First grow after a few years - Blue Cheese, El Niño, (pseudo) Hush, Bagseed

Hello everyone!

So, after many years, I'm finally growing again for me and a few friends.

The setup will be as follows:
- 1 cabinet growbox, approximately 100x70x180cm (~3'4"x2'4"x5'10" with a 250W MH lamp for vegging/clones/moms and
- 1 DIY growtent, 100x150x200cm (~3'4"x5'x6'7") with 400W + 250W HPS lighting

I've already put 5x Blue Cheese fem, 1x El Niño fem, 5x supposedly hindu kush and 32x random seeds germinating. The Blue Cheese and El Niño will be vegged normally before flowering, but since I've always wanted to see what really happens if you flower directly from seed, the rest of the plants will be vegged only for a week or so then immediately transferred to the larger flowering tent. That last part is just for fun - I anticipate about 50% females, so I should end up with about 18 juicy single cola plants. We'll see what happens

Anyway, for now there's nothing much to show picture wise. I still have to set up the large tent (as you can see, I already bought the wood for the frame) and clean and rewire the cabinet. I already filled the cups with Compo Sana seedling soil mix while waiting for my babies to germinate. I'll decide what nutes to use later on.

I hope it's gonna be a fun ride from now on... Hopefully my green thumb is still working as it did in the past!

That's it for today... Cheers!

S.

Not much to say or show today:

The seeds I put in water to germinate have been transferred in a wet paper towel. Some already showed a tiny tap root, most were cracked, some were still intact, but given the fact they were in water for 48 hours, I decided to put them in the paper towel anyway. All the Blue Cheese germinated, and since those are the only ones I spent money for, I'm happy. If all goes well, tomorrow I'll put them in the cups that are already waiting.

That's it for today, hasta la vista

S.

Howdy folks,

I've got a big update today: The seeds are now planted in soil. Germination was a mixed success:

- 5 of 5 Blue Cheese seeds
- 3 of 5 Kush seeds
- 26 of 32 bagseeds
- 0 of 1 El Niño

Looks like El Niño was an old seed and had trouble germinating. I'll keep it in the wet paper towel for a few more days and see if it comes back to life, and will do the same for the rest of the "failed" seeds. All together I've managed to get 34 our of the initial 43 seeds to germinate. That's almost 80% success, and givent the fact that all seeds except Blue Cheese were 1+ years old, I'm quite satisfied.

The cups are currently under 250W of MH, temperature in the cabinet is around 24-25°C (75-77°F), relative humidity ~60% but I expect it to rise due to evaporation. Once the seedlings will pop up and grow a bit, I'll add a couple of fluorescent tubes on the bottom of the cabinet for some additional lighting for the lower branches. Blue Cheese (and El Niño if it will germinate) will stay in the cabinet to veg normally, while the rest is going to immediate flowering under 650W of HPS lights (400W + 250W) once the first set of true leaves comes out.

That's it for today... enjoy the shitty pictures (my phone doesn't like MH lighting, sorry... I promise I'll take better pictures with my DSLR once there will be more to see).

Cheers,
S.

P.S.: I also added a smoke detector to the cabinet... just to be on the safe side

Unbelievably, just a few hours after planting, the first two seedlings popped out! Ladies and gentlemen, please meet Blue Cheese #1 and Blue Cheese #3!

Hey folks

All the seedlings are doing fine. I germinated some more bagseed to replace the seeds that didn't make it the first time, just to make sure I'll have enough plants for the flowering room test. Tap roots are already visible, so I guess I'll be planting them tomorrow.

Not a lot of pics today, just my best baby: Blue Cheese #1

Cheers,
S.

Nice and happy grow.

@zibra: Thanks!

Anyway, here's today's update.

Seedlings are growing happily, but the air in the closet was quite still, so the stems had trouble supporting the weight: I had to add some soil to the cups to keep the stems upright and I added an oscillating fan to move them around a bit in order for them to grow stronger stems.

Upside: The temperature in the cabinet is way cooler now (about 24°C versus the ~30°C I had earlier)
Downside: water evaporates faster, so I have to check on them more often.

I also set up a webcam, so I can monitor them from any of my home computers without needing to physically lift my ass from the chair.

Enjoy the pics

Cheers,
S.

Hello

Huge update today: I installed the two HPS into the growbox!

But first, a look at my babies in the veg cabinet: they're doing great!



As for the box, here it is before I put the foil on it:



It's basically a skeleton built with 4x5cm pieces of wood. Sturdy and strong enough to hold itself and everything else up. I joined the pieces with metal plates and screws

Then I wrapped it with black/white PVC foil, and here is the result:



And as I said, today I installed the two HPS lamps. Let there be light!



It's been running for about an hour now, I've opened my room's window (and it's pretty cold outside): the temperature inside the box is currently about 35°C, while the room is just right. I guess I'm not gonna need any heating this winter I'll probably switch off all room heating and let the box warm my room... it should be just right to get the perfect temps inside and outside of the box, plus I'll be sleeping while the lamps will be on, so the plants will benefit from the CO2 I'll breathe out. It might seem not much, but somewhere I found (can't seem to find it yet) some calculations about human CO2 production, and I guess I'll be able to get quite a high CO2 level just by sleeping there. I guess it's a win-win situation!

Also, the black and white PVC is (as you might have noticed) not lightproof. Not even close... So I'll have to figure out something to lightproof it as much as I can. Stay tuned!

Cheers,
S.

Well, time for another update!

I spent the last 2 hours transplanting and my back would really, really need a massage. Perhaps once I'll be full of bud it'll be easier to find someone (female, preferably) kind enough to give me one

Anyway, here we go:

- 5x Blue Cheese and 3x "Pseudo Kush" transplanted in 3 liter pots.
- All the remaining bagseed plants (31) transplanted in improvised 1 liter pots. Man, pots are expensive... or it's me that's completely broke... anyway, cardboard tobacco cans (good thing I saved them) with holes punched in the bottom seem to be perfect.
- The flowering box is almost ready. I installed 2 bathroom extractor fans that seem to be doing the job perfectly: Temperature inside is around 25-28°C. Cool air from outside comes through a hole in the window and a tube connected to the fan, is heated up in the growbox and expelled into my room. My room is heated perfectly this way, so I'm actually recycling the heat of the lamps instead of using (and paying) additional heating. Quite cool!

And now, ladies and gentlemen.. Picture time!


Cheers,
S.

Oh, btw, I was so eager to post the pics (and high from a nice fat one) that I forgot to mention:

I had some nutrient deficencies, N and Mg I guess. Started nutes (Hesi TNT Grow @ 50% strength) and it's all fixed...

Sooo... after quite some time, here's an update. I'm sorry I didn't post more often, but I've been pretty stoned lately and somehow I always find myself couchlocked with the munchies )))

The following images show everything that happened since my last post, and we can sum it up as (in no particular order):

- Cloning
- Flowering of the 13 bagseed females
- Repotting
- Beginning of flowering of 5x Blue Cheese + 1 Kush female (all the rest were males)
The remaining short-vegged-bagseed plants were put to flower (higher lamp: 400W, lower lamp: 250W)...

While the "large" ones were still vegging...

A couple of days before putting them to flower, I took a bunch of clones. Fun story: I opened up my 2-years old bottle of Clonex and instead of the violet gel I found it full of a white, slimy foam (think about snail foam, LOL). Ended up using IBA rooting powder... They're in 1/2 rockwool cubes in a tray sitting within another tray containing water and an aquarium heater set to 28°C. Temperature at the roots: 26°C - Perfect!



A couple of days later...



Time to re-pot them before putting them to flower. Let's mix some soil!

Vermiculite in the bath tub (that's what happens when you set up a large grow op in an apartment...)

Added peat moss + dolomite mix

Added some quality compost...

Mixing everything by hand to avoid scratching the bath tub (but scratching the hell out of your hands...)

Final result...

Let's start transplanting!




Fitting everything in the flowering box was a geometric nightmare, but the view was rewarding...

After about a week, the clones were rooted... Every single one of them! Never had 100% success before! (male clones in the photos, I didn't open the females!)



Figured out how to white balance my camera )


Now get ready... The following four pictures are the buds of one single bagseed plant... and they're actually DOUBLE! I'm definitely re-vegging this one and cloning the hell out of it... Perhaps I'll even breed it with a selected male... We'll see...



And here is a close up of the stems of my (supposedly) Kush plant. They're about 3 times thicker of the Blue Cheese... If that's any indicator, the buds should turn up amazing on this one. Fortunately, I have 2 healthy clones of this one already!


Talking about clones: They've been transplanted to cups with my new soil mix. Roots are already visible, as soon as some more roots appear, I'll transplant them to their final 15L pots.



And finally, I couldn't resist so I cut two small lower buds, dried them quickly in the oven (I apologize, but I was dry...), and although the taste sucked, the effect was A-MA-ZING. I was actually walking around the house on 4! XD



That's it for now... Enjoy the pics and comment

Cheers,
S.

Just a quick update...

Some of the plants seem very close to finish. I'll check the trichs when the lights come on tonight and decide whether to start flushing or not. BTW, is my grow that bad or is it really that hard to get any kind of comment around here?

Anyways, I'll post more pics later!

Cheers,
S.

Here we go... fresh pictures!



Upon closer inspection (with a loupe), I figured out that although the stigmas are already quite red on some of the plants, the trichomes themselves are still mostly clear. So I guess I don't need to worry about flushing yet... The last three pics are of the "big" plants that just started flowering a while ago...

Comments welcome!

Thanks!
S.

Nice plants, but I wouldn't start taste testing just yet they still have a lot of growing and swelling to do. Give them lots of time and love and they will thank you for it.

I also wanted to note that the "double" bud in your pictures is not a desired trait by most growers, it is a genetic mutation. I've had them a few times in bagseed plants and from personal experience I can tell you they are a pain in the ass to trim, and the buds will look very strange with flat stems and lots of tiny buds clustered together.

It normally only appears on one or two branches while the rest grow normally, usually the lower-most branches on the plant. It's still smokable don't get me wrong but I'd rather have fewer large nugs than a bunch of tiny ones. I usually cut the 2 lowest branches early in veg for exactly that reason.

Thanks!

Actually, it wasn't a taste test (I know that you need to dry and cure them properly for that) since I knew it would be awful, just plain need I'll let them grow for as long as they'll need.

Thanks for clarifying the "double" bud. I thought it was a good trait, but looks like I was wrong. I'll avoid using this plant in my future breeding experiments (unless it will have some kind of fantastic taste and/or potency, at least).

I actually topped the plants very early, so all my branches came from the very first 2 set, I guess that's why this plant is almost entirely "double". Again, I'll know to avoid that in the future - thank you! Oh, btw, does that count for clones as well? Or because they originated from a higher branch, they are immune to this problem?

Here's an image of a fully grown mutant cola very similar to yours. As you can see it's completely covered in tiny leaves that wrap around a flat stem.