1200w stacked bulb donut. To be determined.

Organic soil mix is as follows.... base mix - 1 bag FFOF, 1/2 bale Promix, 5 gallons perlite, 5 gallons EWC. Cootz mix for nutrients. Container size is plugs > 1 gallon (to sex), 3 gallon (extended vegging), 7 gallons (10-14 days before flowering.)

3/14 - Germinated 5 Zamaldelica beans. Pics to come as soon as I have something to show.

 

[SmokinErb22]

Here's a peek into my veg area (last week, sometime). Not the cleanest room, but gets the job done.

Flowering room. This is about to get re-designed for efficiency. Before the Zamaldelicas go into flower, for sure. Gonna frame in a 6x10 for my stadium, which leaves plenty of space (9x9 approx) for more lights.

 

[nodestar]

My tallest Regular ZD's ended up at around 5ft in 2 gallon smart pots. Doubled in height in the beginning of 12/12. These were the Malawi leaning, looking, pheno's. The other pheno's are around 3-4 feet in same pots. They were all trained for vert, into 3 main colas. The next time around I'm going to train them into 6 - 8 main colas staggered like a 2 rows of stairs.

Do you mind sharing your experience with up potting and why you do it? I've seen Dubi advocate this practice after the initial stretch of flowering.

I have no experience with it but have considered it. Just wasn't sure about the exact benefits of what would be allot of work for me.

 

[SmokinErb22]

There's a couple reasons that I do so many transplants. First and foremost, it's to conserve soil. I might grow organic, but I'm no pro and my dirt isn't... well, dirt cheap.

So I use small plugs at first. This allows just using handful of soil to germinate seeds and weed out the ones that don't make it.

Then I go to 1 gallons (Used to pop seeds in 1 gals) for sexing. This also helps establish a nice root ball... I sex in 1 gallon instead of 3 gallons (again, like I used to) for no reason other than saving soil.

Once they show female preflowers, I then determine what size the final container will be (5 or 7 gallon). If its gonna be a 5 gallon, then I usually just put 'em straight into 5's. If I plan on using a 7 gallon, I put 'em in 3's for some more extended veg time.

I also do it because of limited veg space. I can fit a lot more 1 gallons than 3 gallons in there.

Or do you mean up-potting in the sense of putting a container (say, 3 gallon) on top of a 5-7 gallon pot with the bottom cut off? Seen plenty of people do that, but I don't due to limited height. My ceiling is only 6.5' so I try to use short, squat pots when possible.

 

[nodestar]

I meant it the first way you explained it. I've been thinking a little about transplanting from 2 gallon to 5 or so during flowering or right before flowering if it increases yield.

 

[SmokinErb22]

I'd say that it would certainly help increase yield. Makes perfect sense that a larger root-mass can support faster/larger growth.

 

[Baron Greenback]

Nice green looking girls there sir. Be interested to see the light set up you go with. What do you think the pros/cons are with each type?
They get big too

 

[SmokinErb22]

Honestly don't think it makes much of a difference. I feel like I can achieve higher GPW doing donuts over stadiums, but I don't really measure success in GPW.

I feel like stacked 600's will given more even top-to-bottom coverage of tall plants, which is why I'm hoping I can make that work. Plus the growth traits of the Zamaldelica (that I've seen) are quite a bit different than what I usually put in the stadium, making canopy management a bit of a pain.

I think its gonna be a matter of how many females I get. If I can somehow manage to get 4-5 females (out of 6 seeds...) then I'll definitely be firing up the 600's. Otherwise it might just be more reasonable to stick 'em in the stadium. Even 3 females will work for the stacked 600's with some training/extended veg time.

 

[SmokinErb22]

To update, 4 plants have survived to this point. 1 seed never came above soil, one dampened off early.

Will post pics later, they're still seedlings though.

Also, 5ft tall plants in 2 gallons of soil?! What, were you watering like 2-3x daily? That's crazy, I feel like my 5 gallons is too small for my 4ft bushy plants.

How much do these stretch? Like, say I put a 2ft plant in flower. Finish up around 4-5'?

 

[Baron Greenback]

They get pretty big, it might be an idea to have training planned. A bit of defoliation might keep them under control a bit too. They seem to stretch for a good long while.
You look like you've got them nicely under control, you'll have no problems. Looking forward to seeing what you get.

 

[SmokinErb22]

Those plants in the pics aren't Zamaldelica's, I was just showing the flowering room they'll end up being in.

They're just little seedlings. They'll be topped to 3-4 tops, spread out a little and trained vertically. Gotta be careful not to run out of headroom with these, I've only got 6.5ft ceilings in my basement. Gonna try to keep 'em bushy and no taller than 5ft.

 

[Baron Greenback]

Ah I see, they seem to respond well to a bit of training, I think you'll enjoy them.

 

[nodestar]

Also, 5ft tall plants in 2 gallons of soil?! What, were you watering like 2-3x daily? That's crazy, I feel like my 5 gallons is too small for my 4ft bushy plants.

How much do these stretch? Like, say I put a 2ft plant in flower. Finish up around 4-5'?

I water every other day and reset the cycle once a week. Which means 4 watering's in a 7 day period. I only ended up with 1 ZD that had Malawi looking leaves and it was actually the tallest plant. It's about 5 inches taller than my Malawi leaning Golden Tiger. It's buds are also the most Thai Stick looking though. They look like the Malawi leaner GT only longer and narrow. Where the Malawi leaner GT's buds are as wide as coke cans 10 weeks in. But the ZD Malawi leaner grow long and narrow. All my other GT/ZD plants look almost identical to each other and are 1-2 feet shorter and their buds are more uniform in respect to length vs width.

You have more head room than me so I don't think you have anything to worry about. This was also from seed. Clones should be a bit shorter.

As a reference I have a Thai X Haze hybrid from an old tropical mix pack right beside my tallest ZD and the ZD is about 3 inches taller than the Thai X Haze for now. But it's about a month behind. We'll see.

 

[bigtacofarmer]

Looking forward to this. I just put my first 6 zamal in flower a few weeks ago. Clearly 3 or 4 distictly different phenos, all very vigorous.

 

[panasonic]

You'll be immensely pleased with the uplifting devastation that is, the ZD fade. There is no ceiling on the high, every toke gets you to another level. I have loads of exp with ZD and self-created ZD crosses. My best advice for you regarding an indoor grow is to veg as little time as possible (0-14 days) and top early and as many times as you can on all arms. ZD stretches 150-250% so tie her down bro. She's a light feeder IME and such a easy growing treat, enjoy.

Checked in for your show SmokinErb22, have a good grow!

 

[bigtacofarmer]

These girls are from seed. Vegged 60-70 days. Topped and trained but still started flowering at about 18 inches. Now they have stretched to about 6 ft (my guess, actually tied sideways under a screen now). The phenos withe the fatter leaves and shorter internodes are trying to lift up the screen. Funny because the rest of the garden is all stuff I have worked with so the screen that was in the perfect place is now being lifted off the tops of stuff a few lights away. oops.

 

[Baron Greenback]

Blimey bigtaco - those are some big girls for indoors. They will be taking a while for the old cropping I expect.
Interesting to hear how much training you did, have you looked into the nugbuckets "mainlining " technique, might fit the way you grow.

 

[OGEvilgenius]

Structure wise they are well suited to tree style vert donut grows.

 

[SmokinErb22]

To show where we're at currently.... still a long ways to go. These will be going in 1-gallon of a well-amended organic soil as soon as the plugs dry out a bit.

But in the mean time, I got my stadium framed up. I actually freed up a 9x9 area to set up more lights and stuff in by doing this. My stadium was taking up my whole room before....just gotta staple some reflective plastic to the bones and get the ventilation hooked up.

 

[Baron Greenback]

I like that set up Smokin', gives you plenty of room to move about, lots of nice space to grow for the girls. Will you rotate the plants to give them light on all sides?